Student projects

The Globe Institute currently offers the following projects for BSc and MSc students. If you are interested in any of the projects please contact the supervisor directly:

Ancient genomics and proteomics

Haplogroup assignment from low-coverage sequencing data, find more details here (Supervisor: Thorfinn Sand Korneliussen)
Dragging DNA from Ivory and Worked Bone (Supervisor: Matthew Collins)
Ancient DNA and the evolution of the oral microbiome (Supervisor: Hannes Schroeder)
Identifying parasite DNA from metagenomic datasets (Supervisor: Hannes Schroeder)
Simulating the effect of demography on natural selection (Supervisor: Shyam Gopalakrishnan)
Sex determination of cremated archaeological human teeth (Supervisor: Enrico Cappellini )
Proteomic analysis of palaeosoils (Supervisor: Enrico Cappellini )
Proteomic analysis of airborne protein residues (Supervisor: Enrico Cappellini )
Palaeogenomics of lost populations of bowhead whales (Supervisors: Eline Lorenzen)

Computational Biodiscovery

Comparative genomics of the microbial unknown coding sequence space (Supervisor: Antonio Fernandez Guerra)
Biosynthetic Gene Clusters in the unknown coding sequence space (Supervisor: Antonio Fernandez Guerra)
Phage discovery from modern and ancient metagenomic samples (Supervisor: Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén)
Machine learning based prediction of bacterial virus host ranges (Supervisor: Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén)
Bacteriophage protein function prediction (Supervisor: Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén)
Identification of phage Anti-CRISPR proteins (Supervisor: Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén)
Lytic vs lysogenic lifestyle predictions (Supervisor: Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén)
Feature engineering for machine learning of microbial and viral genomes (Supervisor: Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén)
Comparative phylogeny of phages and their hosts (Supervisor: Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén)
Prediction of venom proteins from scorpion, snake, spider and snail NGS data (Supervisor: Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén)

Conservation and biodiversity

Island biogeography of extinct and extant frugivores of the Caribbean (Supervisor: Bo Dalsgaard)
Effects of disturbance on the pollination of endangered plants in the Anegada, Caribbean (Supervisor: Bo Dalsgaard)
Good shit and bad shit – biodiversity in dung in relation to grazing regimes (Supervisor: Jacob Heilmann-Clausen)
Tree regeneration patterns and biodiversity in the gradient from forest to open land (Supervisor: Jacob Heilmann-Clausen)
Effects of restored hydrology on biodiversity and habitat structure (Supervisor: Jacob Heilmann-Clausen)
Citizen science as tool in conservation biology (Supervisor: Jacob Heilmann-Clausen)
How many species? Estimating total biodiversity of rarely studies groups (Supervisor: Tobias Frøslev)
Man vs machine: Validating biodiversity patterns from environmental DNA with other methods (Supervisor: Tobias Frøslev)
Sources of variability in biodiversity assessment with environmental DNA (Supervisor: Tobias Frøslev)

Macroecology and Environmental DNA

Ancient environmental DNA from sediments (Supervisor: Mikkel Winther Pedersen)
Nectar feeding on Mauritius (Supervisor: Michael Krabbe Borregaard)
Preservation of DNA on mineral surfaces across time and space (Supervisor: Karina Karup Sand)
Tracking vector-borne diseases with (e)DNA-methods (Supervisors: Anna-Sofie Stensgaard and Christina Islas Lynggaard)
Frugivory and nectar-feeding in the Caribbean (Supervisor: Bo Dalsgaard)
Apple pollination studies in Denmark (Supervisor: Bo Dalsgaard)
Consequences of extinctions of fruit-eating birds, mammals and reptiles in island communities (Supervisors: Julia Heinen and Michael Borregaard)
Machine learning in forensic analyses of Environmental DNA (Supervisor: Tobias Guldberg Frøslev).
Soil biodiversity patterns from Environmental DNA (Supervisor: Tobias Guldberg Frøslev)
Trait-evolution in macrofungi (Supervisor: Jacob Heilmann-Clausen)
Changes and patterns in fungal biodiversity in Denmark and Europe (Supervisor: Jacob Heilmann-Clausen)
Fungi and their ecological networks with plants and animals (Supervisor: Jacob Heilmann-Clausen)

Hologenomics and microbial metagenomics

Investigating the interaction between the temperature, gut microbiota and animal behaviour (Supervisor: Ostaizka Aizpurua)
Fecal microbiome transplantation to induce behavioural changes in mice (Supervisor: Ostaizka Aizpurua)
Global spatial patterns of gut microbiome variability across vertebrates (Supervisor: Antton Alberdi).
Relationship between the gut microbiome and allometric features of vertebrates (Supervisor: Antton Alberdi)
Modeling gut microbiome variation across vertebrate phylogeny (Supervisor: Antton Alberdi)
Recovering ancient microbes from the environment (Supervisor: Antonio Fernandez Guerra)
New methods for evaluating contamination in metagenome-assembled genomes (Supervisor:
Antonio Fernandez Guerra)

Earth System Sciences

Atmospheric and oceanic O₂ levels through Earth history (Supervisor: Tais Wittchen Dahl)
Dynamics of Paleozoic climate events and biotic crises (Supervisor: Tais Wittchen Dahl)
Prospects of Geoengineering as mitigation strategy to combat climate change (Supervisor: Tais Wittchen Dahl)
Preservation of ancient DNA in arctic marine sediments (Supervisor: Karina Karup Sand)
Mineral facilitated evolution of life (Supervisor: Karina Karup Sand)
Propagation of antibiotic resistance genes in the environment (Supervisor: Karina Karup Sand)

Solar System evolution

Absolute chronology of the first solar system solids (Supervisor: James Connelly)
Formation and evolution of planetary building blocks (Supervisor: Martin Bizzarro)
Probing the early habitability of Mars using the oldest planetary minerals (Supervisor: Martin Bizzarro)
Tracking magmatic processes on asteroids using isotopes (Supervisor: Martin Schiller)
Isotope fingerprinting of the Cretaceous-Tertiary impact event (Supervisor: Martin Schiller)
Using non-kinetic isotope effects to reconstruct paleo-environments on Earth (Supervisor: Martin Schiller)
Exploring Gale crater on Mars with the NASA Curiosity rover (Supervisor: Jens Frydenvang)