I am a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) in Oslo. I work on genomic surveillance of hepatitis viruses and build open-source bioinformatics pipelines for virus sequencing data. Before joining NIPH in 2020, I spent more than a decade at the University of Oslo studying protist diversity and the evolutionary origin of animals.
Current work
Hepatitis C virus genomicsHCVTyper, an open-source pipeline for HCV genotyping and resistance detection.
Hepatitis A and E virus genomics for the EUWhole-genome sequence analysis in the EU reference laboratory for food- and water-borne viruses.
Hepatitis B virus sequencingNanopore whole-genome sequencing of HBV from clinical samples.
Viral infections and childhood leukemiaSearching for viral agents linked to childhood leukemia.
Reproducible workflows for microbial genomicsLeads the workflows working group in ELIXIR Norway's ELIXIR4 project.
Hepatitis B virus sequencingNanopore whole-genome sequencing of HBV from clinical samples.
Viral infections and childhood leukemiaSearching for viral agents linked to childhood leukemia.
Reproducible workflows for microbial genomicsLeads the workflows working group in ELIXIR Norway's ELIXIR4 project.
Experience
- 2024–present Senior Researcher Department of Virology, Norwegian Institute of Public HealthGenomic surveillance of hepatitis viruses and open-source bioinformatics pipelines.
- 2022–2025 Associate Professor University of Oslo
- 2020–2024 Researcher Norwegian Institute of Public HealthGenome sequencing and analysis of SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- 2020–2021 Senior Lecturer Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo
- 2015–2019 Researcher Department of Biosciences, University of OsloProject leader for a Research Council of Norway Young Research Talent grant on non-coding RNAs and the origin of animals.
- 2012–2015 Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Biosciences, University of OsloPersonal Research Council of Norway grant on non-coding RNAs and the evolution of multicellularity.
- 2008–2012 PhD in Biology University of OsloDiversity and evolution of protists, using environmental sequencing and molecular phylogenetics.
Full CV with grants, teaching and supervision
Expertise
Viral genomics
- Genomic surveillance
- Genomic epidemiology
- Phylogenetics
- Nextstrain and Nextclade
- Antiviral resistance
Sequencing data
- Illumina
- Oxford Nanopore
- Tiling PCR
- Target enrichment
- Metagenomics
- Genome assembly
- RNA-seq and small RNA
Workflows
- Nextflow
- nf-core
- Docker
- Git and GitHub
- HPC and SLURM
Programming
- R and tidyverse
- Python
- Bash
AI
- AI-assisted programming
- AI coding agents
- AI-supported project management
Leadership
- Work package lead
- Grant writing
- Supervision
- Teaching
- PRINCE2
Grants and funding
-
2026
Norwegian Cancer Society
Viral infection during pregnancy and childhood leukemia NOK 8 million -
2025
European Commission
EU Reference Laboratory for food- and water-borne viruses, 2026–2032 €3.25 million -
2023
Research Council of Norway
SICKSOIL: Linking microbes, organic matter and sick soil syndrome €266,000 -
2022
EU4Health
NGS and bioinformatics tools for preparedness against infectious diseases €1 million -
2021
HERA Incubator
Method development and preparedness for future COVID-19 variants €1.8 million -
2017
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Centre for Advanced Study project on evolvability, 2019–2020 -
2014
Research Council of Norway Personal grant
Young Research Talent grant on non-coding RNAs in animal evolution, 2015–2018 €786,000 -
2011
Research Council of Norway Personal grant
Postdoctoral grant on non-coding RNAs and multicellularity, 2012–2015 €408,000
All grants and awards in the CV
Reviewing and evaluation
-
Expert evaluator, European Commission
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Individual Fellowships, 2016–2018 -
Grant reviewer, National Science Centre, Poland
SONATA BIS-13 call, 2023 -
Grant reviewer, Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study, University of California, Berkeley
2019 -
Peer reviewer for 19 journals
Algal Research, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Aquatic Microbial Ecology, BMC Biology, BMC Ecology and Evolution, BMC Genomics, BMC Plant Biology, European Journal of Protistology, Genes, Indian Journal of Geo-Marine Sciences, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, iScience, Journal of Applied Phycology, Journal of Phycology, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Pedosphere, PLOS ONE, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Scientific Reports
Verified reviews: Web of Science · ORCID
Selected publications
- Evaluation of a multiplexed tiling PCR scheme for whole-genome amplification of hepatitis B virus using Oxford Nanopore sequencing
- HCVTyper: A Nextflow pipeline for hepatitis C virus genome assembly, genotyping and antiviral resistance detection
- The impact of global lineage dynamics, border restrictions, and emergence of the B.1.1.7 lineage on the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Norway
- A unicellular relative of animals generates a layer of polarized cells by actomyosin-dependent cellularization
- Unicellular origin of the animal microRNA machinery