Support Staff
Eilidh Elliot (She/her)
Project Support Coordinator
After graduating with a BSc in Molecular biology, I have spent several years in administrative roles. I will be providing administrative support to the project leadership team as well as support the design and organisation of (exciting!) public engagement activities.
This role will bring together her love for science and organisation!
Principal Investigators
Prof. Dan Macqueen (He/him)
Project Lead
I am a genome biologist with fundamental interests in evolutionary biology and phylogenetics, as well as applied interests in farmed animal genetics, health, pathogens, and immune function. I have been interested in whole genome duplication for my whole career, working with fish study systems including salmonids. I am both delighted to have the opportunity to work with such an incredible team of collaborators in the WGDip project to investigate evolution after whole genome duplications across the tree of life. It's truly a once in a life-time project! I graduated with a first class BSc in Marine Biology from the University of Plymouth in 2003. I moved to St Andrews in 2004 to start a NERC-funded PhD project, under the supervision of Prof. Ian Johnston FRSE. After gaining a PhD in 2008, I stayed on in St Andrews for post-doctoral positions before moving to the University of Aberdeen in 2013 as a Lecturer. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2015 and to a Readership in 2018. In late 2018, I moved to my current role at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh. I was promoted to Personal Chair of Integrative Fish Genomics in 2020.
Dr. Ilia Leitch (She/her)
Project Co-Lead
I am a plant evolutionary biologist fascinated by the vast genomic diversity that they exhibit at the whole genome level (i.e,. ~2,500-fold range in genome size, chromosome numbers spanning 2n = 4 – 1,400, and ploidy levels ranging from diploid (2x) to 96-ploid). My research particularly focuses on genome size to understand the molecular processes underpinning such diversity, including polyploidy, and the evolutionary and ecological consequences. For example, why do some plants have genomes that are over 50x bigger than our own and does such diversity impact a species’ ability to evolve, adapt and survive. While polyploidy will initially lead to an increase in genome size, rediploidization processes in flowering plants include the elimination of DNA leading to genome downsizing. However, detailed insights into when this happens, what types of DNA are lost, and where in the genome they are lost from remain poorly understood. I am therefore excited to be part of this amazing project and team to be able to explore these and many other questions from new angles, made possible by the increasing availability of chromosome-level genome assemblies and novel bioinformatic approaches.
Prof. Mark Blaxter (He/him)
Project Co-Lead
I lead the Tree of Life programme at the Sanger Institute, where we use state of the art lab and informatics technologies to generate chromosomally-complete genome sequences across eukaryotic diversity. For WGdip, we will be producing reference assemblies for some very difficult species - difficult because of the size of the genome, and because assembly of polyploids is significantly more complex than assembly of “simple” diploids. My own research interests lie in the area of genome evolution, especially the evolution of linkage groups and of genome architectures.
Prof. Phillip Donoghue (He/him)
Project Co-Lead
I am Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol and my research is focussed on the timing and nature of major evolutionary transitions. I have long had a strange fascination with the impact of gene and genome duplication on organismal evolution, and I like to integrate molecular and palaeontological data in uncovering their relationships. My role in the project is in co-leading the work package investigating the tempo and mode of delayed rediploidisation and its impact on organismal evolution.
I am an evolutionary biologist interested in speciation, hybridisation and polyploidy in flowering plants. I’m excited that this project makes use of the deluge of high quality genomes to address unsolved questions concerning polyploidy across the tree of life. I completed an Honours Degree in Plant Sciences at the University of Edinburgh in 2008, and received my PhD from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh & University of Edinburgh in 2012. I then moved to Syracuse, Upstate New York, for postdoctoral research. In August 2014, I returned to the University of Edinburgh as a NERC Independent Research Fellow. My current position is as Senior Lecturer in Botany at the University of Edinburgh and Research Associate at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
Dr. James Clark (He/him)
Project Co-Lead
My research is focussed on the origins and innovations of land plants. I use phylogenomics, genomics and comparative approaches to model the evolution of genomes and traits over geological time.
My role in the project is to help develop and refine approaches to characterising WGD across the tree of life and to quantify the macroevolutionary outcomes of these events.
Prof. Peter Holland (He/him)
Project Co-Lead
I am Linacre Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford. I have worked on the links between genes, embryos and evolution for 40 years (can’t believe it's that long), and have an unhealthy obsession for homeobox genes. I have worked on genome duplication events in vertebrate evolution and on tandem gene duplications right across the animal kingdom. My group discovered asynchronous rediploidisation in teleost fish evolution over 10 years ago, and this started conversations and collaborations with other members of this consortium, eventually leading to this exciting new project.
Dr. Tom Williams (He/him)
Project Co-Lead
I’m a computational evolutionary biologist. My research focuses on reconstructing the history of life and studying genome evolution, especially in Archaea, Bacteria and microbial eukaryotes. My role in the project is to help with the development and application of new methods for identifying whole genome duplications and lineage-specific rediploidization across eukaryotes, including groups that have not previously been studied in this context.
Post-Doctoral Researchers
Dr. Dearbhaile Casey (She/her)
Research Co-Lead
With a strong background in WGD and asynchronous rediploidisation, I am excited to continue exploring the genomic landscape of invertebrates that have been shaped by these events and to do so alongside this incredible team of experts! My work during my PhD focused on uncovering details behind the complex aftermath of the whole genome duplication event shared by the American paddlefish and its sister species sturgeon. This work sparked a lasting fascination with genome duplication and its consequences. For my postdoctoral studies in Barcelona I have expanded this focus by investigating WGD events in some lesser studied invertebrates genomes, further exploring the dynamics of genome evolution after WGD in diverse lineages.
Dr. Richard Taylor
Research Co-Lead
I am a post-doctoral researcher in Dan Macqueen’s group at the Roslin Institute. I completed my PhD at the University of Bristol, where I studied the evolutionary history of plant miRNAs. My work has since focused on applying bioinformatic and genomic approaches to questions in biomedicine and animal health. A major focus of my recent work has been the application of single-cell technologies to non-model species to enable the study of diverse cellular and molecular processes. WGDip presents a unique and exciting opportunity to extend this work to explore how whole genome duplications have shaped the functional evolution of individual cell types.
Dr. Drew Larson (He/him)
I am an evolutionary biologist who is broadly interested in how processes such as adaptation, divergence, gene duplication, and introgression shape the genomes of organisms and structure biodiversity across phylogenetic scales. After completing my PhD at the University of Michigan in 2022, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Indiana University through the NSF Plant Genome Research Program. As a member of the Macqueen group, my role within the WGDip project is to continue developing our understanding of the rediploidization process in model clades such as the Salmonids and to work to investigate the generality of asynchronous rediploidization across the tree of life.
Dr. Zoe Vance (She/her)
My background combines genetics, molecular evolution and bioinformatics. I completed a PhD in Genetics fromTrinity College Dublin in 2021 with a thesis focussed on the concept of gene duplicability: what drives evolutionary outcomes for duplicate copies of a given gene, and how do these drivers impact observed differences between different groups of duplicated genes and single copy genes. After a short detour into infectious disease and genomic surveillance for my first post doc role at the University of Edinburgh, I’m delighted to bring the skills in methods and software development that I have developed in that role back to the topic of gene and genome duplication. Within this project I will be working on developing methods and approaches for examining rediploidisation across systems
Dr. Emily Haley (She/her)
Research Co-Lead
I enjoy applying bioinformatic tools to genomic sequence data to help answer questions about evolution. I have an undergraduate degree in Evolutionary Biology from The University of Edinburgh, followed by an MSc in Bioinformatics at The University of Glasgow. I completed my PhD at The University of Edinburgh in 2024, where I was studying hybridisation within the plant genus Antirrhinum. In my current role as a postdoctoral researcher, I am excited to continue using bioinformatic analyses to explore the occurrence of rediploidisation, focussing on plants
My research interests are genome evolution and how gene and genome duplications contribute to adaptability and evolutionary novelty — all topics central to this project. Specific past research areas include the causes and consequences of subgenome dominance, pangenome evolution in polyploids, and the evolution of specialized metabolism. My role will be as a postdoctoral associate looking for signs of asynchronous diploidization across angiosperms with the group at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Dr. Kevin Bird
Dr. Lucas Freitas (He/him)
I am an evolutionary biologist interested in using computational tools to explore the mechanisms and patterns of evolution throughout the tree of life. My previous research has focused on adaptive molecular evolution, phylogenetics and divergence time estimation in diverse taxa. My role in WGDip is to help to estimate the timing of whole-genome duplication events to better understand how delayed rediploidisation affects phenotypic traits in different species.
Dr. Morgane Milin (She/her)
My background combines polyploidy, genomics and bioinformatics. I hold a BSc in Organismal Biology (University of Rennes, France) and an International MSc in Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution (University of Rennes, France, and University of Göttingen, Germany). I completed my PhD at the University of Rennes in 2024, where I investigated recurrent polyploidy and diploidization in Sporobolus section Spartina (Chloridoideae, Poaceae) genomes. My work involved detecting and dating WGD events in the Sporobolus genus, as well as studying their chromosome evolution since the grass ancestor. As part of this work, I developed a bioinformatics tool called WGD_Tracker. As a post-doctoral researcher in Dan Macqueen’s group at the Roslin Institute, I’m excited to contribute to the WGDip project, where my role is to help expand our understanding of WGD and rediploidization processes across the tree of life.
Public Engagement Specialist
I’ve worked in science communication and engagement for over ten years, but I started out as a scientist, working in the virology field across the UK. I believe that science is for everyone and am passionate about creating engagement programmes for non-specialist audiences so all can enjoy! I am the Public Engagement with Research Manager at The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, and Project Lead for The Easter Bush Science Outreach Centre (EBSOC).
Dr. Nicola Stock (She/her)
Public Engagement Specialist
PhD Students
Brianna Banting (pro/noun)
I earned my MSc in Quantitative Genetics and Genome Analysis from the University of Edinburgh in 2023, where I studied introgression and species barriers among a group of montane willows that occur in Scotland. Following a few years of working as a research assistant and exploring my interest in plant evolutionary biology, I am returning to Edinburgh to pursue a PhD with Dan Macqueen and Alex Twyford. My work during my PhD focused on uncovering details behind the complex aftermath of the whole genome duplication event shared by the American paddlefish and its sister species sturgeon. This work sparked a lasting fascination with genome duplication and its consequences. For my postdoctoral studies in Barcelona I have expanded this focus by investigating WGD events in some lesser studied invertebrates genomes, further exploring the dynamics of genome evolution after WGD in diverse lineages.
Darwin ToL Collaborators
Molly Carter (She/her)
I’m the Project Manager for the Darwin Tree of Life (DToL) project, based at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge. Before working at the Sanger, I was a Natural Sciences curator at various museums and private research institutes across the UK for over a decade. My role within WGDip will be to work with the wider team to ensure delivery of chromosomal-level assemblies for these giant genomes. There’s an element of species overlap between WGDip and DToL, and I will liaise between the two projects to ensure each achieves their objectives. Having immersed myself in the world of high quality reference genome production, it’s a dream to see these reference genomes being put to use in WGDip.
Lora Downes (She/her)
As a Project Coordinator in the Tree of Life (ToL) Programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, I work closely with the Faculty members to support their research and collaborations. I also support Project Psyche and the Ancient Environmental Genomics Initiative for Sustainability (AEGIS). My role in the WGDip project will be to help coordinate the production of 15 chromosome-level reference genomes through the ToL pipeline, to enable analysis by other work packages.
Project Partners
Dr. Anthony Redmond (He/him)
I am a Royal-Society Research Ireland University Research Fellow based at University College Dublin in Ireland with a broad interest in the evolution of animals and their genomes. I have specific and long-term interests in unravelling the evolution of the immune system, devising phylogenomic approaches to help resolve the tree of life, as well as in understanding the role of gene and genome duplication in evolution. My core role in this project is to contribute to the development of generalisable approaches for detecting genome duplication and asynchronous rediploidization, as well as investigating the frequency and role of these events in invertebrate animal evolution. Having worked on asynchronous rediploidization for over 10 years now, I hope that my experience can help aid discovery across the breadth of this new collaborative project.
Dr. Gergely Szöllősi (He/him)
I will contribute by developing and applying phylogenetic reconciliation methods.
Dr. Rosa Fernández (She/her)
I am a Group Leader at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-UPF) in Barcelona, Spain, where I lead the Metazoa Phylogenomics and Genome Evolution lab. My research focuses 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.
Dr. Manu Kumar Gundappa (He/him)
For nearly a decade, my work has centered on understanding the evolutionary and functional consequences of asynchronous rediploidization in salmonid fish. I am excited to be part of this world-class team, where we aim to deepen our understanding of lineage-specific rediploidization and its outcomes. I am an Assistant Professor in the Animal Breeding and Genomics group at Wageningen University & Research (WUR). My research focuses on developing and applying comparative and functional genomic approaches to explore fundamental biological questions, using fish as a model system. I have a long-standing interest in genome evolution, particularly in the context of whole genome duplication (WGD).
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Finn McHale (He/him)
I am a member of Prof. Peter Holland’s lab in the Biology Department of the University of Oxford, graduating with a Master’s degree in the summer of 2025. While at Oxford, my studies took me across many disciplines before focusing on Evolutionary Developmental Biology and Comparative Genomics. My Master’s project researched the whole-genome duplication of terrestrial gastropods (the Stylommatophora) to improve our estimate of the event’s phylogenetic placement, as well as investigating the evolution of Hox clusters in the clade following their duplication. Part of this work included searching the clusters for signs of delayed rediploidisation. I look forward to continuing this avenue of research with WGDip, looking for such signs elsewhere in these genomes.