Alumni

Gökçe was born in Istanbul, and studied Biology at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. Then, she moved to Germany where she received her Masters Degree in Evolution, Ecology and Systematic at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich. Gökçe did her PhD in the Community Dynamics Group under the supervision of Dr. Lutz Becks working on how coevolutionary interactions between a predator and a prey can change in fluctuating environmental conditions. Gökçe graduated in 2017 and is currently working as a postdoc in the research group "Microbial evolutionary dynamics" at the MPI in Plön.

Contact: ayan@evolbio.mpg.de

Hiba was born in Khartoum, Sudan, and studied Molecular Biology at UAE University, United Arab Emirates, and at Uppsala University, Sweden, where she received her M.Sc. Biology in 2010. Between 2010 and 2014 she did her PhD within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology on "Mus musculus helgolandicus: insights into their origin - A study based on genetic and morphometrics analysis" in the Evolutionary Genetics group at the MPI Plön. Hiba is now doing her postdoc at the MPI for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany.

Contact: babiker@shh.mpg.de

Camilo was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and studied Microbiology at the Universidad de los Andes, where he received his Masters Degree in 2012. He was a PhD student within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology from 2013 - 2017 working on the evolution of antibiotic resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the Department of Evolutionary Ecology and Genetics at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, supervised by Prof. Dr. Hinrich Schulenburg.
At present, Camilo is continuing his studies as a postdoc in the same group.

Contact: cbarbosa@zoologie.uni-kiel.de

Anne was born in Germany and studied Biology at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, and the Queensland University in Brisbane, Australia. She received her Diploma in 2011 and did her PhD within our IMPRS at the Devision for Marine Biology of the Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel (Geomar) under the supervision of Dr. Olivia Roth. Anne defended her thesis in 2016 and is currently working as a postdoc in Canada.

Contact: abeemelmanns@mun.ca mehr

Meriem was born in Kolea (Tipaza), Algeria and studied biology (Animal Ecology) at the University of Science and Technology, Algiers, and then at the university of Pierre and Marie Curie (Paris VI), where she received her M.Sc. studying the evolution of enamel proteins in amniots.
Meriem was a PhD student within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology working on the characterization of candidate genes from a QTL analysis of the skin Microbiota in house mouse. She is part of the Evolutionary Genomics group of Prof. Dr. John Baines at the Max Planck Institute in Plön and the Excellence Cluster "Inflammation at Interfaces" at the university in Kiel, where she is currently working as a postdoc. Meriem defended her thesis in 2016.

Contact: belheouane@evolbio.mpg.de

Ozan was born in Turkey and studied at the Ege University and the Izmir Institute of Technology, where he received his M.Sc. in Molecular Biology and Genetics in 2009. He continued working there as a Research Assistant until he started his PhD within our IMPRS in 2011 working in the Max Planck Research Group for Experimental Evolution with Dr. Duncan Greig. Ozan moved to the USA where he is currently doing his postdoc in the lab of Will Ratcliff at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Contact: bozdag@evolbio.mpg.de

Philipp was born in Germany and studied Biology at the Christian-Albrechts-Universiät zu Kiel, where he received his M. Sc. in Microbiology, Genetics and Physiology in 2010. Between 2010 and 2015, Philipp was a PhD student within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology working on the microbiota of the model nematode C. elegans at the Department of Evolutionary Ecology and Genetics with Prof. Dr. Hinrich Schulenburg at Kiel University. After building up and coordinating the Kiel Research Center (KEC) at Kiel University for two years, he now switched back to science as a postdoc in Schulenburgs Max Planck research group.

Contact: pdirksen@zoologie.uni-kiel.de

Sunna was born in Germany, and studied Biology at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, where she received her Diploma in 2011.
She was a PhD student within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology working on “Genetic determinants of microbiota and parasites associated with Cottus across natural hybrid zones” in the Research Group for Evolutionary Genetics of fishes with Dr. Arne Nolte at the Max Planck Institute in Plön. Sunna defended her thesis in 2016.

Contact: ellendt@evolbio.mpg.de

Nina was born in Schorndorf, Germany, and studied Biology at the Georg-August Universität in Göttingen, Germany, the Université de la Réunion, France (Erasmus), and at the University of Oxford, UK, where she received her M.Sc. in Biology in 2010. Within the IMPRS, she was working on “Evolutionary Ecology of Host Manipulation by Parasites” in the Department of Evolutionary Ecology with Prof. Dr. Manfred Milinski and Dr. Martin Kalbe between 2011 and 2015. After continuing her studies as a postdoc in the same group, Nina moved on as a postdoc at Zurich University.

Contact: hafer@evolbio.mpg.de

Kristin was born in Strausberg, Germany, and studied Biology at the Free University in Berlin and the University of Potsdam, where she received her Masters Degree in 2011. As PhD student within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology, she was working on cooperation in social dilemmas in the Research Group of Evolutionary Ecology and Evolutionary Theory at the Max Planck Institute in Plön. Kristin defended her thesis in 2017.

Contact: hagel@evolbio.mpg.de

Natascha was born in Germany and studied Biology at the University of Marburg, Germany, where she received her M. Sc. in 2010. She worked between 2010 and 2014 as a PhD student within the IMPRS on "Functional Analysis of Adaptively Relevant Genes in the House Mouse (Mus musculus L.)" in the department for Evolutionary Genetics at the MPI Plön together with Prof. Dr. Diethard Tautz. After that, she continued finishing her project and took over the IMPRS coordination as part of parental leave replacement. Currently, Natascha works as a coordinator at the Medical Structured Scientific Program (MEDISS)at the medical faculty of the university in Heidelberg.

Contact:
natascha.hasenkamp@med.uni-heidelberg.de

Tina was born in Germany and studied Biology at the Justus-Liebig-Universität in Giessen, and the University of Rostock, both Germany, where she received her M. Sc. in Marine Biology in 2010. Afterwards, she became a PhD student within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology and worked on “Local adaptation in stickleback-tapeworm interactions” in the Parasitology Group with Dr. Martin Kalbe at the Max Planck Institute Plön. She finished her PhD in 2014 and currently continues her research as postdoc in the same group.

Contact: henrich@evolbio.mpg.de

Nadine was born in Rendsburg, Germany, and studied Biology at the University in Kiel, where she received her Masters Degree in 2012. Within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology, Nadine was working on “The evolution of flowering time regulation in Beta species” in the Institute for Plant Breeding at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, supervised by Prof. Dr. Christian Jung. She defended her thesis in 2017 and is currently working as a Postdoc in the same group.

Contact: n.hoeft@plantbreeding.uni-kiel.de

Yun was born in China. She studied Pharmacy at the Soochow University, China and Life Science Informatics at the University of Bonn, Germany and received her Masters Degree in 2012. Within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology she was working on genomic analysis across threespined stickleback ecotypes in the Department of Evolutionary Ecology at the Max Planck Institute in Plön, supervised by Prof. Dr. Manfred Milinski. She defended her thesis in 2018.

Contact: yun.huang@evolbio.mpg.de

Vienna was born in Germany and studied Biology at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, where she received her Diploma in November 2011. She directly started her PhD within our IMPRS in the Max Planck Research Group for Experimental Evolution with Dr. Duncan Greig. Vienna defended her thesis in 2016 and was working as a postdoc in the Emmy Noether Group for Community Dynamics with Dr. Lutz Becks at the MPI for one year. Then, she she moved to Japan for a postdoc position at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST).

Contact: kowallik@evolbio.mpg.de

Rebecca was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. She completed her BSc at the Univeristy of Prince Edward Island, Canada in 2008 and MSc in Ecology and Evolution at the University of Berne, Switzerland in 2013. She was working in the Evolution of Behaviour group supervised by Dr. Miriam Linnenbrink, being part of the department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön. Rebecca graduated in 2017 and is currently wrapping up her work on individual behaviour and the influence different strategies have on life history, territoriality and mate choice between two recently diverged populations of Mus musculus domesticus.

Contact: rekrebs@evolbio.mpg.de

Cindy was born in China, and studied Business Management and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Ocean University of China. She received the Masters Degree of Science from Ghent University Belgium in 2012. Between 2012 and 2016, as member of the IMPRS, Cindy was working on Evolutionary Game Theory and population dynamics in the Research Group of Evolutionary Theory at the Max Planck Institute in Plön, supervised by Prof. Dr. Arne Traulsen.
Cindy now moved to Switzerland where she is doing her postdoc in the lab of Prof. Dr. Hanna Kokko at the University of Zürich.

Contact: li@evolbio.mpg.de

Ana was born in Zagreb, Croatia, and studied Biology at the University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic, where she received her M. Sc. in Botany in 2007. Within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology, she was working on environmentally dependent within-host evolution of opportunistic pathogens in the group for Evolutionary Ecology of Marine Fishes with Dr. Mathias Wegner at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Geomar) and the Wadden Sea Station Sylt of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Arctic and Marine Research.

Jacqueline started hery scientific career as an undergraduate at Grinnell College, USA with a double major in Biology and French Literature. She then moved to Denmark and did her Masters at the University of Copenhagen in Microbiology. After completing hery Masters, Jacqueline moved to Germany where she pursued her PhD in Prof. Dr. Philip Rosenstiel's lab at the IKMB in Kiel working on the host-microbial interaction of pathogen infection in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Jacqueline defended her thesis in 2017 and is currently wrapping up her work.

Contact: j.anderson@ikmb.uni-kiel.de

Andrea was born in Bogotá, Colombia and studied biology at the Universidad de los Andes. She obtained a master degree in Conservation Biology (MINC) in 2010 from Göttingen University, Germany and Lincoln University, NZ, and in 2012 an Erasmus Mundus Master in Evolutionary Biology (MEME) from University of Groningen, NL and LMU Munich, Germany. As part of the IMPRS in Evolutionary Biology at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Andrea was working on the evolution of the nervous system-microbiota interactions in Hydra, supervised by Prof. Dr. Thomas Bosch. She graduated in 2017 and is currently wrapping up her work.

Contact: amurillo@zoologie.uni-kiel.de

Rafik was born in Colombia and studied Biology at the National University in Bogota. Later he studied at the University of Göttingen, Germany, where he received his Master of Sciences in Molecular Biology in 2011 (IMPRS for Molecular Biology).
Between 2011 and 2014, he did his PhD on the evolution of orphan genes and the emergence of new genes at the Department of Evolutionary Genetics with Prof. Dr. Diethard Tautz at the Max Planck Institute in Plön. He continued his research as a postdoc in the same group before he moved to the USA for a postdoc position at Columbia University in New York.

Contact: rn2419@cumc.columbia.edu

Stella was born in Neumünster, Germany, and studied Biology at the University in Kiel, where she received my Diploma Degree in 2012. She was an IMPRS student between 2013 and 2017 working on the dopaminergic system in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, supervised by Prof. Dr. Thomas Roeder (Department of Molecular Physiology, CAU Kiel).
Stella now continues her scientific career at the Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience (DANDRITE) at Aarhhus University in Denmark.

Contact: sn@dandrite.au.dk

Seun was born in Nigeria and studied Biochemistry at the Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria, and the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus, where he received his M. Sc. in Crop Biotechnology in 2009. Between 2010 and 2014 he was a PhD student within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology working on the “Evolutionary diversification of sugar beet homologs of A. thaliana PRR3/7 genes and their function in flowering time control” with Dr. Andreas Müller and Prof. Dr. Christian Jung at the Plant Breeding Institute of Christian-Albrechts-Universiät zu Kiel.

Luisa was born in Ocaña, Colombia, and studied Biology at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, where I received my Degree in 2010. Within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology, she was between 2011 and 2015 working on the "Evolution of the skull shape in mice" in the Department for Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute in Plön, supervised by Prof. Dr. Diethard Tautz.
For a while, she continued her research in the same lab before Luisa moved to the USA for a postdoc postition at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University.

Contact: pallares@princeton.edu

Carola was born in Germany and studied Biology at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel (CAU), where she received her Master in 2011. Between 2011 and 2015, she did her PhD within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology working on the natural ecology of Caenorhabditis elegans in the Department of Evolutionary Ecology and Genetics at the CAU. Her supervisor was Prof. Dr. Hinrich Schulenburg. Carola continued her research in this group as a postdoc for several years before she switched to the lab of Prof. Dr. Matthias Leippe as a research associate.

Contact: cpetersen@zoologie.uni-kiel.de

Sophie was born in France and studied at McGill University (Canada) and at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama) where she received her M.Sc. degree in Biology in 2013. She continued working in Panama as a field assistant until she got accepted in the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology working on the genomic architecture underlying adaptation and speciation in coral reef fishes under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Oscar Puebla at the GEOMAR. Sophie graduated in 2017 is moved for a postdoc to the USA.

Contact: spicq@geomar.de

Charlotte was born in in the UK and studied Biology at the University of Sheffield, UK, where she received her B. Sc. in Animal Behaviour in 2010. After working as a guest student at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel (CAU), she got accepted in the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology. Her PhD project involved the external immunity in Tribolium castaneum that she worked on together with Dr. Gerrit Joop from the Department of Evolutionary Ecology and Genetics at the CAU. After the completion of her PhD in 2014 she moved to the King Lab at the University of Oxford where she is currently working as a postdoc.

Philipp was born in Greiz (Thüringen), Germany, and studied Biology at the University of Bayreuth and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Evolution Ecology and Systematics Program) where he received his M. Sc. in 2010. He did his PhD within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology between 2010 and 2015 working on the influence of blood group related antigens on the intestinal microbiota in the Evolutionary Genomics group with Prof. Dr. John Baines at the Max Planck Institute in Plön and the Excellence Cluster "Inflammation at Interfaces" Kiel. After being a postdoc in the same group for two years, he moved to Denmark where Philipp currently works as a postdoc at the University of Copenhagen.

Contact: philipp.rausch@bio.ku.dk

Puspendu was born in India and studied Integrated MSc in Biological Sciences at the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar, India. Within the IMPRS, he joined Prof. Dr. Frank Kempken's group at the University of Kiel (CAU) working on computational biology of fungal genes.
He defended his thesis in 2017 and is currently wrapping up his work.

Contact: psardar@bot.uni-kiel.de

Miguel was born in Portugal and studied Marine Biology at the University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal, where he received his M. Sc. in 2008. He did his PhD between 2010 and 2014 within the IMPRS of Evolutionary Biology on “Evolutionary Ecology of European Eels” in the group for Evolutionary Ecology for Marine Fishes with Prof. Dr. Thorsten Reusch at the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (Geomar). After the completion of his PhD, he has continued his research there.

Contact: msoares@geomar.de

Isabel was an IMPRS student from 2013 until 2017. She was working in the Research Group "Parental Investment and Immune Dynamics" at the Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research (GEOMAR) in Kiel under the supervision of Dr. Olivia Roth. Currently, Isabel is continuing her work as a postdoc in the same group.

Contact: ikeller@geomar.de

Marie was born in Rouen, France in 1989. She studied at the University of Nice, France, at the Bioengineering School Polytech'Nice-Sophia, where she received her degree in Pharmacology and Biotechnology in 2012. As IMPRS student she joined the Evolutionary Genomics group of Prof. Dr. John Baines at the Max Planck Institute in Plön and the Excellence Cluster "Inflammation at Interfaces" at the Christian Albrechts University (UKSH) in Kiel. She was working on host-microbe interactions in the gut of the house mouse, using an advanced intercross population to find QTLs.
Marie defended her thesis in 2017 and is currently working as a postdoc at the Institut Pasteur de Lille in France.

Contact: vallier@evolbio.mpg.de

Jun was born in Shandong, China, and studied Biology at Ocean University of China, the University Ghent, Belgium, the University Oviedo, Spain, and the University Bremen, Germany. He received his M.Sc in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation from the Max-Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany, in 2010. Then, he did his PhD within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology working on “Microbiota and host co-evolution” in the Evolutionary Genomics group with Prof. Dr. John Baines at the Max Planck Institute in Plön. After the completion of his PhD in 2014 he worked as a postdoc at the Life Sciences Research Institute VIB at University of Leuven. Recently, Jun moved back to China and started a research group at the Institute of Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Science.

Contact: junwang@im.ac.cn

Yang was born in Hubei, China and received his B.Sc. from the Univeristy of Lanzhou, China. He  then studied Genetics at the University of Shanghai Jiaotong, China and obtained his M.Sc. in 2011. During his PhD within the IMPRS, Yang was working in the Evolutionary Biology and Genetics Department at the University of Kiel, supervised by Prof. Dr. Hinrich Schulenburg. Yang graduated in 2017.

Contact: wyang@zoologie.uni-kiel.de

Anne was born in Germany, and studied biosciences at the University of Münster and the University of Heidelberg, both Germany, where she received her M.Sc. in Molecular Biosciences in 2010.
She was a PhD student within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology working on the evolution of homospermidine synthases in grasses in the group for Biochemical Ecology and Molecular Evolution with Prof. Dr. Dietrich Ober at the Botanical Institute of the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel.
Anne defended her thesis in 2017 and is currently living in Ireland.

Contact: awesseling@bot.uni-kiel.de

Xiaoyu was born in China and studied Biotechnology at the Zhejiang University in China and the University of Manchester in the UK, where he received his Masters Degree in 2010. 
He did his PhD within the IMPRS for Evolutionary Biology working on evolutionary role of FoxO and Insulin signalling at the Zoological Department of the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, supervised by Prof. Dr. Thomas Bosch.
Xiaoyu defended his thesis in 2016 and is currently wrapping up his work.

Contact: xxiang@zoologie.uni-kiel.de