Activities in the Whitehead lab revolve around research in environmental, ecological, and evolutionary genomics. Whitehead and his students seek to understand how genomes integrate cues from, respond to, and are shaped by the external environment. Research includes genomic responses to natural and human-generated stress that occur over physiological timescales (acclimation responses) and over evolutionary timescales (adaptive responses), using genome expression profiling, population genetics/genomics and phylogenetics, and physiology. Whitehead has both a basic science angle to research, and also an applied angle that leverages genomic information to diagnose and solve environmental problems.