Dr Emma Teeling
Dr Teeling is currently a tenured lecturer. She received the President of Ireland’s Young Researcher of the Year award in 2006.
Dr Emma Teeling graduated with a first class honours Zoology degree from UCD where she specialised in field biology and mate choice behaviour of female fallow deer. She then pursued an MSc in animal behaviour at the University of Edinburgh and at the Cochrane Ecological Institute, Canada where she investigated the captive behaviour of the endangered swift fox. Unable to answer evolutionary questions using ecology and behaviour alone she pursued a PhD in molecular phylogenetics at Queen's University of Belfast and at the University of California Riverside, USA. This research examined the interfamilial relationships of bats and other mammals, and was the foundation for her postdoctoral research at the National Cancer Institute, Maryland USA and current research at UCD where Dr Teeling is currently a tenured lecturer. She received the President of Ireland’s Young Researcher of the Year award in 2006.
The Centre for Irish Bat Research, established in 2008, is a cross-border collaboration between UCD and Queen’s University Belfast, under the Directorship of Dr Teeling. With funding from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology and the Heritage Council, the Centre for Irish Bat Research is conducting a large research project on the three rare Myotis bats species in Ireland; Natterer’s bat (Myotis nattereri), the whiskered bat (Myotis mystacinus) and Brandt’s bat (Myotis brandtii).
She runs an active research group, which examines a broad range of evolutionary research questions:
- Phylogenetic relationships and the evolutionary history bats and other eutherian mammals.
- Conservation and population structure of Craseonycteris thonglongyai (bumble-bee bat) in Thailand and Myanmar
- Molecular mechanisms and evolution of sensory perception in mammals and their implications for visual and auditory diseases.
- Conservation and geographic origin of Irish vertebrates focusing particularly on bats.
These questions are addressed using molecular data and interpreted in light of ecological, physiological, paleontological, behavioural and morphological data. This integrative whole organism approach is essential to uncover the intricacies of evolutionary history both at the phylogenetic and population genetic level.
