People
Meet our team
The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA is home to some of the leading scientific minds in the fields of evolutionary biology, environmental change and population genetics.
Meet our team of scientists and students who are pioneering new discoveries across these exciting areas of ancient DNA research.
A/Professor Jeremy Austin
Director, ACAD
Area: Forensic, ancient DNA, conservation genetics, megafauna extinction
Phone: (08) 831 34557
Office: Darling building, Room 213
A/Professor Bastien Llamas
Group Leader, Molecular Anthropology
Area: Paleogenomics, Indigenous genomics
Phone: 831 30262
Office: Darling building, Room 216
Dr Vilma Perez-Godoy
Postdoctoral Researcher
Area: Diversity and survival strategies of microbial communities in very extreme environments
Phone: (08) 831 33698
Office: Darling building, Room 205e
Dr Jamie Wood
Group Leader, Environmental Genomics
Area: Ancient terrestrial ecosystems
Phone: (08) 831 33952
Office: Darling building, Room 212b
Dr Yassine Souilmi
Group Leader, Genomics & Bioinformatics
Area: Bioinformatics
Phone: (08) 831 35565
Office: Darling building, Room 205c
Dr Gudhug Purnomo
ARC Research Associate
Area: Human population genomics
Phone: (08) 831 33698
Office: Darling building, Room 205e
Ms Navdeep (Nav) Kaur
Lab Coordinator
Office: Darling building, Room 205e / Braggs Building Rm 326
Phone: 8316 9227
Siobhan Evans
Area: Sedimentary ancient DNA and palaeoecology
Phone: (08) 831 35148
Office: Darling Building, Room 205e
Thomas (Thom) Harvey
Area: Conservation biology and paleoecology (MPhil)
Phone: (08) 831 35148
Office: Darling building, Room 205a
Shyamsundar (Shyam) Ravishankar
Area: Bioinformatics
Phone: (08) 831 38245
Office: Darling building, Room 205d
| Year | Name | Award | Research area |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Caitlin Mudge | PhD | |
| 2024 | Olivia Johnson | PhD | Fluctuating Selection and its Effects on Neutral Genetic Variation |
| 2023 | Roberta Davidson | PhD | Frontiers in paleogenomics: Methodological challenges and multidisciplinary studies of human past in South America |
| 2022 | Gludhug Purnomo | PhD | Reconstructing the population history of Wallacea and Sahul |
| 2022 | Dan Bonsu | PhD | Human Forensic Identification |
| 2022 | Xavier Roca Rada* | PhD | Human Demographic insights from paleogenetic studies of American and Iberian skeletal remains |
| 2022 | Gina Guzzo | PhD | Gut microbiome insights into the pathophysiology and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease |
| 2022 | Evelyn Collen | PhD | Post-contact evolutionary immunogenetics in Indigenous peoples of America |
| 2022 | Adrian Oliva | PhD | Quantifying and reducing biases in paleogenomic research |
| 2022 | Divon Lan* | PhD | Demographic and evolutionary history of the first peoples of Sahul (submitted) |
| 2022 | Matilda Handsley-Davis | PhD | Human ethics research |
| 2022 | Matthew Williams* | PhD | Human evolution |
| 2022 | Isabelle Onley | PhD | Conservation genomics and adaptive management of translocated greater stick-nest rats under climate change |
| 2021 | Alex Salis | PhD | Investigating faunal responses to climate and environmental change using ancient DNA from ursids |
| 2021 | Caitlin Selway | PhD | Human Microbiomes: Another Piece to the Puzzle for Non-communicable Diseases |
| 2020 | Luis Arriola | PhD | Bioinformatics |
| 2019 | Emily Skelly* | PhD | Processes of industrialisation influencing the human oral microbiome |
| 2019 | Oscar Estrada Santa Maria | PhD | Ancient plant DNA to the rescue: Unlocking crop genetic diversity from the past |
| 2019 | Yichen Liu* | PhD | The role of epigenetic modifications and microbiome evolution in bovid adaptation to environmental changes |
| 2019 | Graham Gower | PhD | Inferring the characteristics of ancient populations using bioinformatic analysis of genome-wide DNA sequencing data |
| 2019 | Felicia Bardan | PhD | New Forensic DNA profiling techniques for human identification |
| 2019 | Raphael Eisenhofer# | PhD | New and refined tools and guidelines to expand the scope and improve the reproducibility of palaeomicrobiological research |
| 2018 | Ayla Lore Van Loenen* | PhD | The 'next generation’ of ancient DNA research: a series of methods and approaches to improve our understanding of the evolutionary history of species in general, and European bison in particular |
| 2018 | Muslih Abdul-Aziz | PhD | Genomic and metagenomic alterations and impacts on disease through time using ancient DNA |
| 2017 | Andrew Farrer* | PhD | Ancient DNA studies of dental calculus |
| 2017 | Tim Rabanus Wallace | PhD | Climate-driven ecological changes through the Last Glacial Period |
| 2017 | Lauren White | PhD | Investigating Australian mammal extinctions and conservation using ancient DNA, population genetics and time-series analysis |
| 2016 | Guido Valverde* | PhD | Ancient DNA from pre-Columbian South America |
| 2016 | Oliver Wooley | MSc | Developing methods to process, interpret and present NGS data for end users using the Geneious platform |
| 2016 | Paul Czechowski* | PhD | Antarctic soil biodiversity/environmental genomics |
| 2016 | Alex Boast | MSc | Ancient DNA of New Zealand's extinct avifauna |
| 2016 | Jennifer Shaw* | PhD | Metagenomic amplicon sequencing as a rapid and high-throughput tool for aquatic biodiversity surveys |
| 2015 | Kieren Mitchell*^ | PhD | Using High-Throughput DNA sequencing and molecular phylogenies to investigate the evolution and biogeography of the southern hemisphere fauna |
| 2015 | Michael Herrera* | PhD | Genetic studies on prehistoric, translocations of chickens in the Indo-Pacific |
| 2015 | Steve Richards | PhD | Investigation and Application of Methods for Ancient DNA Research |
| 2014 | Denice Higgins | PhD | Post-mortem degradation on the ability to retrieve DNA from ancient & forensic tooth specimens |
| 2013 | Jennifer Young | PhD | Forensics investigation of soil samples |
| 2013 | Jessica Wadley | PhD | Population genetics and phylogeography of Antilopine Wallaroo using degraded DNA from scats and museum specimens |
| 2013 | Vicki Thomson | PhD | Using ancient DNA as an essential tool to explore past Australian biodiversity |
| 2012 | Julien Soubrier* | PhD | What ‘molecular’ time is it? – Use of ancient DNA to refine estimates of molecular timescales |
| 2012 | Christina Adler | PhD | Ancient DNA studies of human evolution |
| 2012 | Clio Der Sarkissian* | PhD | Mitochondrial DNA in ancient human populations of Europe. This project is also part of the National Geographic Society's 'Genographic Project' |
| 2012 | Sarah Bray | PhD | The evolution and genetic diversity of ancient bears |
| 2011 | Nic Rawlence | PhD | Palaeoecology and population demographics of the extinct New Zealand Moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes) |
| 2008 | Trevor Worthy | PhD | Tertiary Fossil Waterfowl (Aves: Anseriformes) of Australia and New Zealand |
|
*Dean's commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence |
Linda Armbrecht
ARC Postdoctoral Researcher (DECRA), Affiliate
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania
Research area: Sedimentary ancient DNA, marine genomics
Dr Christian Huber
Penn State University, USA
Dr Raymond Tobler
ARC DECRA Fellow, Affiliate, Australian National University, Canberra.
Research Area: Population genetics
Dr Joao Teixeira
ARC DECRA (Fellowship), Australian National University
Affiliate/collaborator. Research area: Population genetics
Dr Salvador Herrando-Perez
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Spain.
Dr Wolfgang Haak
Leader, Molecular Anthropology Group
Max Plank Institute for the Science of Human History, Germany
Research Area: Human evolution
A/Professor Laura Weyrich
A/Professor of Anthropology at Penn State, USA
Research Area: Microbiology
Dr Pere Bover Arbos
Leader, Paleontology Group
Instituto Universitario de Investigacion en Ciencias Ambientales de Aragon, Spain.
Research area: Conservation biology
Dr Raphael Eisenhofer
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Copenhagen.
Research Area: Microbiology and microbial ecology of Australian mammals
Roberta Davidson
Postdoctoral position on the Endomix Project
Barcelona Institute for Global Health - ISGlobal, SPAIN
