SORTEE member voices – Lauren White
[SORTEE member voices is a weekly Q&A with a different SORTEE member]
Name: Dr Lauren C White.
Date: 10 July 2021.
Position: Post-doctoral researcher.
Research and/or work interests: My work primarily uses genetic data gathered from wild animal populations to address fundamental questions on how natural selection shapes life and practical questions of how we can conserve it. My most recent project focuses on chimpanzee kinship dynamics and uses genomic data to estimate pairwise relatedness across an entire community of wild chimpanzees. This dataset allows me to examine age-specific changes in local relatedness in chimpanzees, which has implications for the evolution of menopause and inbreeding avoidance. I also work closely with conservation practitioners to answer questions that guide management of threatened species. This work has ranged from improving the genetic fingerprinting methods used to monitor population size of the northern hairy-nosed wombat, to assessing genetic diversity to guide gene-swaps and reintroductions of numerous species such as the greater stick-nest rat. Finally, my research also frequently involves methods development, as I often make use of sub-optimal genetic samples (ancient DNA, museum specimens, feces, hair and feathers), which are usually easier and more ethical to collect, but which require unique analytical treatments.
