Heidi Nistelberger joined our group in 2015 to work as a postdoc on the RCN funded project seeking to further our understanding of how Vikings shaped the genetic composition of domesticated species such as horses, barley and flax using genomic tools on ancient DNA specimens from Viking Age archaeological sites.
Agata Gondek worked with us between 2016 and 2019 as a laboratory technician processing many ancient specimens coming from several different projects. In addition, she helped design our stainless steel “bone crushers”, which we still regularly use in the lab and are excellent for the toughest bones we encounter! She is now pursuing her PhD in fish immunology at the University of Tromsø in the far north.
Giada Ferrari joined our group in 2018 as a postdoc to work on the RCN-funded project Catching the Past. She extracted DNA from hundreds of archaeological Atlantic bones, including several that are nearly 9000 years old. She investigated the factors underlying DNA preservation in fish and worked on the potential for getting useful inference from extremely low-coverage genome wide data. She has now moved on to Edinburgh to work on ancient DNA obtained from herbarium specimens.
Anneke Ter Schure worked as a PhD student in our group from 2018 to 2021. She used trace DNA from environmental samples, such as sediments and faeces, to study past biodiversity. By combining DNA metabarcoding results with other lines of evidence and applying statistical and data visualization approaches, her focus was to untangle the complexity of biological change and human-environment interactions. She defended her thesis "Dung, Dirt & DNA: unearthing past and present biodiversity through eDNA metabarcoding" in December 2021.
Angelica Maria Cuevas Pulido joined our group as a researcher from 2020-2022. She combined stable isotope analyses with genomic data to investigate the history of Atlantic cod trade in Oslo across 600 years during the Medieval period.
Marius Robu worked with us as a postdoc on the EvoCave project from 2021-2022, where he assessed the palaeoecology of a fossil bone assemblage from northern Norway.
Lourdes Martínez-García worked as a PhD student in our group from 2019 to 2022. She studied the historical evolution and ecology of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), using genome-wide data to investigate the effects of human exploitation and climate change over a temporal scale.
Lane Atmore worked as a PhD student in our group from 2019 to 2022. She used biomolecular archaeology methods, including genomics and stable isotope analysis, to explore the human impact on Atlantic herring populations in northern Europe and assess the potential for anthropogenic impact on herring evolution and ecology.
Adriana M. Cintrón Santiago was a Master student with us from 2022-2023 as part of the EvoCave project, reconstructing pre-glacial faunal diversity in northern Norway using ancient DNA from excavated bone materials. She also investigated pre-glacial mitochondrial diversity from the last interglacial-glacial boundary, LGM, and present-day to address questions related to population stability and turnover for various species.