Lo Bueno, lo malo, lo feo (y lo bonito) by Sandra L. Ament-Velásquez

01 Sep 2016 . category: Students . Comments
#Students #LBLMLFLB

Sandra, aka Lore —apparently I am the only person in this world who calls her Sandra— came to the lab in the summer of 2013. At that point in time she was a MEME student. She worked with me on the molecular systematics of eastern Pacific octocorals. We had several individuals currently classified within the genus Leptogorgia that grouped inside the genus Pacifigorgia or somewhere else in the phylogeny and Sandra invested her summer in Munich sequencing the 28S rDNA of a bunch of samples to see if the phylogeny based on nuclear markers provided the same information or was not congruent with the mitochondrial DNA.

She successeded on her task and managed to write a nice manuscript on the topic; the manuscript was published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution in 2016 and can be found here.

Sandra is now in Uppsala at the Dept. of Organismal Biology working on the evolutionary genomics of meiotic drive in Fungy for her PhD. More on Sandra can be found here. You can also follow here on twitter, just look for @LoreAment.

Below her feedback on her time in the lab:

I did a semester-long research project in the Molecular Geo- & Palaeobiology Lab, as part of my time in the Erasmus Mundus Master Programme in Evolutionary Biology (MEME). The project focused on the phylogeny of a group of octocorals from the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

Lo bueno:

From the beginning the research group was very kind and positive. Sergio was patient and fun to work-with. I had good guidance throughout the project and even after I finished my time in Munich, we managed to get a publication from our results. To me, the process of writing what became my first paper was actually the most valuable experience.

Lo malo:

The only thing I can think of that wasn’t that great in the lab is perhaps a lack of interaction with the other members of the group, partially my fault because I do not speak German. Everyone was very nice, but I think I interacted less that I could have. Maybe some journal clubs and such would be welcomed?

Lo feo:

I cannot think of anything :P

Lo bonito: Ese acuario con coralitos ¡qué preciosura!

Note: I originally had only Lo Bueno, lo malo y lo feo (like in The Good, the bad and the uggly). Lo Bonito is Sandra’s invention, and I am keeping it.

---