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Scientist - Conservationist
Hi, I'm Laura Bertola.
I'm interested in how the rapidly changing field of genomics can contribute to biodiversity research and conservation.
I did my PhD at Leiden University, The Netherlands. My work was dealing with population genetics and phylogeography of the lion. We collaborated with zoos, natural history collections, and lots of scientists/conservationists across Africa.
As I was processing many non-invasively collected samples (scat, hair), and museum specimen (historical DNA, ancient DNA), I also started looking into application of environmental DNA (eDNA) and metabarcoding methods.
This has led to collaborations on aquatic freshwater diversity, carnivore diet and tiger microbiome.
I spent almost three years at the City College of New York (CUNY) for my postdoc. Here, my main project was dealing with biodiversity patterns in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. Specifically, we're trying to integrate climate data with genomics, to identify patterns of adaptation across multiple co-distributed taxa.
Then, I was affiliated with Copenhagen University for almost three years, working on a range of African species. We're interested in general biodiversity patterns and evolution.
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Currently, I'm a Research Associate at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore, India. Here, we work on the genomic consequences of small and isolated populations. This serves to both assess the vulnerability of these populations and inform management across a range of conservation actions.
* Although the pictures suggest otherwise, I spend most of my time in a molecular lab or at a computer :)
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