As an evolutionary ecologist and microbiologist, I seek to identify the key mechanisms regulating the specificity and stability of microbial symbioses from an evolutionary scale down to the molecular level. Recently, I have primarily addressed this topic for a bioluminescent symbiosis involving fish hosts in the genus Siphamia and luminous bacteria in the vibrio family. My vision is to build a research program that deepens our understanding of the processes that shape beneficial host-microbe associations using this experimentally tractable system.