You can find my most recent CV here.

Research experience and education

since July 2022: Group leader at the Tree of Life Programme of the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Zoology Department of the University of Cambridge

Sep 2020 – Aug 2025: Branco Weiss Fellow at University of Cambridge
Highly competitive fellowship providing 100,000 CHF each year for 5 years.

Oct 2018 – June 2022: Bateson Research Fellow at St John’s College, University of Cambridge
Highly competitive fellowship providing salary for four years of independent research.

Aug 2016 – Aug 2018: Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Bern
Named postdoc on a Swiss NSF grant I co-wrote with Prof Ole Seehausen to upscale my PhD work on the rapid adaptive radiation of Lake Victoria cichlid fishes.

Mar 2012 – May 2016: PhD studies in Ecology and Evolution (summa cum laude)
Aquatic Ecology group at University of Bern and EAWAG and CMPG at University of Bern with Prof. Ole Seehausen and Prof. Laurent Excoffier
Thesis: The role of hybridization in adaptive radiation: Genomic insights from Lake Victoria cichlids.

Oct 2010 – Mar 2012: Master of Science in Ecology and Evolution (summa cum laude)
Population Genetics group at University of Bern with Prof. Gerald Heckel
Thesis: A new method to find gene incompatibilities in an intraspecific hybrid zone of the common vole.

July 2009 – Dec 2009: Semester abroad at University of Vermont

Sep 2007 – June 2010: Bachelor of Science in Biology (insigni cum laude)
Population Genetics group at University of Bern with Prof. Gerald Heckel
Thesis: A Y-chromosomal approach to the phylogeny of Microtus voles.

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Publications

see here

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Keynote talks

Aug, 2019	Keynote talk at the Humboldt 250 Joint Meeting of the International Biogeography Society and the Latin American Congress of Biogeography in Quito, Ecuador
Oct, 2017	Keynote talk at the annual meeting of Population Ecology in Fukuoka, Japan
Dec, 2017	Keynote talk at the symposium on “Hybridization – causes and consequences for speciation” in Oslo, Norway
Apr, 2017	Invited talk at the Awards Ceremony of the Swiss Biology Olympiads, Bern, Switzerland

Invited departmental or symposium talks

Jan, 2021	Zoom-Seminar at University of Bonn, Germany (watch it here)
Nov, 2020	Zoom-Seminar at University of Massachusetts, USA
Aug, 2020	Zoom-Seminar at University Punjabi, India
Aug, 2020	Zoom-Seminar at Universidad del Rosario, Colombia
June, 2020	Zoom-Seminar at University of Berkeley, USA
Jan, 2020	Departmental seminar at CNRS, France
Aug, 2019	Departmental seminar at McGill University, Montreal, Canada
June, 2019	Departmental seminar at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Edinburgh, UK
Mar, 2019	Departmental seminar at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at University of Berkeley, USA (watch it here)
Feb, 2019	Departmental seminar at Collège de France in Paris, France
Apr, 2018	Institute seminar on “The reticulate evolution of Lake Victoria cichlids” at University of Basel, Switzerland
Mar, 2018	Invited seminar on “Reshuffling of old variation facilitates rapid adaptive radiation in Lake Victoria cichlids” at the Speciation Genomics Meeting in Cambridge, UK
Feb, 2018	Institute seminar on “The reticulate evolution of Lake Victoria cichlid fishes” in Bern, Switzerland
Sep, 2017	Departmental highlight talk at EAWAG symposium, Dübendorf, Switzerland
Sep, 2017	Invited talk on at the Genetic Diversity Center Symposium of ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Awards and Grants

May, 2021	NEOF pilot study grant by NERC (£6,928.55)
May, 2021	Field work grant by the British Ecological Society (£5,000)
Sept, 2020	Branco Weiss Fellowship (5 years, CHF 500,000 total)
Oct, 2018	St John’s Research fellowship at University of Cambridge (4 years salary)
Feb, 2018	Faculty award for the best PhD thesis of the Department of Biology, University of Bern
Nov, 2017	Best poster award at the poster competition of the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Biogeochemistry (CEEB) at EAWAG, Switzerland
Feb, 2016	Best talk award at biology16, Swiss conference of organismic biology, in Lausanne
Jan, 2016	Swiss Zoological Society travel grant (CHF 1,000)
Mar, 2015	Best poster award at the GRC on Speciation, Ventura, USA

Organization of Conferences and Symposia

since Mar 2020	Virtual seminar series on Heliconius butterflies
Mar, 2021	Gordon Research Seminar on Speciation, Tuskany, Italy
Mar, 2020	Speciation Genomics Meeting, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Mar, 2020	Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics Symposium (EGGS), Cambridge, United Kingdom
Mar, 2019	Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics Symposium (EGGS), Cambridge, United Kingdom
Aug, 2018	Symposium on the “Consequences of hybridization: from swamping to speciation” at Evolution/ESEB 2018 in Montpellier, France
Feb, 2017	biology17 (Swiss annual conference on ecology, evolution and systematics) in Bern, Switzerland
Mar, 2013	European Science Foundation FroSpects workshop Genetics & Genomics of Speciation in Kastanienbaum, Switzerland
Dec, 2012	Symposium of Ecology and Evolution Doctoral Students (SEEDS) in Bern, Switzerland
Aug, 2011	SymBioSE, a 10-days symposium of biology students in Europe in Basel, Switzerland

Conference Contributions

Jan, 2020	PopGroup53 in Leicester, United Kingdom	Oral presentation on “Linked-read analysis of Heliconius hybrid zones with shifted clines”
Mar, 2019	Gordon Research Seminar and Congress on Speciation in Ventura, CA, USA	Poster on “Hybridisation and adaptive radiation in Lake Victoria cichlid fishes”
Jan, 2019	PopGroup52 in Oxford, United Kingdom	Oral presentation on “Hybridization fuels adaptive radiation in cichlid fishes”
Nov, 2019	Speciation meeting at IST in Vienna, Austria	Oral presentation on “The reticulate evolutionary history of cichlid fishes”
Aug, 2018	Second Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology / Evolution in Montpellier, France	Poster on “Tracing back the evolutionary history of adaptive radiation genes through the tangled web of cichlids”
Feb, 2018	Biology18 in Neuchatel, Switzerland	Oral presentation on “The reticulate evolution of Lake Victoria cichlids”
Aug, 2017	European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) in Groningen, Netherlands	Oral presentation on “Unravelling the genomic structure and the importance of hybridization in Lake Victoria cichlid fishes”
Feb, 2017	Gordon Research Congress on Speciation, Lucca, Italy	Invited poster flash talk and poster on “Diversity of Lake Victoria cichlids evolved within the modern lake through rapid reshuffling of ancient variation”
Feb, 2016	Biology16 in Lausanne, Switzerland (best talk award)	Oral presentation on “Ancient hybridization fuels cichlid adaptive radiations”
Mar, 2015	Gordon Research Congress on Speciation, Ventura, California, USA (best poster award)	Invited poster flash talk and poster on “Ancient hybridization fuels cichlid adaptive radiations”
Feb, 2015	Biology15 in Dübendorf, Switzerland	Poster on “Evolutionary history of Lake Victoria red and blue Pundamilia cichlids”
Sep, 2014	Genomics of the Speciation Continuum in Fribourg, Switzerland	Oral presentation on “Evolutionary history and genetic architecture of divergence in Pundamilia cichlid fish”