Rate My Professor Suman Neupane

Suman Neupane is an Assistant Professor of Biology in the Department of Biology at Ball State University. He earned his PhD from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut (2014-2016), conducted graduate studies at Old Dominion University, Department of Biological Sciences (2008-2013), and obtained a Master of Science in Botany from Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal in 2006, along with a BS in Biology from Amrit Science College, Tribhuvan University, Nepal in 2001. Prior to his current position, Neupane served as an Assistant Professor and Curator of the Herbarium at Murray State University. He mentors undergraduate students through Ball State University's Teacher-Scholar Program, guiding research on topics such as the phylogeny of the plant tribe Spermacoceae, taxonomic challenges in North American bluets, and modeling trait evolution related to plant habit and speciation in tropical mountains.

As a plant systematist and evolutionary biologist, Neupane investigates plant evolution across millions of years, examining complex traits and adaptations to diverse environments through the construction of evolutionary trees (phylogenies) using DNA sequences and morphological data. He specializes in the pantropical tribe Spermacoceae (approximately 1500 species) within the Rubiaceae family, studying its diversification in tropical mountains and remote oceanic islands. His research addresses taxonomic inconsistencies via global collaborations to produce a comprehensive Spermacoceae phylogeny. Key interests include bioinformatics, phylogenetics theory, macroevolution, and plant systematics, with contributions to computational methods for phylogenetic analysis and macroevolutionary modeling. Representative publications include Quang, B. H. et al. (2023) 'Hedyotis konhanungensis (Rubiaceae): A new species from the central highlands of Vietnam' in PhytoKeys; Neupane, S. et al. (2019) 'Assessing Combinability of Phylogenomic Data under Bayesian context' in Systematic Biology; Fúčiková, K. et al. (2019) 'Order, Please! Uncertainty in the Ordinal-Level Classification of Chlorophyceae' in PeerJ; Paudyal, S. K. et al. (2018) 'Molecular phylogeny and generic delimitations within the tribe Chiococceae (Cinchonoideae, Rubiaceae)' in Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society; Neupane, S. et al. (2017) 'Evolution of woody life form on tropical mountains in the tribe Spermacoceae (Rubiaceae)' in American Journal of Botany; and Merckx, V. S. F. T. et al. (2015) 'Evolution of endemism on a young tropical mountain' in Nature. His work enhances understanding of trait evolution, speciation mechanisms, and biodiversity patterns in tropical plants.