Mid-April, Freya Steinhagen started her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Cosimo Posth at the Leibniz ScienceCampus „Geogenomic Archaeology Campus Tübingen (GACT)“ During her Master’s studies in Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology at the Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, she ventured into Population Genomics and Metagenomics. Her research focuses on metagenomic analysis of ancient and environmental DNA.
Her research interests can be characterised by a fascination for interactions — whether among human groups in population genomics, the relationship between humans and their microbiome, and overall the interplay of organisms they come in contact with. In her PhD, she will explore the impact of human populations on the diversity of their surrounding ecosystem, especially on different mammalian cave communities. Her work will involve generating new genomic data, conducting bioinformatical analysis, and developing new capture panels for the taxa in question.