Rafael Morales is a 4th year student of the Biology Bachelor in Madrid (Complutense University). He´s in Helsinki for a full year with an Erasmus program grant with the typical motivation of seeing the world and having a great experience here (as well as improving his English level!). His background is mostly focused on genetics, genomics, and microbiology but with some experience in other fields of Biology.
Rose Thorogood´s group (Information ecology and coevolution) will host Rafael where he will collaborate with Katja Rönkä and Nora Bergman in their ongoing research about the structure of reed warbler populations across Europe. Using multiple bioinformatics approaches the aim is to infer the structure of such populations at the genetics/genomics level, comparing SNPs to calculate genetic distances between individuals.
Rafael contacted Rose´s group because he was looking for an internship different to what he was used to and could give him some insight in other fields of Biology. Rafael is eager to learn the tools used by the group and their way of doing science in a welcoming and guiding research environment.