People

Current members:

Irene Gallego Romero, PhD
Principal investigator
irene [dot] gallego [at] unimelb [dot] edu [dot] au

I’m a human evolutionary biologist with training in genomics, biological anthropology and pluripotent stem cell biology. My research interests include understanding evolutionary adaptions at both short and long time spans – those that have occurred in specific human populations, but also those that separate us from our close evolutionary relatives. I’m also fascinated by issues surrounding the practice of science today – funding allocation, career progression and levels of inclusion and diversity of the scientific workforce. You can download my current CV here.

I was a speaker at TEDxNTU in 2016. You can watch the recording here.

Katalina Bobowik
PhD student
kbobowik [at] student [dot] unimelb [dot] edu [dot] au
Kat’s interests lie at the intersection of human health and genomics. Her current focus is on characterising regulatory variation and selection in traditional populations of Island Southeast Asia.

River Kano
Masters in Biological Sciences
rkano [at] student [dot] unimelb [dot] edu [dot] au
River’s project is centred on exploring the functional means of adaptation to high altitude across multiple human populations worldwide.

Davide Vespasiani
PhD student
dvespasiani [at] student [dot] unimelb [dot] edu [dot] au
Davide is working on understanding how introgression has shaped the genomes of peoples in Island Southeast Asia.

Navya Shukla
Undergraduate researcher

Akihito Tomida
Research assistant

Nicolas Brucato
Visiting postdoctoral research fellow

Co-supervised students:

Laura Coop – PhD student, Pask lab. Current project: deciphering the mechanisms of convergent evolution between the thylacine and the wolf.
Ashlee Hutchinson – PhD student, Pask lab. Current project: establishing marsupial iPSC lines
Sabrina Islam – PhD student, Wells laboratory/Centre for Stem Cell Systems.
William Walters – Masters in Bioinformatics, Pask lab. Current project: a comparison of pluripotent cells across therian and marsupial mammals.

Joining the lab:

If you are looking for an honours, masters or PhD position, email me in the first instance, and we can chat to see if there’s any suitable positions available. You should also read through our lab guidelines document to get a feel for the lab and whether it is the right environment for you.

Past members:

María Miguel Matorra
Undergraduate researcher
Currently an MSc student at the Universidad de Salamanca

Anna Orteu
Research student.
Currently a PhD student with Chris Jiggins at the University of Cambridge.

Pallavi Srivastava
Project officer/lab manager.
Currently a PhD student at the University of Sydney.

Ng Yan Ting
Project officer.
Currently a researcher at Temasek Laboratories in Singapore.

Leo Han Yun Sylvia
Final Year Project Undergraduate researcher.
Currently a PhD student at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Tan Wen Ting
Final Year Project Undergraduate researcher.
Currently a research assistant at A*STAR, Singapore.

Phua Zi Jin Cheryl
Undergraduate URECA researcher.
Currently an undergraduate at NTU, Singapore.

Nguyen Thuan Tihn Sophia
CN Yang undergraduate scholar
Currently an undergraduate at NTU, Singapore.