Biography

Fiona Whelan joined the McInerney research group in October 2017 as a BBSRC-funded Post-Doctoral Research Associate before starting a Marie Skłowska-Curie Individual Fellowship in 2018. Fiona completed her MSc and PhD degrees in her native Hamilton, Ontario, Canada where she used her background in bioinformatics to generate testable, biological hypotheses. Specifically, Fiona studied the evolution of an eukaryotic protein family important for innate immune defense under the guidance of Dr. Dawn Bowdish. Fiona’s PhD in Dr. Michael Surette’s lab focused on understanding the contribution of the human microbiome to cystic fibrosis disease and respiratory infections in the elderly. Although she will miss the hop between the lab bench and the computer, Fiona joined the McInerney research group in order to hone her bioinformatic skills and love of bacterial DNA sequencing data by studying patterns of sequence sharing in prokaryotes.