Carl Hjelmen

Faculty Member

Dr. Carl Hjelmen

Biography

I joined the Department of Biology at UVU in 2021. While originally from a small town in South Dakota, I spent 8 years in Texas at Texas A&M University completing my PhD and two postdoctoral research positions. In my first postdoctoral position with Dr. Aaron Tarone, I investigated miRNA and protein makers of immature development in forensically relevant flies. In my second postdoctoral position with Dr. Heath Blackmon, I continued to investigate genome size evolution in insects, as well as whole genome sequencing of a variety of insect species. I received my PhD in Entomology in 2017 at Texas A&M University with J. Spencer Johnston investigating genome size evolution in Drosophila species utilizing comparative phylogenetic methods.

For more information, check out my website at https://cehjelmen.github.io

Education

PhD, Texas A&M University, 2017

Major: Entomology

BA, Augustana College, 2013

Major: Biology

Teaching

BIOL 4600

Bioinformatics Capstone, Spring 2025

BIOL 1011

Introduction to Bioinformatics, Spring 2025

BIOL 1011

Introduction to Bioinformatics, Spring 2025

BIOL 4500

Principles of Evolution, Spring 2025

BIOL 4500

Principles of Evolution, Spring 2025

BIOL 490R

Special Topics in Biology, Spring 2025

Presentations

Hjelmen, Carl , Utah Drosophila Fall Symposium, "Evolution of genome size and structures in the Drosophila genus", University of Utah. (November 18, 2024)
Hjelmen, Carl , Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, "Bugs in the system_ A computational biologist's first semester teaching entomology", Phoenix, AZ. (November 12, 2024)
Frary, Olivia (Presenter & Author), Hjelmen, Carl (Author Only), Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, "A phylogenetic analysis of genome size evolution and social structure in Hymenoptera", Phoenix, AZ. (November 11, 2024)
French, Audrey (Presenter & Author), Hjelmen, Carl (Author Only), Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, "Counting chromosomes_ Exploring evolutionary insights from Drosophila karyotypes", Phoenix, AZ. (November 11, 2024)
Jetton, Barbara (Presenter & Author), Hjelmen, Carl (Author Only), Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, "Decoding Diptera_ Unraveling chromosome evolution across fly families", Phoenix, AZ. (November 11, 2024)
Beck, Haylee (Presenter & Author), Weidner, Lauren M (Author Only), Hjelmen, Carl (Author Only), Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, "Preliminary survey of blow fly species (Diptera: Calliphoridae) across Utah", Phoenix, AZ. (November 11, 2024)

Scholarly/Creative Works

Zahn, Geoffrey , Hjelmen, Carl , (2025) "Phylogeny files for Palm Oil Recovery analyses [Dataset]. " (vol. (Version 1.0.0)). Zenodo.. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14708616
Copeland, Megan , Landa, Shelby , Owoyemi, Adekola Oluwatosin, Jonika, Michelle M, Alfieri, James M, Johnston, J. Spencer, Sylvester, Terrence Pradakshana, Kyre, Bethany R, Hoover, Zachary , Hjelmen, Carl , Rieski, Lynne K, Blackmon, Heath , Casola, Claudio , (2024) "Genome assembly of the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmerman) reveals the origins of gene content reduction in Dendroctonus" (vol. 11). Royal Society Open Science. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.240755
Hjelmen, Carl , (2024) "Genome size and chromosome number are critical metrics for accurate genome assembly assessment in Eukaryota" (Issue: 4, vol. 227). Genetics. https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyae099
Hjelmen, Carl , (2024) "cehjelmen/gs_assessment: publish-public [dataset]" (vol. (Version 1.0.0)). Zenodo.. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11506495
Sylvester, Terrence , Hoover, Zachary , Hjelmen, Carl , Jonika, Michelle M, Blackmon, Leslie T, Alfieri, James M, Johnston, J Spencer, Chien, Sean , Esfandani, Tahmineh , Blackmon, Heath , (2024) "A reference quality genome assembly for the Jewel scarab Chrysina gloriosa " . G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics. https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkae084
Hjelmen, Carl , Yuan, Ye , Parrott, Jonathan J, McGuane, Alexander S, Srivastav, Satyam P, Purcell, Amanda C, Pimsler, Meaghan L, Sze, Sing-Hoi , Tarone, Aaron M, (2022) "Identification and Characterization of Small RNA Markers of Age in the Blow Fly Cochliomyia macellaria (Fabricius)(Diptera: Calliphoridae) " (vol. 13). Insects.