Siv Andersson new Co-Director for SciLifeLab
Siv Andersson, professor of molecular evolution at Uppsala University, has been appointed Co-Director of SciLifeLab by the SciLifeLab national board. She will start her duties in the SciLifeLab management group by July 1st, when Lena Claesson-Welsh is stepping down from the Co-Director position. Currently, Siv Andersson is Platform Scientific Director at Bioinformatics Long-term Support (WABI) and a SciLifeLab faculty member. Her research focuses on the origins and evolution of bacteria.
“SciLifeLab plays an important role in Swedish research, and I am very excited about the opportunity to contribute to its management and further development”, says Siv Andersson.
Siv Andersson is Professor in Molecular Evolution at Uppsala University and studies the evolution of microbial genomes. “It is a cross-disciplinary research area that spans from genomics and bioinformatics to environmental microbiology and infectious diseases”, says Siv Andersson.
Siv Andersson has extensive managerial experience from her time as Professor at Uppsala University. She was the Head of the Linnaeus Centre for Bioinformatics for three years and the Head of the Department for Evolution, Genomics and Systematics for six years. Since 2000, she is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and since 2005 a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Since 2004, she is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization.
Siv Andersson has been active within SciLifeLab since 2011, when she and Gunnar von Heijne at Stockholm University received a grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation to establish the Wallenberg Advanced Bioinformatics Infrastructure (WABI). She has also been the chairman of the board of the Bioinformatics Infrastructure in Life Science, supported by the Swedish Research Council. These two initiatives have recently been merged into a joint organization at SciLifeLab, called the National Bioinformatics Infrastructure. This unit provides researchers with short and long-term support in bioinformatics. Siv Andersson currently serves as the Co-Director of WABI, and is also a member of the SciLifeLab faculty and affiliates her research with SciLifeLab.
“I have been very fortunate throughout my career, having had access to the latest technologies in genomics and to work with the best bionformaticians in the country. Now, I look forward to work with the Directors and the staff at SciLifeLab to develop these and other enabling technologies further. My vision is that researchers in Sweden should have access to the same technologies and know-how as researchers at the most renowned institutes internationally, and thereby have the same opportunity to perform research at a world-class level”, says Siv Andersson.
