2025
Postgraduate Retreat
The biennial Postgraduate Retreat featured guest speakers Prof. Lisa Matisoo-Smith (Anatomy), who spoke about her career journey, Dr. Charlotte King (Anatomy), sharing her early career in academia experience and Dr. Tom Brew (Pacific Edge, Otago PhD 2021) who gave an insight into the transition from PhD to industry. Participants also had the opportunity to participate in networking activities and provide feedback on future events.
Date: Monday, 8th September 2025
Time: 9:00 am – 1:30 pm
Venue: Galaxy Study Room, Arana College
Organising Committee: Milly Morice, Janaki Ghatane, Rebecca Oliver
eDNA Mini-Symposium
The eDNA Hub’s first Mini-Symposium, followed by an Alternative Careers Panel. This event provided an opportunity for staff and students involved in eDNA at Otago to connect, share ideas, and explore career options in a relaxed and informal setting.
Date: Monday, 28th July 2025
Time: 1:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Venue: Hunter Centre, Room 1.20
Organising Committee: Clare Adams, Phoebe Chapman, Allison Miller, Rebecca Oliver
Sponsor:
eDNA Metagenomics Workshop
Genetics Otago’s, eDNA and ONT hubs ran a workshop for members with Oxford Nanopore reps on the computational analysis of eDNA data.
Date: Tuesday, 13th May 2025
Time: 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Venue: Hunter Centre, Room G07
Organising Committee: Rebecca Oliver, Clare Adams, Augustine Chen, Phoebe Chapman, Allison Miller
Facilitators: Mike Yarski and Andre Sim (Oxford Nanopore Technologies)
SENTINEL Workshop
Genetics Otago’s, CRISPR and eDNA hubs ran a SENTINEL workshop for postgraduate students, which aimed to provide hands-on insight on CRISPR-based environmental biosurveillance integrated with Artificial Intelligence for the detection of environmental DNA.
Date: Thursday, 1st May 2025
Time: 9:00 am – 2:00 pm
Venue: St David Seminar room F 1.02
Organising Committee: Rebecca Oliver, Ben Durán-Vinet, Tyler McInnes
Facilitators: Gracie Kroos (environmental DNA) and Ben Durán-Vinet (CRISPR biosurveillance)
Programme: SENTINEL workshop Flyer
Sponsor:
AlphaFold for Geneticists
The AlphaFold for Geneticists workshop introduced participants to the AI tool AlphaFold. Attendees learnt how to run AlphaFold on their chosen variant and interpret outputted results. Led by experts Prof Peter Mace and Dr Adam Middleton, the session provided insight into the strengths and limitations of AlphaFold.
Date: Monday, 24th March 2025
Time: 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Venue: St David Seminar Room F (1.02)
Organising Committee: Rebecca Oliver, Ben Halliday, George Wiggins, Peter Mace, Adam Middleton
GO Symposium
The Genetics Otago Symposium once again highlighted the fantastic research being done by GO members from around the country through presentations, posters and awards.
Date: 20th February 2025
Time: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Venue: Biochemistry G13 and St David Lecture Theatre Complex, and via Zoom
Organising Committee: Rebecca Oliver, Louise Bicknell, Logan Walker, Megan Leask and Micheal Knapp
Award Winners:
Genetics Otago Prize: Martin Kennedy
Student Supervisor Award: Paul Gardner
ECR Publication Award: Victoria Sugrue
Poster Award: Meghan Mulligan
Runner-up Poster Award: Apeksha Bhandarkar
Science Communication Award: Victoria Sugrue