Emmanuel F.A. TOUSSAINT (Principal Investigator)
I received my PhD from the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich in 2014. After two postdocs respectively at the University of Kansas and at the University of Florida, I joined the Natural History Museum of Geneva in 2019. My research focuses on the systematics, population genomics, phylogeography, phylogenomics, biogeography and macroevolution of beetles (sometimes other insect groups). I am also the curator for Coleoptera, Diptera and Lepidoptera at the MHNG. Click here for a curriculum vitæ.
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Cody Raul CARDENAS (Ph.D. Student)
Cody started his Ph.D. in 2022 to work on the evolutionary history of the beetle genus Calosoma. He uses UCE loci to infer a comprehensive phylogeny of the group. Based on this phylogenomic framework, he studies the evolution of wing loss and investigates diversification dynamics of these beetles using model-based approaches. He is also looking at the genomic architecture of wing loss in Calosoma and is generating phylogenomic trees for other ground and tiger beetle lineages.
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Agata KOWALIK (M.Sc. Student)
Agata started her M.Sc. dissertation in 2024 and is currently working on the systematics, phylogenomics and biogeographic history of the tiger beetle genus Therates. She uses UCE loci to infer a robust phylogeny of this Southeast Asian lineage. Based on this phylogenomic framework, she will study the evolution of Therates tiger beetles in this geologically intricate archipelago using a combination of molecular chronograms and paleogeographic models.
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FORMER LAB MEMBERS
Jérémy GAUTHIER (Post-doc).
Jérémy started his post-doc in 2023. He was in charge of generating, curating and annotating high-quality genomes for several lineages of beetles and analyzing datasets focusing on hybridization and diversification of ground and tiger beetles at different evolutionary scales. His project sheds new light on wing evolution at the genomic level. Jérémy finished his contract in July 2025 but continues to work closely with us on multiple genomic projects from Lausanne !
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Matilde NARI (M.Sc. Student)
Matilde did an 8-week pre-internship with us in February 2024 to work on a pilot project focusing on long-read sequencing of non-model ground beetles using Nanopore technologies. She performed experiments with our new MinION MK1C in the lab and analyzed genomic data for one species using an archived frozen specimen. Her work has been important to setup a new pipeline for in-house genome sequencing. Matilde successfully defended her pre-internship thesis in 2024 !
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Marie PAULI (M.Sc. Student)
Marie started her M.Sc. dissertation in 2021 and worked on a phylogeographic study of Carabus (section Arcifera) beetles from Western and Central Europe with a strong focus on the alpine species in the subgenus Carabus (Platycarabus). She used the HyRAD-X method to build a robust genomic dataset to understand the species boundaries and evolutionary history of these beetles. Marie obtained her M.Sc. in 2023 with a great dissertation!
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Leonardo PLATANIA (visiting Ph.D. Student)
Leonardo was a PhD student from the Gomez-Zurita Lab who visited our lab in the fall and winter 2021. He worked on a systematic study of Eumolpinae leaf beetles with a focus on their historical biogeography in the Pacific Islands. He used a molecular phylogeny of the subfamily to tackle important questions relative to the submergence of New Caledonia and the directionality of colonization events in this region. Leonardo obtained his PhD in 2023 with cum laude !
The Toussaint Lab 