research interests:

General interests

Coming from a purely mathematical background, my interest in biology has been ever increasing since my first contact with mathematical biology during my diploma thesis. As a member of the "Initiativkolleg (graduate school) Population Genetics" at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, I am enjoying close interactions with people from different fields of biology, such as natural variaton, functional genetics, genome evolution, bioinformatics and statistics. Although my particular interests are in mathematical models of population genetics and speciation, this environment challenges me to broaden my knowledge about other topics and to explore the views of different scientists.

Research project

My PhD project is called "Accumulation and maintenance of Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibilities in parapatry". I am studying the conditions under which Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibilities, which have originally been defined in allopatry, can evolve and be maintained in a subdivided population with certain gene flow between two demes. Beginning with a simplifying one-locus model, the goal is to characterize the maximal possible gene flow that enables the persistence of two incompatible alleles, which could be a first step to postzygotic isolation. To achieve this aim, I am using analytical as well as numerical methods and simulations.

personal webpage

PhD program