posted on 2019-09-24, 02:57authored byTammy Steeves, Roger Moraga
Speaker Bio(s):
Roger Moraga graduated from the Autonomous University of Madrid with a degree in Molecular Biology, and entered the world of Bioinformatics through the side door with a Masters. He has been working with High-Throughput sequencing data for more than a decade, and nowadays spends most of his time assembling, reassembling, and playing with the genomes of endangered New Zealand species.
Tammy Steeves: My research interests focus on the ecological and evolutionary processes that contribute to the formation and maintenance of species boundaries, and the application of this knowledge to enhance the recovery of species at risk. I co-lead the Conservation, Systematics and Evolution Research Team (ConSERT) at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha/University of Canterbury. In partnership with relevant Māori (indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand) tribes (iwi or hapū) and in collaboration with conservation practitioners, we use genomic and non-genomic data to co-develop conservation genetic management strategies for some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s rarest taonga (treasured) species.