We are a diverse group of people combining skills in evolutionary biology, microbiology, bioinformatics and genomics. But we are also passionate about conservation genetics and many other topics.
We are at the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland) and run the Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics.
To see what we are doing for fun, have a look at our blog posts.
Daniel Croll
Principal investigator, Full Professor
Daniel Croll is a Professor of Evolutionary Genetics and Vice-Director of the Institute of Biology at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland (Assistant Professor 2017-2022, Full Professor 2023-). He completed his PhD in 2009 at the University of Lausanne, followed by a postdoctoral position at the ETH Zurich with Prof. Bruce A McDonald. Daniel received a Swiss National Science Foundation Advanced Postdoctoral Fellowship to join the lab of Prof. James Kronstad at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 2013-14. Daniel was a junior group leader and lecturer at the ETH Zurich from 2015-16. Daniel has a broad range of interests from population genetics, microbiology, bioinformatics and conservation genomics.
| Google Scholar | Time capsule to a previous life |
Thomas Badet
Maître assistant and postdoctoral fellow
Evolution of genomes and gene expression
| Google Scholar |
Alice Feurtey
Postdoctoral fellow / Junior group leader [co-supervised with Bruce McDonald, ETH Zürich]
Population genomics of Zymoseptoria tritici
| Google Scholar |
Sabina Tralamazza
Postdoctoral fellow
Metabolome evolution
| Google Scholar |
Emile Gluck-Thaler
Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow
Emile Gluck-Thaler is a mycologist and evolutionary biologist interested in understanding how organisms adapt to changing ecological contexts. He received a B.Sc. in Life Sciences and Microbiology from McGill University in 2014, and a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from the Ohio State University in 2019. He then went on to work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of Biological Sciences from 2019-2020 and at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Biology from 2020-2021. His ongoing research interests involve determining the genetic bases of adaptation in plant-associated fungi, and evaluating how selection across environments impacts the evolution of genes and genomes.
| Personal website | Google Scholar |
Ana Margarida Sampaio
Postdoctoral fellow
Dynamics of fungal effector evolution
Sandra Milena Gonzalez Sayer
Postdoctoral fellow (Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship)
Genome evolution of Pseudocercospora ulei (South American leaf blight of rubber)
Tobias Baryl
Postdoctoral fellow
Transposable element evolution
Leen Abraham
PhD student
Transcriptional control of host-pathogen interactions
Luzia Stalder
PhD student
Microbiome interactions
Vinciane Monod
PhD student [co-supervised with Katia Gindro and Valérie Hofstetter, Agroscope]
Grapevine diseases
Hadjer Bellah
Swiss Government Excellence Fellowship PhD student
Plant pathogen interactions
Sarai Reyes
PhD student
Next-generation framework for the detection of genetically modified organisms
| Google Scholar |
Guido Puccetti
PhD student
Phenomics of Zymoseptoria tritici
Hanna Glad
PhD student
Ivan Skakov
PhD student
Genome evolution of fungal pathogens
Alice Laigle
PhD student
Gholam-Hossein Jowkar
PhD student [co-supervised with Maria Anisimova, ZHAW Wädenswil]
Algorithm development for phylogenetic reconstructions
Cecilia Panzetti
PhD student [co-supervised with Karen Sullan, Agroscope Reckenholz]
Molecular methods for the detection of crop diseases
Lab technicians
Ophélie Gning
Cristela Bondo Mateus (apprentice)
Asma Adam Abdi (apprentice)
Alumni
Ursula Oggenfuss (PhD student 2017-2022) Currently Postdoc with Anna Selmecki (University of Minnesota)
Vinciane Mossion (PhD student 2016-2021) Currently Postdoc with Sophie Karrenberg (Uppsala University)
Anik Dutta (PhD student 2017 - 2021) Currently Postdoc with Remco Stam (Kiel University)
Nikhil Kumar Singh (PhD student 2017-2021) Currently Postdoc with Remco Stam (Kiel University)
Simone Fouché (PhD student & postdoc 2015-2020) Currently Postdoc with Virginie Rozot (University of Cape Town)
Laetitia Holzer (MSc student 2020-2021)
Elizabete Ferreira (MSc student 2020-2021)
Nicolas Seiler (MSc student 2020-2021)
Hanna Glad (MSc student 2020-2021)
Fanny Gagliardi (MSc student 2020-2021)
Lea Stauber (PhD student 2017-2021)
Maëlle Wanner (intern/stagiaire 2020)
Estelle Fleury (MSc student 2019-2020)
Emilie Chanclud (SNSF & Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow 2018-2020)
Sami Sayer (visiting PhD student 2019-2020)
Stéphanie Ruaud (MSc student 2018-2020)
Camille Kessler (MSc student 2018-2019)
Norfarhan Mohd-Assad (PhD student 2013-2018, Farhan is now a Senior Lecturer at Universiti Kebangsaan in Malaysia)
Luzia Stalder (MSc student 2017, Luzia is now doing her PhD with us)
Tiziana Vonlanthen (MSc student 2016-17, Tiziana works now at the Agroscope Reckenholz as a scientific assistant)
Fanny Gagliardi (intern, Biology student UniNE 2018)
Dr. Clémence Plissonneau (postdoctoral fellow, recipient of an INRA Young Scientist grant, Clémence currently is responsible for bioinformatics at Gautier Semences).
Dr. Fanny Hartmann (PhD student 2013-2017, Fanny is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Université de Paris-Sud).
Juliana Benevenuto (6-month PhD scholarship from the São Paulo Research Foundation in 2016, Juliana is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Florida State University)
Dr. Ethan Stewart (ETH Zurich, co-supervised PhD student with Bruce McDonald 2011-2016). Ethan is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University.
Christoph Eschenbrenner (Universität Kiel, Germany, visit for genome assembly techniques 2016) Dr. Thierry Marcel (INRA BIOGER, COST SUSTAIN short term scientific mission 2016)
Sandra Wenger (BSc student 2015-2016)
Alessandra Stürchler (MSc research project 2015-2016) Dr. Mark Lendenmann (co-supervised PhD student with Bruce McDonald 2015-2016)
Dr. Jana Drabešová (PhD student internship 2011)