Former postdoctoral researcher to return to Salford on prestigious fellowship
A former Salford postdoctoral researcher is to return after being awarded a prestigious Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowship.
Dr Chrysoula Gubili, who is currently leading a research group at the Fisheries Research Institution in Kavala, Greece, will perform a 12 month sabbatical at Salford working on an ambitious project titled ‘Batoidea evolution through time and reproduction’.
Working with a number of international colleagues, Dr Gubili will be leading the first attempt to build a comprehensive phylogeny of Batoidea (rays and skates) using whole genome sequencing.
Chiara Benvenuto, a Reader in Behavioural Ecology at Salford who will also be working on the project, said: “I am very excited for this project! The network of elasmobranch researchers joining us is impressive.
“Internally, I would like to thank Dr Romina Batista for useful comments on the proposal when we wrote it, the fantastic Vera Barron and Agnieszka Marczuk-Dupim for their help during the submission process and Jono Guildford and Maciej Bialowas for their support with the administrative paperwork.”
“Dr Chrysoula Gubili, Dr Robin Beck and myself will also co-supervise a PhD student, Lucy Irwin, who has just secured one of our internally funded positions.”
Image: Dr Chrysoula Gubili
Dr Gubili is one of 14 awardees to receive the 2023 fellowship. The Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellowships offer international researchers funding to take on a flexible sabbatical period at a UK university or research institution and enable them to build and develop international collaborations and networks.
The fellowship amounts to approximately £122,000 and will result in important data to evaluate the state of ray and skate populations, as almost one third of the species faces extinction due to overfishing and marine pollution.
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