Josephine Solowiej-Wedderburn

Josephine Solowiej-Wedderburn2024-02-01T14:17:20+01:00

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Postdoctoral Fellow.

Environmental influence on the basic building blocks of life.

Takes joy in the little things.

Josephine has joined the IceLab and Department of Mathematics at Umeå on a multidisciplinary postdoctoral fellowship. Under the supervision of Eric Libby, Peter Lind, Ludvig Lizana and Björn Schröder she will be predicting the co-evolutionary trajectories of simple microbial communities.

Josephine’s fascination of life at the cell-scale took a hold during her masters’ in mathematical modelling at the University of Birmingham. Here, she investigated a potential mechanical system for the breaking of left-right symmetry in the embryo of vertebrates. This led Josephine to pursue a PhD in mechanobiology, working under the supervision of Carina Dunlop at the University of Surrey. She used biophysical models for cellular contractility to gain insights into cellular mechanosensation – the ability of a cell to sense (and adapt to) the mechanical properties of its microenvironment – focussing on the role of cell-substrate adhesion patterns. She followed her PhD with a 12-month postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Surrey to couple cell cytoskeletal models to the cell nucleus.

Now at IceLab, Josephine is enjoying the challenge of exploring a different form of life at the cell scale: microbial communities.  In particular, she is using metabolic models to search for environmental conditions conducive to microbial cooperation.

Aside from her fascination of the interactions between cells and their environments, Josephine enjoys swing dancing, hiking and drinking endless cups of tea. She is excited for the Swedish winters and all the magic they hold.

Current Projects

  • Predicting the co-evolutionary trajectories of simple microbial communities (Kempe)

    with Eric Libby (IceLab), Peter Lind (IceLab), Ludvig Lizana (IceLab), Björn Schröder (UmU), Jennifer Pentz

  • Mechanical stress in cohesive cell colonies

    with John-Robert Davis (University of Manchester), Carina Dunlop (University of Surrey), Nicholas Tapon (Francis Crick Institute)

The Latest Posts

Read posts featuring Josephine Solowiej-Wedderburn below

Quit: Book Club Snapshot

Quit: A Book Club Snapshot In ‘Quit’ Annie Duke explores the critical moments when walking away can be more beneficial than sticking it out, highlighting the rewards of quitting and the challenges [...]

Scale: Book Club Snapshot

Scale: a Book Club Snapshot ‘Scale’ looks at different scaling laws throughout living systems, cities and companies. The IceLab book club enjoyed reading this in the autumn term 2023 and all the [...]

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