Summary
Professor Vincent Savolainen is the Director of the Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment, a College initiative that brings together a multi-disciplinary group of researchers to tackle some of the greatest environmental challenges. Professor Savolainen was Deputy Head of the Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park Campus) between 2013 and 2016. Before joining Imperial College in 2007, he spent nine years as Deputy Head of Molecular Systematics at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Professor Savolainen is a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology. In 2006, he was awarded the Linnean Society’s Bicentenary Medal. In 2008, he was awarded a European Research Council Advanced Grant, and the following year a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. In 2014, he was elected a Member of EMBO, and was awarded the Coincy Medal for Botany. In 2015, he was listed in Reuters World's Most Influential Scientific Minds for publishing some of the greatest numbers of highly cited papers in plant and animal science during 2003-2013. Professor Savolainen sits on various panels and advisory committees, including the UK Natural Environment Research Council Peer Review College and the Royal Society International Committees.
His group combines field ecology, molecular phylogenetics, and population genomic approaches to key societal challenges, from explaining the origin of biodiversity to finding solutions for its preservation in a rapidly changing world. Recent research also tackles sexual behaviour in animals and assortment in humans.
Current group members:
Matthew Coathup
Ewan Flintham
TBC (iCASE PhD studentship with Unilever start Oct 2019)
Dr Alba Herraiz
Publications
Journals
Savolainen V, Coathup M, Speciation: how predictable is genome evolution?, Elife, ISSN:2050-084X
Savolainen V, Ecological speciation in sympatric palms: 4. Demographic analyses support speciation of Howea in the face of high gene flow, Evolution, ISSN:0014-3820
Savolainen V, Ecological speciation in sympatric palms: 3. Genetic map reveals genomic islands underlying species divergence in Howea, Evolution, ISSN:0014-3820
Osborne OG, Ciezarek A, Wilson T, et al., Speciation in Howea palms occurred in sympatry, was preceded by ancestral admixture, and was associated with edaphic and phenological adaptation, Molecular Biology and Evolution, ISSN:1537-1719
Ciezarek AG, Osborne OG, Shipley ON, et al., 2019, Phylotranscriptomic Insights into the Diversification of Endothermic Thunnus Tunas, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Vol:36, ISSN:0737-4038, Pages:84-96