I am interested in the genomic signatures in evolution.  

My PhD project at the computational-systems-biology lab focuses on the role of epigenetics in hybrid formation and lineage differentiation using great tit (Parus major) as the model species. I am investigating how the genome and epigenome involves in lineages divergence and hybridization. 

I am also investigating the nuclear gene fragments originated from mitochondrial genes. To check how the genomes are affected by horizontal gene transfer. 

My research interests lie in how genetic variation shapes species' ability to adapt to a changing world, combining evolutionary, population, and conservation genetics with large-scale genomic analyses. 

In my PhD, I study the transfer of organellar DNA into the nuclear genome (NUPTs and NUMTs) across more than 500 flowering plant species, asking how genomes evolve over long timescales. Alongside this, I develop SwarmGenomics, a pipeline that extracts population-genomic information such as heterozygosity, runs of homozygosity, and species validation from individual genomes, which I use in research on birds and plants and in the bioinformatics practicals I teach. 

Outside the computer, I run the TU Dortmund campus field site, where we study how urban microclimate and human disturbance affect great tit and blue tit breeding.  

Together, these projects connect to my broader interest in how wild populations adapt to climate and other environmental change. 

With a background in biochemical engineering, I joined the CSB group to develop expertise in bioinformatics. My research interests lie in genome evolution, epigenetics and genomic regulation. In my master’s thesis I studied transposable elements, which have an ambiguous character as genetic novelties and harmful parasites. Additionally, I identified conserved insertions that have been co‑opted by the host for functional purposes. While work on this subject has generally focused on the capacity of transposable elements to introduce coding genes, my work contributes to a growing body of research highlighting their regulatory potential.

My current doctoral research focuses on segmental duplications, comparing the current reference genome of the great tit with a newly assembled genome acquired through nanopore sequencing. This third generational sequencing technology has the capacity to unveil new and hidden regions of the avian genome and its epigenetic modifications.