People

I am an associate professor at the Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen. I was previously a postdoctoral research associate in the Pickrell Lab, at the New York Genome Center. Before that, I was a PhD student in Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, with a designated emphasis in Computational and Genomic Biology, where I was jointly advised by Montgomery Slatkin and Rasmus Nielsen. I also worked at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and was involved in the analysis of the high-coverage Denisova and Neanderthal genomes.

My current research interests involve developing tests to detect patterns of ancient selection and creating methods to integrate functional and population genomic data, as well as inferring demographic parameters using present-day and ancient human genomes. 

My CV is Available HERE.

I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Racimo and Sikora groups at the Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen. My research interests sit at the intersection between archaeology, population genetics and bioinformatics. I did my masters and doctoral research at the University of Oxford, under the supervision of Greger Larson and Laurent Frantz, with a focus on computational modelling of ancestry, demography and selection from ancient DNA of domestic animals. Prior to that, I spent ten years in the software industry as a senior developer and technical lead, building large web deployed software applications. I have double bachelor’s degrees in computer science and archaeology, from La Trobe University, and a professional certificate in management from Melbourne Business School. My current research interests include the application of ancestral recombination graphs to aDNA time series data, and the inference of population genetic parameters using time, space, climate and disease as covariates.

I am a postdoctoral fellow, focusing on the domestication process of plants and animals in space and time and how it relates to human movements and migrations in West Eurasia during the Holocene. Previously, I obtained a PhD from the University of Adelaide (AU) and the University of Copenhagen (DK) where I focused on understanding how species respond to climate change and other extinction drivers, by combining ecological models with inferences from fossils and ancient DNA. I have a BSc in Natural Sciences and a MSc in Ecology and my main interests lie at the interface between palaeoecology, biogeography and conservation biology. Specifically, I am interested in linking past, present and future to better understand and predict how different biodiversity levels change in space and time.

Before joining the Racimo group as a postdoc, I did my PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, focusing on various aspects of ancient human introgression. I studied the effects of natural selection and demography on the fate of Neanderthal ancestry in modern humans using ancient DNA of early modern humans stretching back nearly 50 thousand years. I also worked on gene flow in the opposite direction, i.e. from modern humans into archaic humans, particularly in the context of Y chromosome replacement dynamics. During my PhD, I developed a keen interest in reproducible science and built some computational tools facilitating reproducible research in population genetics. In truly prehistoric times, I did undergraduate degrees in computer science and molecular biology at Charles University in Prague. In general, I’m fascinated by the power of ancient DNA as a tool to understand complex patterns of evolutionary history across space and time, and in developing new techniques combining ancient DNA with data from archaeology, ecology and climate studies.

I am a half-time postdoctoral fellow in the Racimo Group at the GeoGenetics Center at the University of Copenhagen’s Globe Institute and a half-time assistant professor at Aarhus University at the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies. I received my PhD from the University of Utah in 2021. My research focuses on human land use patterns and interactions. My research builds on methods and theory derived from human behavioral ecology and quantitative methods to answer archaeological and anthropological questions. My current work with the Racimo Group is focused on building paleoecological spatiotemporal species distribution models using environmental DNA to estimate the distributions and relative abundances of extinct and extant species during the Pleistocene. Then, building on our collaboration with Aarhus University, we will test to what extent changes in the zooarchaeological record are attributable to climate-driven habitat shifts and human-induced hunting pressure.

I am currently a postdoctoral fellow, where I am building on the research I carried out during my PhD in the Racimo group, focusing on the paleogenomics of ancient dogs. My work primarily involves implementing haplotype-based genomic approaches to gain a deeper insight into various aspects of dog evolution. Previously, I completed the Erasmus Mundus Master Programme in Evolutionary Biology (MEME) and earned my BSc degree in Biology at the University of Crete. My previous research experience has revolved around different fields of evolutionary biology, such as speciation genomics, phylogenetics, population genetics, adaptation and colouration, focusing on different study systems which include lizards, butterflies, birds and primates. My current research interests include utilizing ancient and modern genomic data in combination with state-of-the-art methodologies to overcome the limitations associated with the use of ancient DNA and to enhance our understanding of dog domestication and diversification.

I'm a postdoc, working closely with Dr. Enrico Cappellini and his group, focused on analyzing ancient protein sequences recovered from different extinct organisms in order to study their evolutionary history in deep time.  I'm mostly  interested in utilising this new form of data to study archaic hominids, human evolution and population history during the Pleistocene. My main objective is to use paleoproteomic data to more accurately reconstruct population histories and determine the relationships among different extinct groups of hominins, whose genomes are currently unreachable due to their age. To do that, I combine ancient protein sequences with in silico translated protein sequences from archaic and modern hominins, so as to reconstruct the gene trees of these sequences and model the levels of variation that we recover. One of my current projects is in assessing the efficacy of ancient protein data as a source of phylogenetic information and its potential ptifalls. I'm also very much interested in reproducability and constructing workflows that automate the methods that I'm applying. Finally, outside of proteins, I've worked with both modern and ancient DNA and I'm a big fan of simulations as a tool for population genetics, in order to model and infer genetic.

I am a PhD student with a broad interest in human evolution. I am fascinated by the intersection of genomics with culture and environment in shaping human evolution. Prior to my PhD, I earned dual master's degrees from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany) and Uppsala University (Sweden) as part of the Erasmus Mundus Master Programme in Evolutionary Biology (MEME). My previous research spanned molecular biology and evolutionary genomics of primates. Now, my PhD will focus on the spatiotemporal dynamics of human mobility and genetic adaptation in response to cultural and environmental changes from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Western Eurasia.

I hold an MSc in Bioinformatics from the University of Copenhagen and currently work as a research assistant in a joint position between the Schroeder and Racimo groups at section for Ecology and Evolution, Globe institute, University of Copenhagen. My main area of research focuses on ancient metagenomics, with a specific focus on eukaryotic inference and methodologies in this field. As part of the AlpGen initiative, I aim to reconstruct ancient diets from birch tar from Neolithic lake sediments in and around the Alps. Currently, I'm listing, evaluating and investigating different ancient metagenomic bioinformatic taxonomic classification workflows. I aim to provide a comprehensive overview of these workflows and establish a consensus among researchers working with metagenomic data, fostering collaboration and advancing the field collectively. Additionally, I am collaborating with Elisabetta Canteri on genetic inference derived from her spatiotemporal population simulations. Our objective is to create genetic models that accurately reflect changes in the environment by simulating genomic data based on these simulations.