PI
Pär K. Ingvarsson (aka. Pelle) is an evolutionary and quantitative geneticist with an interest in the genetic basis of quantitative traits. He is especially interested in understanding how and why local adaptation evolves in respone to both abiotic and biotic factors.
Pelle got his PhD from Umeå University in 1997. Following postdocs at University of British Columbia, Canada and at University of Virginia he was an assistant, associate and full professor of Evolutionary genetics at Umeå University between 2002 and 2016. Since January 2017 he is professor in Plant genomics and breeding at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden. His current job duties in the lab mainly involve writing emails and editing manuscript drafts.
Postdocs
Martha Rendón joined the lab in October 2017. Martha is currently working on population genomic analyses in Populus and will also initiate a project on photoperiod adaptation and mating system variation in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and scarlet runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus). Martha did her PhD at CINVESTAV in Mexico, working on genome sequencing and population genomics in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris).
Girma Bedada joined the lab in January 2020 to work on developing a genome sequence and other genomic tools for the hexaploid forage-grass Timothy (Phleum pratense) as well as for the two putative parental species of Timothy – Phleum nodosum (2x) and Phleum alpinum (4x). Girma got his PhD from SLU in 2014, working with local adaptation in barley.
Mimmi Eriksson joined the lab in May 2022 to work in the large genome project for Norway spruce and Scots pine. She is currently working with re-sequencing data from 1000+ Norway spruce trees, samples across the spruce distribution range. Mimmi got her PhD in 2022 from the University of Vienna, Austria.
Yousef Rahimi is working on developing a genomics-based breeding program for Timothy (Phleum pratense). Yousef got his MSc from the University of Teheran and recently also spent a year as a visiting student in the lab. He is currently being supervised by Anna Westerbergh.
Le Yu is working on effects of mating system variation on patterns of adaptation in two closely related bean species, the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and the scarlet runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus). Before joining our lab in 2019, Yu did a MSc at Lanzhou University in China.
Masters students
We have no MSc students in the lab this semester
Lab alumni
Rami-Petteri Apuli is a former PhD student (2021) that worked on assessing methods for developing a breeding programme to adapt Populus trichocarpa to Scandinavian growing conditions. Rami will soon start a postdoc position at SLU in Alnarp.
Carolina Bernhardsson was a postdoc in from 2015-2019 and has worked on a number of projects, including the role of natural epigenetic variation in aspen and to generate high-density genetic maps using sequence capture data to improve existing and future genome assemblies in aspen and spruce. Carolina is now a bioinformatician in Mattias Jakobsson’s lab at Uppsala university.
Greta Buinovskaja did her MSc thesis for the bioinformatics program at Uppsala university in the lab in 2022. The project involved developing a pipeline for genotyping structural variation in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) from short-read sequencing data.
Antoine Bos is a former PhD student (2009) that worked on the genetic basis of frost tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana. He’s now working at Enetjärn Natur AB.
Helena Dahlberg is a former PhD student (2020) that worked on understanding the genetic consequences of current forest management strategies of Norway spruce (Picea abies).
Victoria Garcia was postdoc from 2003-2006 and worked on nucleotide diversity in genes involved with the response to photoperiod in aspen. She is now a professor at the National University of Misiones, Missiones, Argentina.
David Hall is a former PhD student (2004 to 2010) that worked on the genetic basis of local adaptation in aspen (Populus tremula). He then went on to do a postdoc with Harry Wu at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and is currently a research associate with Xiao-Ru Wang at the Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Umeå University.
Diana Labastide was a student on SLU’s Masters program in “Plant breeding for sustainable production” and did her MSc project on the ‘stay-green phenotype’ in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). Diana is currently a PhD student at.
Minh Nguyen Lam was a student on SLU’s Masters program in “Plant breeding for sustainable production” and did his MSc project in the lab on the genetic basis of heterois in Eucalyptus.
Xiao-fei Ma got his PhD from the Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and was a postdoc in the lab from 2006-2008, working on the genetic basis of local adaptation in aspen. He is now a full professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
Carin Olofsson was lab technician from 2004-2019. She did literally thousands of DNA extractions – providing the essential resource for most of the work we do.
Elisabet Peedu got he licentiate degree in our group in 2018, working on understanding the causes and consequences of sexual dimorphism in Red campion (Silene dioica) using data from a natural metapopulation in the Skeppsvik archipelago. Elisabet got her MSc in biology from Umeå University and joined us in 2011.
Thomas Richards was a postdoc in the lab 2018-2019. He worked in the CLAP project on adapting Populus trichocarpa to grow under Nordic-Baltic region conditions.
Nina Talyzina worked in the lab as a postdoc from 2004-2006, studying the molecular evolution of wound-inducible genes in aspen.
Biyue Tan got her MSc from Nanjing Forest University and started as a PhD student in 2013 as a member of the industrial graduate school in “Forest genetics and breeding” at UPSC. She completed her PhD in April 2018 working on developing methods for genomic prediction (genomic selection) of growth and wood traits in Eucalyptus. She is currently employed by Stora Enso working in their biomaterials division.
Amanda de la Torre got her PhD with Sally Aiken at the University of British Columbia. Amanda did a postdoc in our lab from 2013 to 2015 working on comparative genomics in conifers. She is currently an Assistant professor at Northern Arizona University.
Amaryllis Vidali got her PhD from the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany. She was a postdoc in the lab from 2012 to 2015 working on population genomics of Norway spruce. She is now a Research associate at TMU (Technische Universität München) in Munich, Germany .
Jing Wang did her PhD in the lab from 2012 to 2016 working on the effects of linked selection in aspen and on the genetic basis of adaptation to photoperiod using whole-genome re-sequencing data from aspen. She is currently an Assistant professor at Sichuan University, China. Her personal lab webpage can be found here.
Xi Wang did her PhD thesis in the lab from 2016 to 2020 working on understanding processes affecting genetic diversity and linkage disequilibrium across the large ( ~20Gb) and complex genome of Norway spruce (Picea abies). Xi is currently a postdoc at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Jonathan Wilson did his Master’s project in the group 2018-2019. He worked on identifying patterns of selection and introgression in Scottish populations of European aspen. He is currently a graduate student at Monash University, Australia.
Linn Zetterberg Huser did her Masters’s project in the group in 2023 through the bioinformatics program at Uppsala University. Linn’s project focused on climate adaptation in European aspen (Populus tremula). She is currently a PhD student at ETH in Zürich, Switzerland.
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