Spela Goricki

I obtained my doctoral degree in 2006 at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, on phylogeographic and taxonomic studies of the European blind cave salamander, or the olm, Proteus anguinus. From 2007 to 2012 I was a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. William Jeffery’s lab at the University of Maryland, investigating eye degeneration of the Mexican blind cavefish Astyanax mexicanus. In 2009 I became interested in regeneration of pigmented organs in the oral siphon of the sea squirt Ciona intestinalis. The studies of molecular mechanisms of siphon regeneration, which I was conducting at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA were designed to establish Ciona as a model for studying regeneration in non-vertebrate chordates. In recent years I have been involved in the development of the methodology to search for cave fauna in karst groundwater through detection of their DNA in water samples collected from springs, wells or caves (environmental DNA). At home, I'm raising seven ducks.

October 2016