Elizabeth Williams (Group Leader)
Sophie den Hartog (PhD student)
I completed both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in marine biology at Bangor University. My PhD aims to elucidate the sensory systems guiding marine invertebrate larval settlement. Specifically, the apical organ which acts as a chemo- and mechano-sensory structure and is thought to play a crucial role in larval settlement and metamorphosis. I am particularly interested in Cnidarians, such as the starlet sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. I also enjoy art and design, and in my research I explore new ways to visualise and communicate scientific data. I am describing marine larval sensory structures through electron microscopy, immunostaining and in situ hybridization.
Imran Luqman
(PhD student)
Imran graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Marine Biology from Universiti Malaysia Terengganu and pursued a MSc at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). Prior to starting the MSc, he underwent a 3-month internship at the Nikolai-Pertsov White Sea Biological Station in Russia. There, he dipped his toes into Evo-Devo by analysing the development of the marine annelid Galathowenia oculata using immuno-histochemical and advanced microscopy techniques. At QMUL, he joined the Martin-Duran Lab where he took a deeper dive into the field by studying the gene regulatory networks of body axis regulation of another marine annelid, Owenia fusiformis.
Callum Teeling (PhD Student)
Callum earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Marine Biology at the University of Plymouth. For his Master’s, he studied how the apical sensory organ develops in the sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis, at a molecular level. Now a PhD student with the SWBio DTP programme, Callum’s research focuses on how marine invertebrate larvae respond to microbial biofilms and on the role neuropeptides play in the settlement and metamorphosis of marine annelid and mollusc larvae.
Susanne Vogeler (Postdoctoral Research Fellow)
Susanne completed her PhD at the University of Exeter in 2016 and since then has conducted research focused on ecotoxicology and aquaculture at various universities and institutes in Sweden, Australia, USA, England, Scotland, Japan and Belgium before she returned to Exeter in 2022 to venture into the fascinating world of marine polychaetes.
She has worked with a variety of marine invertebrates including oysters, scallops, clams, mussels, abalone, amphipods, crabs and polychaetes. Susanne is now investigating the neuro-endocrine pathways regulating larval development and sexual maturity in the polychaete Platynereis dumerilii to unravel the secrets of hormone evolution.
Maria Belyaeva (PhD student)
Maria’s background includes an undergraduate and Master’s degree in Cell Biology at the Moscow State University. Now a PhD student in the Marie Curie/UKRI PhD network ‘ZooCELL‘, Maria’s PhD project explored the evolution of sensory systems in polychaete larvae by comparing sensory cell types in the sister species Platynereis dumerilii (pelagic larva) and Platynereis massiliensis (direct development).
