Visiting Scholars Program

Hiroki is an associate professor at Ryukoku University, Japan, and serves as the director of the Center for Biodiversity Science at the university. He is a freshwater ecologist with a background in eDNA research since 2009. Hiroki has a strong passion for advancing new techniques in eDNA analysis to extract a broader range of biological information from water, soil, and air. His goal is to not only understand species distribution but also delve into aspects such as biomass, developmental stages, physiological states, and more.

In recent years, Hiroki has expanded his efforts into practical conservation initiatives, collaborating with local NPOs and private companies deeply committed to preserving the environment of Lake Biwa. Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan, is situated in Shiga prefecture, where Ryukoku University is located. The initiative is known as the "Lake Biwa Challenge: 100 Sites eDNA Survey," which commenced in 2021. The project involves collecting water samples from 100 shoreline locations around the lake to monitor changes in fish community composition over time. Hiroki is currently working on establishing a collaborative network to ensure the project's sustainability and effectiveness. He aims to explore ways to incorporate social values into the biological data generated by the project to engage a wider audience and foster greater interest in conservation efforts.

Ana is a senior technician at the National Museum of Natural History in Madrid (Spain). She specializes in conservation genetics and genomics and particularly enjoys developing innovative non-invasive molecular techniques to answer ecological questions.

She has participated on many eDNA detection, quantification and metabarcoding projects among other conservation projects in New Zealand, the United States and Spain. She is currently focusing on developing eDNA and eRNA methods to expand their use beyond detection and quantification of organisms on Oxford Nanopore sequencing platforms. She is also participating on studies using sponges as natural eDNA samplers from either freshwater or marine environments.

Ramón (Moncho) Gallego is a Molecular Ecologist and Marine Biologist. He is currently based at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), where he joined as a Researcher in February 2022. His main interest lies in the application of genetic approaches to answer ecological questions in the marine realm, primarily using environmental DNA to detect community composition changes. Nowadays he is working on refining the bioinformatics for metabarcoding studies using Nanopore datasets.

Moncho's interest in bioinformatics goes beyond spending countless hours debugging R code. His approach to bioinformatics follows a broader aim to make science open and reproducible, and designing pipelines and workflows that can be used in many metabarcoding projects.

Ni Kadek Dita Cahyani is a lecturer at the Biology Department, Faculty of Science and Mathematics, Diponegoro University, Indonesia. Dita has passion in biodiversity research, including DNA Barcoding, phylogenetic and population genetic across Indonesia. She has also participated in notable research on DNA barcoding of sharks and stranded cetacean, phylogenetic analysis and species identification of reef fishes, and marine biodiversity assessment in Indonesia.

In 2015, she was awarded the Fulbright Presidential Ph.D. scholarship and began her Ph.D. program at the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. She also went to The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC to learn about the environmental DNA methods during her stay. This novel tool is on the cutting edge of marine and biodiversity science.

Watch Dita’s seminar here.

Watch the introduction here.

Academic mission

• Lecturer and Researcher (Environmental microbiology and microbial ecotoxicology)

• Head of the laboratory of eDNA at Nangui Abrogoua University, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire

• Head of the department of Research Valorization, Innovation and Technology

Partnership and collaboration

• AtlanECo: Ocean Microbiome and microplastics and setting up of a network of African Ocean Microbiome (Metagenomic and microbial ecotoxicology)

• BaseCamp Research: Microbiome and Biotechnology (microbial OMIC)

• Validate Network : Pathogen genomics (Anti-Microbial Resistance/Outbreak surveillance)

Assistance to society

• Trainer for engineering offices in environment (eDNA approach to Environmental Impact Assessment).

• Trainer for Manager of parks and natural reserves for biodiversity monitoring (eDNA lab set up for Natural Reserve of Dahliafleur, The national park of Taï, Parc national of Banco)

Projects and supports

• Improving freshwater biodiversity conservation in Côte d'Ivoire using DNA-based monitoring funded by CEPF (set up eDNA Laboratory).

• Improving eDNA laboratory methods and equipment (eDNA collaborative)

• Plastics of Abidjan: Fate and Impacts (IRD) (mNGS for Microbial diversity and plastics biodegradation)

Watch Nouho’s seminar here.

Watch the introduction here.

Originally from Mexico, Christina is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Globe Institute (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) and the Helmholtz Institute for One Health (University of Greifswald, Germany). She enjoys doing field work, but is always ready to put on the lab coat and do some pipetting.

Christina’s research focuses on the study of biodiversity of tropical forest ecosystems mainly using environmental DNA, eDNA, and DNA metabarcoding. Her latest research study where she explored the use of airborne eDNA for vertebrate monitoring has sparked her interest in the development of new non-invasive methods for monitoring animals. It has made her realize that there is still so much to explore!

Although Christina focused on diversity of arthropods and vertebrates in her latest studies, she has a special interest in parasites and their complex lifecycles. Christina believes that all lifeforms play an important role in the ecosystem.

Watch Christina’s seminar here.

Bettina is a Senior Scientist at the Applied Animal Ecology Research Unit (Department of Zoology) at the University of Innsbruck. The detection of trace amounts of DNA in environmental samples (eDNA) lies at the centre of her research. She is using these DNA traces to study dynamic species distribution patterns, trophic interactions, and the connection between functional ecology and local biodiversity.

Over the last years, Bettina has been primarily working with fishes, birds, and, more generally, with species of conservation concern. She develops, optimizes, and applies DNA metabarcoding and species-specific assays to support conservation and management efforts. Bettina’s research projects often connect large field sampling campaigns with laboratory work under clean-room conditions. eDNA transport and international efforts to standardize the application of eDNA-based techniques in routine species monitoring are re-occurring topics in her research. The inclusion of local stakeholders and the dissemination of results to the general public are cornerstones of many projects. Recently, Bettina was involved in two community science projects aiming to detect local vertebrate diversity with the help of Canada-wide volunteer networks.

Watch Bettina’s seminar here.