Final Symposium
Save the date 15.-17.05.2023
News
December 2022: Outreach
Barbara Wallner is featured in a series of Ö1 radio broadcasts from 12-16 December (Vom Leben der Natur, 8:55): "Wie das Pferd zum Menschen kam".
December 2022: Experimental Evolution course
Students of the Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics organised the practical course "Experimental evolution: Bringing theory and practice together” from December 5 to 9, 2022 at the Vetmeduni. Our students coodinated the entire course, invited speakers, screened applications from around the world and planned, taught and tutored all practical sessions for the participants to train on real data.
Link to course website
December 2022: Christmas event
We had a cosy, fun time painting mugs and plates for colleagues, and enjoyed pizza for our Xmas party. We celebrate a successful year, slowly emerging from the pandemic restrictions and ending with important positive grant decisions for PopGen members.
December 2022: DK phasing-out granted
More fantastic grant news: The FWF approved a 1.5-year phasing-out time of the DK Population Genetics led by Christian Schlötterer.
December 2022: SFB Grant
Congratulations to our associated faculty member Neda Barghi and colleagues! The Austrian Science Fund FWF approved the Special Research Programme (SFB) "Polygenic adaptation: from single selected loci to the infinitesimal model", lead by Neda Barghi. During a 4-year period, funds of 3,9 million Euro will enable the SFB members to conduct excellent research in the field of population genetics. The SFB is a joint collaboration of Neda Barghi (speaker), Robert Kofler and Christian Schlötterer (Vetmeduni), vice speaker Joachim Hermisson and Himani Sachdeva (Univ. of Vienna), Magnus Nordborg and Kelly Swarts (GMI), and Nick Barton (ISTA).
November 2022: PhD defense
Congratulations to Rahul Pisupati (Nordborg group) on his successful PhD thesis defense "Genetics of epigenetics in Arabidopsis thaliana".
November 2022: ERC Starting Grant
Congratulations to our associated faculty member Kelly Swarts! Kelly received a prestigious ERC Starting Grant for developing tree ring genomics to understand the genetic basis of and predict forest response to climate change. Read more here: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/detail/news/erc-starting-grant-for-kelly-swarts
October 2022: PhD retreat
This year's retreat led 22 PhD students and faculty to the beautiful surroundings of Altaussee. The autumn weather was mild and sunny at the foot of the stunning Loser mountain. We enjoyed talks with plenty of discussion opportunities, an afternoon exploring the mountain trails and the nearby lake, and two evenings with traditional food, good company and a night walk.
August 2022: visiting scientists
Prof. Stefan Kramer (see https://www.datamining.informatik.uni-mainz.de/stefan-kramer/) and PhD student Julia Siekiera, M.Sc. (see https://www.datamining.informatik.uni-mainz.de/julia-siekiera/) from the Institute of Computer Science of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz will visit PopGen Vienna from August 3rd to August 5th to collaborate with the group of Christian Schlötterer.
Julia Siekiera will give a talk on the joint work about deep learning in population genetics.
June 2022: PopGen faculty and students in Santa Barbara
Speaker Christian Schlötterer, PhD students Dagny Runarsdottir and Benjamin Wölfl and former faculty member Angela Hancock are currently hosted by the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP). KITP as part of the University of California, Santa Barbara, is one of the most renowned institutes for theoretical physics and related fields. Christian Schlötterer was invited to co-coordinate the KITP workshop “Towards an Integrative View of Adaptation: Bridging Population and Quantitative Genetics” (June 13 - July 15, 2022).
May 2022: SAB meeting
This year's SAB meeting finally was held in person again. After our board members had listened to our student's project presentations and gave precious feedback, we were treated to a Mini-Symposium featuring latest research of John Parsch, Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo, Nick Barton and Andy Clark.
April 2022: PhD defense
Congratulations to Mimmi Eriksson (Paun group) on successfully defending her PhD thesis "Rinse and repeat: genome dynamics following repeated allopolyploidzation in marsh orchids (Dactylorhiza)".
April 2022: Alumni News
Graduate alumna Ana Marija Jakšić, group leader at EPFL in Lausanne, was recently portayed in The Scientist: https://www.the-scientist.com/scientist-to-watch/ana-marija-jak-i-shapes-fruit-fly-brains-69863
Jakšić lab: https://www.jaksiclab.com/
April 2022: PhD defense
Congratulations to Aglaia Szukala (Paun group) on her successful PhD thesis defense "Parallel and adaptive processes during ecotype formation in Heliosperma pusillum".
March 2022: Alumni News
Congratulations to alumna Polina Novikova, currently group leader at MPIZ in Cologne, on securing a prestigious ERC Starting Grant!
Novikova lab: https://www.mpipz.mpg.de/novikova
February 2022: PhD defense
Our congratulations go to Marta Pelizzola (Futschik group) on successfully defending her thesis with the title "Developing and testing statistical methods for experimental evolution".
January 2022: PhD defense
Congratulations to Florian Schwarz (Kofler group) on successfully defending his thesis "Towards Unraveling the Dynamics of Transposable Elements".
November 2021: Outreach/VetIdeas Challenge
Elif Bozlak, Lara Radovic and Barbara Wallner won the 1st prize at this year's VetIdeas Challenge at Vetmeduni Vienna for translating their research to a possible applicable business idea. The team developed the project "Horse paternal ancestree" to bridge the gap between the scientific and public horse community. The project aims to enable the interested public to explore the paternal ancestry of horses which may be particularly interesting for horse owners. For the poster and pitch presentation of the idea, special attention was given to the implementation of economical aspects that were earlier developed at different workshops. Congratulations!
November 2021: PhD defense
Congratulations to Sheng-Kai Hsu (Schlötterer group) on successfully defending his thesis about "The role of sex evolution: Sexual conflict and Sexual selection".
November 2021: New associated faculty
We're happy that Martin Polz, professor at the Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science (Univ. of Vienna), joined the Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics as associated faculty.
October 2021: PhD retreat
After the pandemic forced us to skip last year's retreat, we decided to seize our 100% vaccination status to spend two days at the huts of Feuerkogel (Upper Austria). We had small group workshops, enjoyed some hiking (despite very uninviting weather) and comforting mountain food at 1600m elevation. It was great to catch up on research and friendships after the long break - finally face to face!
September 2021: PhD defense
Congratulations to Anna Maria Langmüller (Schlötterer group) on successfully defending her thesis "The detection of temperature-dependent fitness effects with Evolve and Resequence experiments".
September 2021: PopGen Hike
We enjoyed a hike among the "Vienna Woods" with wonderful weather. After a long time with no social activities due to the pandemic, it was a special treat to spend time together! Dr. Sam Yeaman (Univ. of Calgary, currently on sabbatical) joined us and it was great to discuss latest research in person instead of zoom.
July 2021: Outreach
PhD students Dagny Runarsdottir and Lara Radovic reach out to young researchers at Children's University to explain how populations evolve.
July 2021: Alumni News
Congratulations to alumna Ana Marija Jaksic for having been selected as a runner-up for the prestigious best student paper award for papers published in MBE during 2020 with the paper Neuronal Function and Dopamine Signaling Evolve at High Temperature in Drosophila.
June 2021: Competition winner
Congratulations to Lara Radovic (Wallner group), winner of the student competition (genetics) at the Equine Science Society Virtual Symposium!
June 2021: PhD defense
Congratulations to Huying Shang (Lexer/Paun group) on successfully defending her thesis "Genomics of the speciation continuum in Eurasian Populus species".
May 2021: Faculty meeting
The faculty met online on 20th of May, 2021.
May 2021: SAB meeting
Also this year's SAB meeting had to be carried out online from May 17th to 20th. We enjoyed four afternoons of student presentations, discussions and informal interactions with our board members.
April 2021: PhD defense
Congratulations to Emmanouil Lyrakis (Schlötterer group) on the highest exam grade for his PhD zoom defense "The physiological and genetic basis of reproductive dormancy in Drosophila fruit flies".
April 2021: New associated faculty
We're happy that Rui Borges, junior group leader at Vetmeduni Vienna, just joined the Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics as associated faculty.
March 2021: PhD defense
Congratulations to Martin Pontz (Bürger group) on successfully defending his thesis "Effects of epistasis in population genetic two-locus models" online.
March 2021: Faculty News
Congratulations to faculty member Barbara Wallner on completing her habilitation procedure at Vetmeduni Vienna!
February 2021: Alumni News
Alumnus Thomas Taus was promoted to Teamlead - Reporting and Analysis at Porsche Informatik GmbH in Salzburg, Austria. Congratulations!
February 2021: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship
Congratulations to our alumna Anna Maria Langmüller, she received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship for 2 years of postdoctoral research at Cornell University and 1 year at Univ. of Vienna!
January 2021: Poster prize
Congratulations to Christina Hedderich on winning the 1st prize for her poster "Population genomics shows last European stand of Artemisia laciniata is diverse despite population size" at the poster competition of the virtual edition of the 54th Population Genetics Group Meeting.
