Keynote Speakers

We are pleased to announce that we have 3 confirmed keynote speakers, one for each day:

Ewan Birney

Ewan Birney is the Deputy Director General of EMBL. He is also Director of EMBL-EBI, and runs a small research group. Ewan completed his PhD at the Wellcome Sanger Institute with Richard Durbin. In 2000, he became Head of Nucleotide data at EMBL-EBI and in 2012 he took on the role of Associate Director at the institute. He became Director of EMBL-EBI in 2015. In 2020, Ewan became the Deputy Director General of EMBL. In this role, he assists the EMBL Director General in relation to engagement with EMBL Member States and external representation. Ewan led the analysis of the Human Genome gene set, mouse and chicken genomes and the ENCODE project, focusing on non-coding elements of the human genome. Ewan’s main areas of research include functional genomics, DNA algorithms, statistical methods to analyse genomic information (in particular information associated with individual differences in humans and Medaka fish) and use of images for chromatin structure.

Lara Urban

Lara is Principal Investigator at the Helmholtz AI Institute and the Technical University of Munich and member of the German governmental One Health council; from 2025 onwards she will contribute to building the new One Health Institute as professor at the University of Zurich. Lara’s research focuses on real-time genomic technology and data analysis to better understand One Health, i.e. health at the intersection of the health of organisms and ecosystems. Previously, Lara did her PhD in Cambridge, at the University of Cambridge and as predoctoral fellow at EMBL-EBI, then moved as independent research fellow to New Zealand to work closely with the national Department of Conservation, and then returned to Europe in 2022 to receive the award as German Young Scientist of the Year and start her own research group.

Thulani P. Makhalanyane

Thulani is a Full Professor in the Department of Microbiology and The School for Data Science and Computational Thinking at Stellenbosch University (SU). He graduated from the University of the Western Cape, where he completed his postgraduate training (MSc cum laude, 2009; PhD, 2013). Post-PhD, he moved to the University of Pretoria (UP) in 2013. His research has since focused on understanding the ecology of microbial communities in extreme environments. These habitats include soil microbial communities in the Antarctic Dry Valleys, the Namib Desert, and the human gut microbiome, with an increasing focus on South African geographically strategic regions such as the Southern Ocean. Thulani serves on leading editorial boards within his discipline, including as Senior Editor at mSystems, and was recently appointed Editor-in-Chief (Reviews and Perspectives) for the ISME Journal. In 2018 he was elected to the International Board of the ISME and was appointed Director of the ISME Ambassador Program, promoting outreach in over 100 countries. Since 2019, he has served as a member of the NRF Basic and Applied Microbiology Ratings Specialist Committee and was appointed Convener in 2022. In 2023, he was elected to the Academy of Sciences of South Africa (ASSAF).

Dawn Field Awardee

The ‘Dawn Field Award for Outstanding Contributions to Genomic Standards’ annual award, established in 2022, is to recognize achievements of early-career researchers for their significant contributions to the field of genomic standards. The award honors Dr. Dawn Field (1969-2020) the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) founder and a pioneer in the field of genomic standards. Nominations are made by GSC Board members. Awardees will present their research at the annual GSC meeting. Dr. Dawn Field established the GSC consortium in 2005, building a community of researchers committed to building and implementing genomic metadata standards to make data discoverable and reusable.

Presenting the 2025 winner

Yet to be decided - if you have nominations please contact a GSC board member.

Previous ‘Dawn Field Award for Outstanding Contributions to Genomic Standards’ Awardees:

2022 *Raïssa Meyer at the Alfred Wegener Institute for her work on the The Omic Biodiversity Observation Network.

2023 Montana Smith at PNNL for her work on standards for the quantitative stable isotope probing (qSIP) genomics.

2024 Savvas Paragkamian at University of Crete for his contributions to the analysis of the GSC’s 1st Island Sampling day data (see GSC’s ISD GitHub) .

About Genomic Standards Consortium