Welcome to our new research and lecturing staff

Johanna Paijmans:

Johanna is interested in understanding the factors that drive long-term population dynamics in different mammal species, by linking population genomics with climate-informed modelling. She investigates genomes from bones and other sub-fossil remains that are tens or even hundreds of thousands of years old, and compares them with those of living relatives to gain insights into population structure at different points in the past. By reconstructing population dynamics across space and time, her research focuses on how populations responded to past environmental changes and how these responses have shaped modern biodiversity.

Owen Osborne:
Owen studies evolutionary processes such as speciation, adaptation and hybridisation and their ecological consequences in natural populations. He is particularly interested in how rapid evolutionary change impacts ecological interactions – such as those between hosts and their microbiomes – and how the interconnection of these processes generates and maintains biodiversity. He uses methods spanning evolutionary genomics, experimental ecology, metagenomics and spatial ecology to investigate these questions. He also develops new computational methods, including software for hypothesis testing in spatial ecology and bioinformatics.