Meet the Junior Board
Annabelle de Vries
Naturalis (Chair)
I am a postdoc creating a DNA-barcoding reference library for the Dutch Flora at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. I investigate if all the Dutch Flora species can be identified using DNA-barcoding techniques and for which plant groups this might be a challenge because of hybridization. Furthermore, I have previously worked on herbariomics (herbarium genomics), plant trait evolution and biogeography, population genomics and metagenomics.
Cathleen Broersma (Treasurer)
I’m an evolutionary biologist and I’m fascinated by how cooperative behaviors can evolve and be maintained between evolutionary units of selection that have different opposing interests. Currently I’m doing post doc at Leiden University where I work on the nature of the nuclear interactions within the multinucleated organism Physarum polycephalum. In my free time I enjoy playing field hockey, cooking, and travelling.
Luiz Jardim de Queiroz (Secretary)
I am a postdoctoral researcher at both the Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the University of Groningen. My research interests revolve around biogeography, macroevolution, and macroecology. In my current research, I am employing an island biogeography framework to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the rapid assembly of fish communities in one of Europe's most breathtaking landscapes: the postglacial, perialpine lakes spanning across France, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria. Outside of work, I enjoy spending my time, among many things, playing sports – particularly indoor volleyball and, during summer, beach-volleyball and hiking through mountain landscapes – as well as reading (mostly novels) and baking.
Sydney B. Wizenberg (General Member)
I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Evolutionary Ecology group at Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in Leiden. My background is in plant molecular biology but my research primarily focuses on pollination biology and ecology. Pollination is a key aspect of the plant life cycle – because plants are largely immobile, they rely on external forces to disperse reproductive cells. These dispersal patterns are impacted by life-history variation and spatial-temporal dynamics, producing a wide range of diversity that is influential to plant population evolution and ecology. Utilizing the plant-pollinator interface as a structural plane for exploration, my research seeks a greater understanding of the evolutionary and ecological context around entomophilous dispersal patterns. Through this work, I am characterizing how plants and pollinators respond to environmental change and exploring how this impacts their evolution and ecology.
Felicia Wolters (General Member)
I'm a PhD candidate at Wageningen University and Research, studying the evolution of specialized metabolism in the Brassicaceae plant family. My approach is based on the integration of genomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics data for a diverse panel of crop and non-crop species, and different tissue types. My research interests are mainly focused on phylogenomics, systems & synthetic biology, and plant biochemistry.
Josia Pool (General Member)
I am a PhD candidate at Wageningen University & Research, and my project is about the evolution of antibiotic resistance in spatially structured environments. To do this, I am developing a model that aims to simulate this process. I will be working closely with a postdoc who will be performing experiments from which the data will be used to parametrize and validate the model. I really enjoy picking apart biological systems to get a better understanding of what happens on a molecular level. In my free time, I like to go climbing and working on do-it-yourself engineering projects.
Paula Gomez (General Member)
I am a plant pathology researcher specializing in rust fungi, with a keen interest in combining fundamental and applied science to develop biological control methods for fungal plant pathogens. My doctoral research focused on characterizing natural enemies of rust fungi by investigating their species diversity, host specificity, biogeography, and mechanisms of action.
Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in the Department of Forestry Mycology and Plant Pathology. I work remotely from the Netherlands and collaborate closely with researchers at Utrecht University. My postdoctoral project focuses on using bioinformatics and population genomics to study the genomic features of the fungal disease Scots pine blister rust and their connection to its lifecycle evolution. This research aims to improve our understanding of the pathogen’s biology and its interaction with host plants.