Marcel Visser, NIOO-KNAW, The Netherlands
Norman Owen-Smith, University of Witwatersrand, S Africa
Jon Slate, University of Sheffield, UK
Rob Freckleton, University of Sheffield, UK
Philip Hedrick, Arizona State University, USA
Henri Weimerskirch, CEBC-CNRS, Chizé, France
Henrik Andrén, Grimsö Wildlife Research Station, Sweden
Charles Godfray, Imperial College at Silwood Park, UK
Tim Coulson, Imperial College London, UK
Anne Loison, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, University of Savoie, France
Philip Devries, University of New Orleans, USA
Jean-Michel Gaillard, CNRS, Lyon, France
Sondre Aanes, Norwegian Computing Center, Norway
Joost Raeymaekers, Nord University, Norway
Øystein Varpe, University Centre in Svalbard

PhD candidate Ronja Kiviö
CBD welcomes Ronja Kiviö. Ronja did her masters in the University of Jyväskylä majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology. Her PhD will focus on designing genetic tools for the monitoring of wildlife populations. In her studies, she will develop a SNP-chip for red deer and use this to analyze family relations between individuals of a population. The research will be further applied to highly relevant topics of population monitoring and the management and research of harvested wildlife populations. Her supervisors are Vebjørn Veiberg, Alexander Kopatz, Oddmund Kleven, Brett Sandercock, Erling Solberg and Christer Moe Rolandsen at NINA, and Henrik Jensen at NTNU.

PhD candidate Philip Mostert
CBD welcomes Philip Mostert. Philip is from Johannesburg, South Africa. He has just completed his Masters degree in Mathematical Statistics at Rhodes University, Grahamstown. The research topic for his Masters degree was Bayesian accelerated life testing for the Weibull distribution under different non-informative priors. At NTNU he will be working with Prof. Bob O’Hara (supervisor) and Prof. Anders Finstad (co-supervisor) on using integrated datasets to develop dynamic species distribution models for estimation on freshwater biodiversity.

PhD candidate Angeline Bruls
CBD welcomes Angeline Bruls. Angeline took her BSc and MSc Biology at Wageningen UR (the Netherlands), focussing on ecology and biodiversity. Over the years she has spent three semesters at UNIS in Svalbard. Here, she did a thesis project on genetic diversity within the plant species Saxifraga oppositifolia, and an internship working on an identification tool for Svalbard’s vascular plants. In the Netherlands, she did a minor thesis project on salt marsh vegetation changes caused by human-induced soil subsidence and (relative) sea level rise. At CBD she will dive into the world of freshwater communities and how these vary over space and time, including impacts from human activities. Her PhD-position is funded by NTNU Sustainability, and supervised by Bernt-Erik Sæther, Anders G. Finstad and Ivar Herfindal.

Postdoc Debora Goedert
CBD welcomes Debora Goedert. Debora is an evolutionary ecologist broadly interested in diversification and the maintenance of diversity at the genetic and phenotypic levels. In her past research, she has ventured into fields of behavioural ecology, population genomics, and quantitative genetics, and worked with a variety of organisms (e.g. birds, frogs, fish, insects). At CBD, she will dive deeper into population and quantitative genetics, investigating questions that also have applied implications to conservation genetics.

Staff Engineer Oskar Speilberg
CBD welcomes Oskar Speilberg. He has studied Industrial Chemistry and Biotechnology with specialization in biotechnology. His did his MSc-thesis at the Dept. of Biotechnology, NTNU, where he focused on developing a method to extract gelatin from salmon. This is an important alternative to gelatin from pigs, which many people cannot eat due to religion or lifestyle. He has afterwards worked as engineer at the Dept. of Biotechnology and the Dept. of Biology. Oskar is currently extracting DNA for SNP-genotyping of more than 17,000 house sparrows.

PhD candidate Agnes Holstad
CBD welcomes Agnes Holstad, a new PhD candidate here at CBD. Agnes did her Master at NTNU on the use of evolvability to link micro- and macroevolution. During her PhD, she will be part of the NFR project “Understanding evolvability”. She will use meta-analyses and comparative approach to understand patterns of short-term evolvability on quantitative traits. She will also do part of her PhD in collaboration with Mihaela Pavlicev at the university of Vienna, Austria. Her supervisors are Christophe Pelabon, and Thomas F. Hansen (UiO).

Postdoc Paul Acker
CBD welcomes Paul Acker who started his postdoc on September 15th. Paul is doing research in demography, addressing the causes and consequences of life-history variation. He focuses on modelling individual trajectories to study the relationship between behaviour, life-history traits, and population dynamics. During his PhD, he studied breeding decision and dispersal in Larids, with Emmanuelle Cam at the University of Toulouse. He then worked on partial migration in shags during his postdoc at the University of Aberdeen, with Jane Reid. He developed capture-recapture models to make inference on phenotypic variation of seasonal migration versus residence, and quantify the selective landscape of this trait. At NTNU, he will extend the scope of his research on the eco-evolutionary dynamics of seasonal migration with Jane Reid, notably aiming at the estimation of key quantitative genetic parameters.

PhD candidate Laura Bartra Cabré
CBD welcomes Laura Bartra Cabré who started her PhD here at CBD this summer. Laura did her BSc in Environmental Sciences (University of Barcelona) and MSc in Ecology (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) on the topic “Disentangling the drivers of European badger activity at multiple temporal scales”. Her PhD will focus on climate change effects (in particular extreme events) on community and population dynamics, using a combination of empirical data and simulations. She will be supervised by Brage Bremset Hansen, Aline Magdalena Lee and Vidar Grøtan.

PhD candidate Hamish Burnett
CBD welcomes Hamish Burnett, a new PhD candidate here at CBD. Hamish did his honours year research at the University of Western Australia modelling the microclimates, thermoregulation, and physiology of dragon lizards in restored mine-site habitats, and then completed his Master’s here at NTNU with a thesis titled “Genomic consequences of anthropogenic reintroduction in high-arctic Svalbard reindeer”. During his PhD, he will be working with the house sparrow group to investigate the importance of inbreeding and genetic drift in the conservation of subdivided populations. His supervisors are Henrik Jensen, Jane Reid, and Stefanie Muff.