Dissertatione conscripta et publice defensa

We’ve just celebrated another successful PhD defense in our lab! Katarzyna Burda defended her thesis, “Determinants of Genetic Load in Natural Populations of Guppies.” In her work, she directly estimated mutation rates, validated machine learning approaches for these analyses, and investigated genetic load in wild guppy populations from Trinidad and Tobago.

Katarzyna joined our group in 2019, coming from Jagiellonian University. Over the years, she’s developed a strong interest in bioinformatics and evolutionary genomics—while never shying away from fieldwork or time at the bench. Her diverse skill set and dedication have led to some exciting findings and, ultimately, a well-deserved defense.

After all her hard work, we celebrated the occasion in our usual style—together with the reviewers and other lab members.