Teaching and mentoring students is a great part of being a researcher. Already as a student, I started teaching at the Swiss Biology Olympiads. As a PhD student at University of Bern, Switzerland, I gave RAD sequencing workshops together with my PhD brother, David Marques, to help other members of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Bern. As a postdoc at the University of Bern, I gave lectures in Evolutionary Biodiversity Dynamica (2nd year course, co-taught with David Marques) and Speciation (3rd year course, co-taught with Ayana Martins).
At the University of Cambridge, I gave lectures in Macroevolution and Phylogenetics and taught students in small group teaching sessions (called supervisions) in Genetics and Animal Diversity.
Together, with Mark Ravinet (U Nottingham), I have also designed a course in Speciation Genomics for Physalia and taught it four times to international groups of PhD students, postdocs and professors. Our course website is widely used as an introduction into speciation genomics also by researchers who did not attend our course.
Lectures
Phylogeny and Macroevolution: 6 h, ~80 2nd year students, in the course on Evolution and Animal Diversity, exam writing and grading | U Cambridge, 2022 |
Guest lecture at the University of Harvard in the course on evolutionary genomics (1 h) | Harvard U, 2021 |
Evolutionary Biodiversity Dynamics: 8 h, ~60 2nd year students, lecturing and examining | U Bern, 2017 |
Speciation: 12 h, 3rd year students, block course with 15 students including lectures and discussion sessions | U Bern, 2017 |
Small group teaching
Genetics and Animal Diversity: 10 h, 3rd year students, two groups of 2-3 students, weekly discussions and essay assignments | U Cambridge, 2019 |
Genomic data analysis: 18 h, PhD students and postdocs, informal course for researchers at U Bern and EAWAG working on genomic datasets | U Bern & EAWAG, 2016-2018 |
Workshops
Speciation Genomics: 4 x 5 days, PhD students and postdocs, lectures and hands-on bioinformatics exercises designed and taught by a colleague (Prof Mark Ravinet) and me for Physalia-courses | Berlin, 2018+2020 Québec, 2019 online, 2020, 2021, 2022 |
RAD sequencing: 3 x2 days, twice with a colleague (Dr David Marques) and once alone, an informal course to help researchers at U Bern working with RAD sequence data. | U Bern, 2013-2016 |
Seminars and Journal Clubs
Virtual seminar on Lepidoptera research (Lepinars): co-organised with Dr Luca Livraghi and Dr Gabriela Montejo-Kovacevich, bi-weekly | online, since Apr 2020 |
Online seminar series on Integration of Speciation Research, a ESEB-funded network. | online, since Jan 2022 |
Journal club on evolutionary genomics, at the Tree of Life Programme (hybrid format): co-organised with Dr Kamil Jaron, fortnightly including attendees from the U Cambridge Departments of Zoology, Genetics and Crop Science | Sanger Institute, since Oct 2022 |
Journal club on speciation: co-organised with Dr Gabriel Jamie, fortnightly | U Cambridge, Nov 2018 – 2020 |
Pre-dinner lecture series at St John’s College: co-organised with Dr Emma Loftus, fortnightly | U Cambridge, since Oct 2019 |
Departmental seminar in ecology & evolution: co-organised with 5 colleagues, fortnightly | U Bern, 2016-2019 |
Student mentoring
PhD researchers
Jonah Walker (main advisor, Wellcome Sanger Institute & U Cambridge) since April 2022, on speciation in ithomiine butterflies and peacock spiders |
Eva van der Heijden (main advisor, Wellcome Sanger Institute & U Cambridge) since Oct 2020, on gene function analyses in ithomiine butterflies |
Gabriela Montejo-Kovacevich (co-advisor, Jiggins group, U Cambridge) Oct 2018-2020, on high altitude adaptation in Heliconius butterflies |
Master students
Arif Maulana (main advisor, Wellcome Sanger Institute) May 2022-Oct 2022, on the rapid range expansion in Swiss wall lizards |
Eugenie (Charlie) Yen (co-advisor, Jiggins group, U Cambridge) Oct 2018-Sep 2019, on colour polymorphism in the wood tiger moth |
Wendy Valencia-Montoya (co-advisor, Jiggins group, U Cambridge) Sep 2018-Mar 2019, on introgressed insecticide resistance in Helicoverpa moths |
Sarya Fark (main advisor, Seehausen group, U Bern) Sep 2017-Sep 2019, on colour polymorphism in Mediterranean wrasses |
Bachelor/third year students
Annalie Barker (main advisor, U Cambridge) Sep 2020-Apr 2021, on ecological factors shaping butterfly wing morphology |
Vera Ogi (main advisor, Seehausen group, U Bern) Sep 2017-Jan 2019, on sex determination in cichlid fishes |
Anna Lena Banderet (main advisor, Seehausen group, U Bern) Sep 2017-Jan 2019, on cichlid morphology including CT scans and X-rays |
Visiting PhD researchers
Pedro Gusmao de Ribeiro (main host, U South Bohemia, Czech Republic) Nov 2022-Dec 2022, on population genomics of skipper butterflies |
Angelica Cuevas (main host, U Oslo, Norway) postponed due to Covid, on the hybrid origin of Italian sparrow populations |
Nicol Rueda (main host, U del Rosario, Colombia) Jul 2019-Dec 2019, on the genomics of Heliconius butterfly diversity |
Sara Lipshutz (co-host with Ole Seehausen, U Tennessee, USA) Jan 2017-Aug 2017, on a hybrid zone between two jacana (bird) species |
Research Interns
Melany Henot (main advisor, Cambridge undergraduate student) July-Sept 2021, summer internship on Wolbachia in ithomiine butterflies |
Amin Ghane (main advisor, Erasmus Mundus Master student) July-Aug 2021, summer internship on wall lizard genomics |
Hilde Schneemann (main advisor, PhD student from U Cambridge) Mar 2020-Jun 2020, on a chromosomal rearrangement in Heliconius erato |
Vincent Grognuz (main advisor, Master student from U Fribourg, Switzerland) Oct 2017-May 2018, on cichlid species diversity in gill rakers with CT scans |
Nicola Sperlich (main advisor, Bachelor student from U Bern) Aug 2017-Sep 2017, on cichlid species diversity in body morphology |