My research interests focus on the ecological and evolutionary significance of polyploid (as well as Whole Genome Duplication, WGD). There is a large body of literature depicting the functional and evolutionary innovation and potential conferred by WGD, while some report that WGD could be detrimental and deadly. The debate of the ecological and evolutionary significance of polyploidy suggests that the consequence of being a polyploid largely depends on the ecological condition that the polyploid is inhabiting and coping with. Recent studies show that there is a nonrandom pattern of WGD occurence across the evolutionary timeline of diverse species, for example a recent research elucidated that a wave of successful genome duplications is associated with the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary in the analysis of 41 plant genomes. The association between WGD and massive extinction events (glaciation events, etc.) provides strong evidence that WGD is an important evolutionary force for survival and success, especially in extreme environments. For now, the confirmed association reported in literature is quite limited in taxa sampling and reliability. I'm trying to build a reliable WGD dating system to explore connections between WGD and massive extinction events in more lineages (mainly angiosperms). The commonness of WGD accumulating around the boundary of massive extinction events across the tree of life would be a powerful argument for the selective advantage of WGD in harsh environments.

I did a bachelor in Biochemistry and Biotechnology in Ghent and got increasingly more interested in bioinformatics and the potential thereof. This led me to choose bioinformatics as major for my master, and eventually led me to this PhD position. I am mostly interested in answering fundamental questions about evolution. Especially, I am interested in learning how present genomes came to be and how they evolved through time. Genomes are impressively complex and diverse, and this intrigues me. Specifically, I study the role of Whole Genome Duplications (WGDs) in the establishment of complex genomes. For this, I mostly focus on duckweed as model system. My PhD position is a bit different from a conventional PhD. Besides my research project, I will also focus on some side projects such as maintaining this site. Because of that, my PhD will be longer.