Meet Carles Ferré and Amelia Ramage, two of our latest students joining the group
This time you will meet Carles Ferré from Barcelona, a MSc student on our Ecological and Evolutionary Genomics Programme and Amelia Ramage, MSc student from our Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Programme.
They join Inês and Reiss, whom we introduced last week. Inês and Reiss wanted to tell us a bit more about their story:
"I studied my undergraduate at the University of Barcelona. It was during an Erasmus Program in Vienna where I learnt about genomics and epigenetics, and fall in love with them. To obtain more experience in bioinformatics, I joined Queen Mary University of London to do my MSc in Ecological and Evolutionary Genomics. Here I heard about the project that Chris Lab was accomplishing about epigenetics in sticklebacks. I join them to try to understand how parasites can affect the epigenetic expression of an individual and with so, learning a little more about how populations are modified by parasite activity."
"I graduated from the University of Manchester in 2019 with a BSc in Biology and a year in industry. I became really interested in conservation genetics during my year in industry where I worked as a research assistant investigating the population dynamics of the European lobster. I then went on to undertake my undergraduate dissertation that looked at the anoxia tolerance of freshwater turtles, specifically their antioxidant capacity in response to acute anoxia and developmental hypoxia. My interest in turtle physiology has led me to pursue my MSc at Queen Mary in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, where my thesis will combine elements from both my BSc dissertation and the genetic research conducted during my research assistant role, whilst remaining focused on conservation.
During this MSc project, I will be looking at the effects of the maternally transferred sex hormones upon the sex ratio of loggerhead sea turtles and the extent of this process under different temperatures. This research carries great significance for the persistence of future sea turtle populations. As their sex is determined by the temperature of their environment, and with rising global temperatures creating unviable female-biased populations, this could bring the species close to extinction. Therefore, by looking into possible natural buffering mechanisms, it can provide vital information for management strategies and help save an incredibly ecologically important animal. This love for sea turtle conservation started in 2016 when I volunteered as a research assistant in Greece for an NGO, helping to protect the local loggerhead populations. I hope to continue sea turtle conservation research through a PhD, that is focused on physiology and genetics in the near future."