Biosystematics, informatics and genomics of the big 4 insect groups: training tomorrow's researchers and entrepreneurs

Hamid Reza Ghanavi

Hamid’s PhD thesis is focused on "The evolutionary history of Lepidoptera". He works in Lund University, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Niklas Wahlberg on developing a robust phylogeny of all Lepidoptera including rare lineages and specially focusing on presenting a timeframe for the evolutionary processes which shaped the actual phylogenetic relationships among this interesting group.
 
Hamid is a world citizen who was born in Iran and travelled around some years ending up in Spain, where he studied to obtain his BSc and MSc both from the Complutense University of Madrid. He started to get in touch with research early by collaborating with the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department on different lines but mainly working on Marine fish genetics and phylogeny. He started to collaborate with the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid to work on his BSc thesis which was focused on the population genetics of an endangered Spanish killifish, Aphanius iberus, studying different wild and captive populations. He continued to collaborate in the museum working on freshwater fishes of his homeland, Iran, where he organized many expeditions to study and sample the fauna there. For his MSc he studied a cyprinid genus from Middle East, Capoeta, working on the phylogenetic and phylogeography of the genus mainly in Iran. Working in the museum permitted him to learn from other research lines and get experience from a wide range of different approaches to study evolutionary processes in different organisms. His academic interests involve evolutionary questions in different branches as Entomology, Ichthyology, Anthropology and ……
 
Apart from academic world, Hamid is also a photographer and a traveller, who is interested in Philosophy, languages and different cultures and societies. He speaks Persian, French, Spanish and English, and wants to learn much more, maybe starting with Swedish and/or Japanese! Reading a good book, fishing, going into nature, sailing, some bungee jumping, diving and surfing are among things he really hate! (He is addicted to sarcasm).

Read more about Hamid's project: "The evolutionary history of Lepidoptera"

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