Teaching and mentoring students is a great part of being a researcher. Already as a student I started teaching at the Swiss Biology Olympiads. From 2008 to 2018, I taught Genetics, Evolution and Population Genetics every year. I gave lectures and devised theoretical and practical exams to select the best four Swiss students allowed to participate in the International Olympiads. When the International Olympiads were in Bern, I participated in the science team, examining students from 64 countries. I also acted as a jury member of the Swiss/Liechtenstein team at the International Biology Olympiads in Vietnam.
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 University of Bern. When my PhD advisor Ole Seehausen was on sabbatical, I had the chance to give lectures in Evolutionary Biodiversity Dynamica (2nd year course, co-taught with David Marques) and Speciation (3rd year course, co-taught with Ayana Martins).
In Cambridge, I have taught students in small group teaching (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 even by researchers who did not attend our course.
Teaching
| Lectures | |
| Evolutionary Biodiversity Dynamics: 8 h, 2nd year students, lecturing and examining ~60 students | 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 |
| RAD sequencing: 3 x2 days,twice with a colleague (Dr David Marques) and once alone, informal course to help researchers at U Bern working with RAD sequence data. | U Bern, 2013-2016 |
| Seminars and Journal Club | |
| Virtual seminar on Heliconius research: co-organised with Dr Luca Livraghi, bi-weekly | online, since Apr 2020 |
| Journal club on speciation: co-organised with Dr Gabriel Jamie, bi-weekly | U Cambridge, Nov 2018 – 2020 |
| Pre-dinner lecture series at St John’s College: co-organised with Dr Emma Loftus, bi-weekly | U Cambridge, since Oct 2019 |
| Departmental seminar in ecology & evolution: co-organised with 5 colleagues, bi-weekly | U Bern, 2016-2019 |
Student mentoring
PhD students
Edd Page (co-advisor, primary advisor is Kanchon Dasmahapatra, U York)
starting Oct 2021, on the evolution of Hypothyris butterflies
Eva van der Heijden (primary co-advisor, Jiggins group, U Cambridge)
Oct 2020-Sep 2024, on gene function analyses in ithomiine butterflies
Master projects
Eugenie 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 projects
Annalie Barker (main advisor, Jiggins group, U Cambridge)
Sep 2020-April 2021, on ecological factors shaping 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 students
Angelica Cuevas (main host, from U Oslo, Norway)
on the hybrid origin of Italian sparrow populations (postponed due to Covid)
Nicol Rueda (main host, Jiggins group, from U del Rosario, Colombia)
Jul 2019-Dec 2019, on the genomics of Heliconius butterfly diversity
Sara Lipshutz (co-host with O. Seehausen, from U Tennessee, USA)
Jan 2017-Aug 2017, on a hybrid zone between two jacana (bird) species
Research Interns
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)
Oct 2017-May 2018, on cichlid species diversity in gill rakers with CT scans
Nicola Sperlich (main advisor, Master student from U Bern)
Aug 2017-Sep 2017, on cichlid species diversity in body morphology
joanameier.ch 