Invited speakers

Laura Kubatko

Dr. Laura Kubatko is Professor of Statistics and Professor of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, USA. Dr. Kubatko holds BA degrees in Mathematics and Biology from Hiram College (Ohio, USA), and an MS in Statistics and PhD in Biostatistics (both from The Ohio State University). From 1999-2006, Dr. Kubatko was Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New Mexico (USA) before moving to her present position. She served as an Associate Editor for Systematic Biology from 2007 - 2020, as an Associate Editor for Evolution from 2008 - 2010, and as a Section Editor and member of the Senior Editorial Board for BMC Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from 2016 - 2022. She co-directed the Mathematical Biosciences Institute at Ohio State from 2019 - 2021. She served as President-Elect/President/Past-President of the Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB) from 2020-2022 and is currently a Trustee of SSB. Her research interests are broadly in statistical genetics, with a focus on the development of statistical and computational methods for inferring phylogenies from molecular data. Her recent work is focused on bridging the gap between traditional phylogenetic techniques and methodology used in population genetics analyses, primarily through the application of coalescent theory to species-level phylogenetic inference. Dr. Kubatko was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2019. 

Web Page https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kubatko.2//

Dimitris Paraskevis

Dimitrios Paraskevis is an epidemiologist who obtained his PhD in Molecular Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases from the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He currently holds the position of Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the same prestigious institution. In addition to his academic role, Paraskevis is deeply involved in public health efforts as a member of the Ministry of Health's emergency committee on Infectious Diseases, which is at the forefront of managing the COVID-19 pandemic in Greece. His expertise also extends to the national committee of public health in Greece. Between 2022 and 2023, he served as the Vice-President of the National Public Health Organization and presently is a Member of the Board of Directors of the organization, contributing significantly to the public health landscape in Greece.

His research spans several critical areas, including epidemiology, molecular epidemiology, virology, public health, emergency preparedness, and the development and implementation of public health and therapeutic interventions. Prof. Paraskevis is an active member of twenty international and national scientific societies and serves on the editorial board of seven peer-reviewed scientific journals. His prolific contributions to the field are evident in his authorship of more than 280 scientific journal publications.

Publication list http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=paraskevis+d

Web Page https://academicmedicaleducation.com/people/dimitrios-paraskevis-phd

Rosa Fernández

Since 2020, Rosa is a Tenured Group Leader at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (Barcelona), where she leads the Metazoa Phylogenomics and Genome Evolution lab. Her research focused on understanding how animal genomes change to adapt to new environments, particularly during the transition from marine to terrestrial habitats, and how genome architecture and large-scale genomic rearrangements may facilitate these adaptations at a macroevolutionary scale. She is principal investigator of an ERC Starting Grant and a Human Frontiers Science Foundation project. She is also a member of the executive board of the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA), where she participates as Scientific Officer. 

Web Page http://www.metazomics.com/

Nick Goldman

Nick Goldman has a first degree in mathematics and received his PhD in molecular evolution from the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, in 1992.  He worked at London's Natural History Museum, the UK MRC National Institute for Medical Research (London) and the University of Cambridge before joining the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in 2002.  He leads a research group devising and applying novel data analysis techniques for molecular phylogenetics and Next Generation Sequencing, and was a pioneer in the field of DNA-storage --- the use of DNA as a digital information storage medium. 

Web Page https://www.ebi.ac.uk/people/person/nick-goldman/

David Posada

David Posada is Professor of Genetics at the University of Vigo (Spain). He earned his degree in Biology from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and obtained a Ph.D. in Zoology from Brigham Young University (USA). He later completed postdoctoral training at Variagenics Inc., a pharmacogenomics company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA). His research lies at the intersection of molecular evolution and computational biology, with significant contributions to model selection, phylogeography, and phylogenomics. Currently, his work focuses on unraveling the evolutionary history of tumors by integrating single-cell genomics, evolutionary biology, and computational phylogenetics.

Web Page https://dposada.webs.uvigo.es/