Life depends on intricate control of cellular decisions, and the sophistication of this control scales with organismal complexity. This is nicely illustrated by transcription factors (TFs), DNA-binding proteins that turn genes off and on in a carefully choreographed manner. In both plants and animals, the number and type of TF families dramatically increased throughout evolution, primarily through gene duplication. After duplication, TF family members often took on new regulatory functions, in a process termed functional divergence. This expanded the regulatory toolkit of organisms, giving them increasingly sophisticated control over decisions ranging from stress response to immunity to development. Our group recently described a mechanism of TF functional divergence operating in plants and animals which we termed ‘differential usage of shared binding sites’. This proposal will map the underlying regulatory properties of this deeply understudied mechanism using cutting-edge multi-omic techniques. A key goal of the proposal is to forge a long-term collaboration between an R1 institute (Penn) and an undergraduate teaching institution (Lincoln University (LU)). Students reap maximum benefits when research is sustained throughout the academic year at the students’ home institutes. We will model this philosophy by building local research capacity at LU and providing a paired summer research experience at Penn, enabling year-round student-led research. We believe this will reduce s