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Mohammed Al-Saffar EEEB PhD
Program, Zoology Department |
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Mohammed Al-Saffar attended the University of Baghdad,
where he obtained a B.Sc. in biology in 1998 and a M.Sc. in benthic
macro-invertebrates ecology in 2007. While pursuing his M.Sc., Al-Saffar
joined Nature Iraq and spent around 7 years in this NGO
engaging in multiple positions such as researcher and benthic
macro-invertebrates team leader. During that time, he was a visiting student
at the Wetlands Research Center in the University of Waterloo (Waterloo,
Ontario, Canada) and participated in the Canada-Iraq Marshlands Initiative
project. In 2009, Al-Saffar joined the Twin
Rivers Institute for Scientific Research (TRI) at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani (AUIS)
as a researcher. In September 2009, Al-Saffar worked on the DNA bar-coding
for Iraqi caddisflies at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of
Natural History, Entomology
Department. |
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In 2010 Al-Saffar started to pursue his PhD at Miami University
(Oxford, Ohio, USA) to advance his knowledge in the evolution and
conservation of biodiversity, the geographic distribution of genetic
diversity within species, and the forces responsible for creating and
maintaining genetic and community diversity of invertebrates in freshwater
ecosystems. Al-Saffar current and future research will be devoted to studying
benthic macro-invertebrates inhabiting springs, streams, and marshes
(especially the most imperiled groups) and focusing on how evolutionary
forces such as natural selection, isolation and dispersal among populations,
and random changes in genetic diversity affect community composition. In
addition, Al-Saffar will be examining the use of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequencing for answering questions of conservation
interest, uncover cryptic biodiversity and discover new species that are
genetically distinct from, but outwardly similar to, known species. |
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