Jukka Jernvall's research is focused on how and why development and environment shape the diversity of life. Most projects relate to the mammalian dentition, ranging from mutant mice in the laboratory to evolutionary diversity in the fossil record and to primates in the wild. The mammalian dentition offers a rich array of interrelated data on development, function, and evolutionary history. Current research ranges from mutant mice in the laboratory to evolutionary diversity in the fossil record and to wild primate populations in the rainforests of Madagascar. Methodologically he combines experimental work with computational simulations and models. His work aims to link evolution and development, and has helped to place the study of mammalian dentition in the forefront of the expanding field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo).

Because of its confined physical limits and geographical position, Long Island is a test laboratory for many environmental issues that will face other areas of the country in the future. My primary research is concerned with compiling and understanding the Pre- and Post-European Contact Environmental History of Long Island. These studies utilize written cultural records as well as maps, art, graphics, photography, and oral history. This understanding is used to explore alternatives for contemporary environmental issues and produce documentary films.

Fredric's research is concerned with processes of speciation and with behavioral and chemo-ecological mechanisms responsible for the evolution of dietary specialization in herbivorous insects. He is an associate scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and conducts most of his field work in Central America.

His work focuses mainly on the chemical ecology of larval defenses, host choice behavior, and oviposition preference of leaf-feeding beetles. Current projects examine whether chemically-mediated, coevolutionary interactions between hosts, herbivores, and their predators have predictably guided herbivore dietary evolution, and if novel defenses have enhanced rates of beetle diversification.

Fredric's interest in speciation centers on processes of cladogenesis that involve forces of sexual, rather than natural selection, such as competition for mates, courtship, and mate-selection behavior. The relationship between allometric size variation in male secondary sexual traits, and mechanisms of female trait preference in fireflies is an ongoing subject of both field and laboratory study.