Anusuiya Bora
Anusuiya Bora is a PhD candidate at Burnet Institute and Deakin University. She completed her Bachelor of Technology in Biotechnology from Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India, in August 2022. During her Bachelor’s final year project, she collaborated with Dr. Mark Ziemann on the project titled “Testing the reproducibility and rigour of published functional enrichment studies.” This pilot study revealed significant issues affecting published studies using pathway enrichment analysis, with only 20% meeting acceptable reproducibility standards. This finding spiked her interest in expanding the project further. Following her Bachelor’s degree, Anusuiya pursued a Master of Science in Precision Medicine at University College Dublin, Ireland, where she was honored with the 100% Global Excellence Scholarship. She graduated with her Master’s degree in August 2023 and subsequently joined the Ziemann group as a PhD student in October 2023. Her current PhD project is titled “On the reproducibility of functional enrichment analysis,” focusing on improving methodologies and potentially developing tools to enhance reproducibility standards in biomedical research. Beyond her academic pursuits, Anusuiya enjoys visiting different beaches, going for drives, and refining her culinary skills through cooking. She is focusing on maintaining a healthy lifestyle and improving her fitness throughout this year. Throughout her PhD journey, she aims to strengthen her technical and communication skills while growing her network with fellow researchers. Anusuiya welcomes connections via email or LinkedIn to discuss her research or share insights from her PhD experience.
👩💻 GitHub
📩 s222331482@deakin.edu.au | anusuiya.bora@hotmail.com
Jonathan Salazar
Jonathan is a Bachelor of Biomedical Science Graduating in 2023, majoring in Molecular Life Sciences, at Deakin University. In February 2024, Jonathan joined the Ziemann lab group at the Burnet Institute to complete an Honours project focusing on critical evaluation of the reliability of single-cell RNA-sequencing enrichment analysis reliability. Jonathan is passionate about bioinformatics for its transformative potential in uncovering disease mechanisms, and he aims to contribute to progress in this field. After completing his Honours project in November 2024, Jonathan plans to seek research assistant roles in bioinformatics and biotechnology, while pursuing further studies through a Masters or PhD program. In his free time, Jonathan enjoys travelling, playing golf, and listening to science and tech podcasts.
👨💻 GitHub
📩 jonathan.salazar@student.burnet.edu.au | jonsalaz@outlook.com
Megan Soria
Megan earned her Bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering in 2015 from the Cebu Institute of Technology - University. After working as an engineer in the Philippines, she enrolled in a masters program and joined the group in July 2020 to complete a Masters project. She is investigating the functions of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) through machine learning and data analytics and will be completing her project in November 2021. Megan loves reading, hiking, and bouncing off ideas with friends over a cup of coffee. She is a Study Geelong Ambassador and is part of the Study Melbourne Leadership Labs 4Impact in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2021. Megan believes good science necessitates good communication. So, on top of striving to be a good researcher, she constantly strives to improve her communication skills by writing about her journey as a bioinformatician in her blog.
Links and Contact Info
✍Blog
📩 msoria@deakin.edu.au | megan.m.soria@gmail.com
Kaumadi Wijesooriya
Kaumadi earned her Bachelor of Science in Medical laboratory science in 2016 at University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Under the bachelor’s degree, she completed work-based learning in Hematology, Clinical Biochemistry, Histology, Medical Microbiology, and Immunology. Her undergraduate research study was about anti-obesity effect of indigenous medicines. After 3 years of work as a medical laboratory scientist in health sector, she started her Master’s in Biotechnology and Bioinformatics in Deakin University, Australia in 2019. Currently, she is on her final year research project which is a survey of reporting standards in enrichment analysis. She will complete her master’s at the end of 2021 and looking forward to undertaking PhD in 2022.
Contact
email: mwijesooriya[αt]deakin.edu.au
Mandhri Dushyanthi Abeysooriya
Mandhri earned her Bachelor’s degree in a combination of biotechnology, biochemistry and genetics from Bangalore university, India in year 2017 and her Master’s degree in Biotechnology and Bioinformatics from Deakin university, Australia in 2021. Mandhri joined the Ziemann lab in 2020 to complete her Master’s research project to investigate the effect of Homocysteine on DNA methylation and gene expression. She was able to achieve distinction for her Master’s thesis project and was able to first author a manuscript entitled “Gene Name Errors: Lessons Not Learned”. During her Bachelor’s degree, she was also able to first author another publication related to microbiology under the title “A Study on VRSA Prevalence in Hospital Settings-Bangalore India". After her Bachelor’s she worked as a quality assurance intern in a leading pharmaceutical company in Sri Lanka. She was recently selected to do her PhD at Deakin University after completing her Master’s degree in July 2021 where she will be pursing her further studies in related to epigenetic mechanisms of sex differences in aging. As for leisure time activities, Mandhri likes to play chess and League of Legends (online game). She also enjoys cloud watching and listening to instrumental music.
Links and contact
💼 My CV
⛩️[ Research Gate
🔬 ORCID
👨💻 GitHub
📩 mandhri.abeysooriya[αt]gmail.com
Iulian Ichim
Iulian earned his bachelor’s degree in Medical Engineering in 2019 at the University of Medicine & Pharmacy, Iasi, Romania. After graduation and experimentation in different fields, he returned to my main field and enrolled in a Master’s degree in Bioinformatics at University College Cork, Ireland in 2023. Iulian is currently undertaking a placement in the Ziemann lab to establish new features into the DEE2 project. He is passionate about computer science and the natural sciences. In my spare time, he does boxing, reads, goes on long walks and tries to enjoy nature as much as possible. Being a learner at heart, he is passionate about knowledge from multiple fields and having the opportunity to constantly learn new things. Because of this in the future, he plans to undertake a PhD and focus on research.
👨💻 GitHub
📩 ichim.iulian12 [αt] gmail.com
Kingsley Isaac Ogamanya
Kingsley earned his bachelor degree in biochemistry in 2018 from The Federal University of Technology in Nigeria. Kingsley joined the group in February 2021 to complete a masters project investigating the impacts of genetic variation among inbred mice on experimental findings. During his Bachelor’s degree, Kingsley co-authored a publication on Biochemical and liver histological changes in rats exposed to sub-lethal dose of Uproot-pesticide and the protective potentials of nutritional supplements. Kingsley will be completing his Masters project in November 2021 and will be looking for opportunities to start a PhD project or work as a bioinformatics or biotechnology research assistant in Australia or abroad. Kingsley loves the beach, dogs, and enjoys playing snooker.
Portfolio
Ujowundu CO, Ogamanya KI, Ujowundu FN, Adejoh VO, Iheme CI, Igwe KO. Biochemical and liver histological changes of Wistar albino rats exposed to uproot-pesticide and the protective potentials of nutritional supplements. J Appl Biol Biotech, 2020;8(04):026-032. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.7324/JABB.2020.80404
Contact
📩 isaackingsley85[αt]yahoo.com
Aaron Kovacs
Aaron earned his Bachelor of Biomedical Science with Distinction in 2020 from Deakin University. Aaron joined the group in 2020 to undertake a placement with Mark Ziemann. During this placement, Aaron collaboratively completed a bioinformatics project which involved creating accessible gene signatures for a number of diseases including diabetes, epilepsy, SARS, SARS-CoV-2, MERS and heart disease. In 2021, Aaron began his Honours project investigating the role of epigenetic changes in contributing to phenotypic adaptations in guppies bred for many generations under altered light conditions. Aaron will be completing his Honours in November of 2021 and is interested in undertaking a PhD project in 2022.
Contact
📩 aaron.kovacs71[αt]outlook.com