News archive 2017
December 2017: Christmas Event
The PopGen Christmas party was a sportive one this year: we learned Ceili and Set dance moves during a sweat-intense but fun workshop at Vetmeduni Vienna. Afterwards we were treated to Indian food at a nearby restaurant to conclude the evening with 35 participants.
December 2017: Marshall Plan Scholarship for one of our students
Congratulations to our PhD student Martin Pontz for receiving one of the prestigious Marshall Plan Foundation grants to support his research stay at Stanford University, USA. Martin will spend 3 months in the group of Marc Feldman as visiting student researcher to collaborate on multilocus models in population genetics.
December 2017: Faculty meeting
The PopGen Vienna faculty met on December 1st, 2017.
December 2017: Scientific Advisory Board
The Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics is proud that Dr. Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo from the Institut Jacques Monod has agreed to be part of our Scientific Advisory Board. We're looking forward to welcome Dr. Courtier-Orgogozo to our SAB meeting in May 2018.
November 2017: Alumni career news
Congratulations to our alumnus Christian Huber, currently at UCLA. Christian received one of the prestigious Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards 2018 by the Australian Research Council. He'll join alumnus Ray Tobler at the University of Adelaide to apply state-of-the-art population and quantitative genetic techniques to a new database of ancient human genomes - spanning from hunter gatherers and early farmers through to the Middle Ages. This will be used to build the first detailed portrait of human genetic adaptation through time! Exciting news!
November 2017: Experimental Evolution course
The Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics organised the practical course "Experimental evolution: From theory to practice” from November 6 to 10, 2017 at the Vetmeduni Vienna with 24 international participants and lectures by 7 experts of the field.
Read more about the recent event here
October 2017: PhD defense
Congratulations to Andrea Fulgione, he successfully defended his PhD thesis "Uncovering the early history of a model organism: Arabidopsis thaliana in Africa and in the island of Madeira" on October 16th! All the best for your next career steps, Andrea!
October 2017: PhD retreat
We spent a couple of inspiring days with seminar talks, hiking and socialising at a mountain lodge in Altaussee, at the foot of the Styrian Loser plateau. 36 participants - PhD students, postdocs, faculty and associated guests - enjoyed brainstorming and discussing recent research results, and we were blessed with colourful and mild autumn weather.
Summer 2017: Internship for high school student
Welcome to this year's high school intern Petra who joins our PhD students for 4 weeks to assist in hands-on fly evolution projects.
More about the "Talente entdecken" program of the FFG here
August 2017: August 2017: PopGen faculty, students and alumni in Santa Barbara
Several PopGen Vienna members and alumni 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 “Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics in Nature and the Lab” (July 24 - September 15, 2017) which is closely linked with the Summer research course “Eco-evolutionary dynamics of microbial communities” at the Santa Barbara Advanced School of Quantitative Biology.
Robert Kofler and Andreas Futschik are also hosted by KITP for the duration of the workshop and are joined by Anna Maria Langmüller (PhD student), Neda Barghi (Postdoc) as well as alumni Claudia Bank and Carolin Kosiol who were all invited to add their expertise.
July 2017: Alumni career news
PopGen Vienna graduate alumnus Daniel K. Fabian started a new postdoc position at the University of Cambridge (UK) in the lab of Derek Smith.
June 2017: PopGen Vienna participates at Open University Day
For this year's Open University Day, our students participated at the Science Cafe and prepared a fruit fly themed microscopy table. Both adult and young visitors were equally fascinated by fruit fly populations from around the world, evolved flies, bizarre mutants and blue larva next to close-up shots of electron microscope images. Kids were also invited to extract DNA from some of fruit fly's favorite foods: strawberries.
June 2017: PhD defense
Congratulations to Barbara Horvath-Ellis who successfully defended her thesis "The genetic and phenotypic basis of adaptive developmental and reproductive traits in Drosophila melanogaster" on June 8th! Good luck for your next career steps!
May 2017: PhD defense
Congratulations to Dominik Schrempf! On May 30, Dominik successfully defended his thesis "Discrete multivariate boundary mutation models and their application to tree inference". Good luck for your future career!
April 2017: March for Science
PopGen Vienna students, postdocs and faculty joined the March for Science on April 22 in Vienna, one of 600 marches that took place around the globe. We demonstrated our support for science and the fundamental role it plays in serving and improving our society through informed policy. #marchforscience #vienna
April 2017: SAB meeting
This years' Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) meeting took place from April 19-21. The students reported their progress in front of our full Advisory Board, the program's faculty and fellow students. After the busy daily presentation schedules, the students further interacted with the SAB in more relaxed settings over drinks and dinner.
March 2017: Alumni career news
PopGen Vienna faculty alumnus Alistair McGregor gave his inaugural lecture at Oxford Brookes University (UK) on March 22, 2017. Congratulations!
February 2017: Faculty meeting
The faculty met on 14th of February 2017.
January 2017: Alumni career news
PopGen Vienna alumnus Daniel K. Fabian started a lecturer position at Anglia Ruskin University (UK). Congratulations!
