Associate Chair and Professor of Genetics and Epigenetics, University of Wisconsin-Madison Hasan Khatib is a professor of genetics and epigenetics. He earned his BS in Biology, MS in Human Genetics, and Ph.D.in Genetics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Afterward, he worked in the Department of Genetics at the Hebrew University as a post-doctoral fellow and as a research scientist. Dr. Khatib currently has over 100 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of embryonic development, male fertility, production traits, epigenetics, and nutritional epigenetics. His papers have appeared in the BMC Genomics, PloS one, Science, Genome Research, Animal Genetics, Journal of Dairy Science, Journal of Animal Science, Mammalian Genome, Epigenetics and other journals. His research focuses on understanding the contributions of epigenetics to production, reproduction, and health traits. More specifically, his research examines the transgenerational epigenetic effects of paternal and maternal nutrition on phenotypes of the next generations in livestock. His group recently demonstrated that DNA methylation patterns in the sperm were affected by a paternal diet and were transgenerationally inherited by subsequent generations in sheep. He is also interested in identifying epigenetic markers as predictors of embryo development and fertility using non-invasive methods. Research methods used in his lab include embryo production, transcriptomics, whole-genome bisulfite sequencing, cell culture, gene editing, and epigenome editing. Dr. Khatib is the editor of the books “Livestock Epigenetics” and “Molecular and Quantitative Animal Genetics.
PhD candidate in literary studies, The University of Western Australia Heather Blakey is a scholar and writer in literary studies at the University of Western Australia. Her work examines intersections between technology, intimacy, and the environment in video games, literature, and virtual worlds. She is presently completing her doctoral thesis in literary studies. Heather has published scholarship on intimacy and aesthetics in video games, original poetry, and written arts coverage for various Australian media outlets. Heather co-hosts the game studies podcast Meaningful Play.
Senior Lecturer of Particle Physics, Lancaster University I am member of the ATLAS collaboration at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. I am interested in the newly discovered Higgs boson, investigating whether it contributes to the difference between matter and anti-matter and using it as a portal to investigate new physics beyond the Standard Model. I am also interested in outreach for schools, working on our particle physics simulation http://lppp.lancs.ac.uk . In addition I am looking into options to harness the highly penetrative power of muons for applications beyond particle physics. For future detectors I am also interested in silicon sensors.
Senior Lecturer in Child Psychiatry and Paediatrics, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau My research interests include psychological problems experienced by children and young people with long-term physical conditions (chronic illness), eating disorders, autism spectrum disorders, COVID-19 related childhood mental health and the use of technology to improve the mental health of children and young people.
