News archive 2018

December 2018: FWF evaluation outcome

We're happy that our associated members Robert Kofler, Christian Lexer and Barbara Wallner were promoted to full faculty of the Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics after the successful re-evaluation hearing by the FWF and an international reviewer panel. We're proud and happy that our PhD program was prolonged a second time!

December 2018: Alumni career news

Congratulations to associated faculty alumna Andrea Betancourt, now at Univ. of Liverpool, on receiving a prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant!

December 2018: Prizes

Congratulations to Gökce Aköz on winning the 2018 Poster Challenge at Vetmeduni Vienna! Her poster on "Genome duplication in Aquilegia and the unique history of chromosome four" won the 1st prize award of 500 Euro.

Congratulations also to faculty alumna Carolin Kosiol on receiving Vetmeduni's scientist of the year 2018 award (category non-clinical research).

November 2018: PhD defense

Derek Setter recently defended his thesis "Detecting signals of adaptive introgression" at University of Vienna. All the best wishes for your postdoc career in Edinburgh, Derek!

October 2018: faculty news

Congratulations to associated faculty member Robert Kofler on completing his habilitation procedure at Vetmeduni Vienna!

October 2018: visiting student

Shuwen Xia is a PhD student at the Animal Breeding and Genomic group of Wageningen University & Research (Netherlands). Her PhD project is part of the BINGO training network and revolves around genome-based selection for the improvement of natural enemies in biocontrol. Shuwen will spend 6 weeks at the Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics. During her stay, she will work on RNA-seq data for a Drosophila melanogaster population in a new temperature regime in collaboration with our PhD student Sheng-Kai Hsu (Schlötterer group).

October 2018: Alumni career news

PopGen Vienna alumna Ana Marija Jakšić received a prestigious Award of Excellence for outstanding dissertations, bestowed by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, for her thesis "Thermal plasticity of the Drosophila transcriptome". This is the second Award of Excellence among our DK graduates within 2 years. Congratulations!

October 2018: PhD retreat

This year's retreat led 32 participants (PhD students, postdocs, faculty and associated guests) again to beautiful surroundings in the Alps. The autumn weather was mild and sunny at Altaussee, at the foot of the stunning Loser mountain. We enjoyed talks with plenty of discussion opportunities, an afternoon with hiking and climbing and evenings with good food, good company and lots of star-gazing.

September 2018: Faculty meeting

The faculty and students met on 25th of September 2018.

September 2018: 10-Year Anniversary Symposium

PopGen Vienna turned 10! We celebrated this very special anniversary during a one-day alumni symposium on September 7, 2018 at Vetmeduni Vienna. Many of our former PhD students, group leaders and associated members traveled to Vienna for the occasion from as far away as Australia. More than 80 participants listened to newest research highlights of PopGen Vienna Alumni and engaged in discussions and networking during the breaks. The event ended with a BBQ party among old and new colleagues who form the extended PopGen Vienna family.

August 2018: PhD defense

Ana Marija Jakšić recently defend her thesis entitled "Thermal plasticity of the Drosophila transcriptome". All the best wishes for your postdoc career in Cornell, Ana Marija!

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August 2018: Alumni career news

Our Alumna Claudia Bank, group leader of the Evolutionary Dynamics laboratory at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), was awarded an ERC Starting Grant - congratulations! Read more here

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July 2018: Alumni career news

Congratulations to our alumna Johanna Bertl for her appointment to Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematics at Aarhus University!

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July 2018: Website relaunch

We relaunched our website to catch up with technology and offer now a responsive design in addition to a more secure website.

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June 2018: Visiting scientist

Christopher Willett, Research Assistant Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will visit us for three weeks at the end of June. Chris investigates genetic variation underlying speciation and adaptation and studies the genes that interact deleteriously to generate postzygotic reproductive isolation in a copepod system. He also looks at thermal tolerance and its potential interactions with reproductive isolation in collaboration with members of the Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics.

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June 2018: Marshall Plan Scholarship

Congratulations to Anna Maria Langmüller! She received one of the prestigious Marshall Plan Foundation grants to support her research stay in the US. Anna will spend 6 months in the group of Philipp Messer at Cornell as visiting student researcher to work on population dynamics of CRISPR gene drives.

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June 2018: PhD defense

Juraj Bergman successfully defended his PhD thesis "Inference of population genetic parameters in putatively unselected sites" on June 5, 2018 at Vetmeduni Vienna. All the best wishes for your postdoc career, Juraj!

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May 2018: SAB meeting and Mini-Symposium

This years' Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) meeting took place from May 7 to 9. The students reported their progress in front of the 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. In May 9th, the Mini-Symposium "Frontiers in Population Genetics IV" took place at lecture hall B of Vetmeduni.

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April 2018: ERC Advanced Grant

Our faculty member Magnus Nordborg has been awarded the second ERC Advanced Grant (€2.5M) to study the causes of epigenetic variation in the global Arabidopsis population and its evolutionary significance. Congratulations!

Read more here

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March 2018: Promotio sub auspiciis

During a solemn ceremony, PhD alumnus  Dominik Schrempf graduated "sub auspiciis praesidentis rei publicae", Austria’s highest possible honor for graduates who have excelled throughout their education and studies. Dominik is the first ever graduate of Vetmeduni Vienna to receive the prestigious ring of honor from the President of Austria. Congratulations, Dominik!

Alumnus Dominik Schrempf and Austria's president Alexander Van der Bellen (Foto: Thomas Suchanek/Vetmeduni Vienna)

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March 2018: Walter M. Fitch Award Finalist

Congratulations (and fingers crossed!) for Ana Marija Jakšić – she is one of 8 selected finalists to present a 15-minute talk in the Walter M. Fitch Symposium at this year’s SMBE meeting in Yokohama. Based on these presentations, a winner will be chosen by an anonymous expert panel and awarded the Walter M. Fitch Prize (US $2000). Finalists receive a one-year, online MBE subscription and travel support for attending the meeting.

Ana Marija will speak about "Re-thinking a classic clinal trait: Pleiotropic consequences of thermally adaptive dopamine on pigmentation clines in Drosophila"

February 2018: Faculty meeting

The faculty met on 1st of February 2018.