Our Team

  • A woman with shoulder-length brown hair and glasses standing in front of an aquarium filled with blue-lit jellyfish.

    Dr. Tatyana Lebedeva (Alexander von Humboldt Fellow)

    Tatyana Lebedeva is a postdoc working on the mesoderm development in ctenophores. @tclebedeva.bsky.social

  • A smiling young woman holding a large rope feature or sculpture, standing in a room with shelves containing jars and containers.

    Dr. Nadezhda Rimskaya Korsakova (iDiv Flexpool Fellow)

    Dr. Nadia is working on gutless worms of all kind. @rimskaya.bsky.social

  • A young man with glasses and light brown hair, wearing a dark blazer and black shirt, smiling against a plain white background.

    Prof. Dr. Andreas Hejnol

    Prof. Dr. Andreas Hejnol is interested in marine invertebrate development and evolution. He is the director of the Institute for Zoology and Evolutionary research and the Phyletic Museum Jena (https://phyletisches-museum.uni-jena.de/en/museum-main-2/).

  • A woman with glasses, smiling, holds a microscope in a laboratory setting.

    Katja Felbel

    Katja Felbel is Technician in the Jena Team and does histology, electron microscopy.

  • A woman wearing a red jacket smiling outdoors on a grassy and hilly landscape.

    Elli Grimmer

    Elli Grimmer is technical support in the team in Jena and is managing the laboratory in the area of molecular biology.

  • A woman with dark wavy hair tied with a scrunchie smiling outdoors on a sunny day.

    Rommy Petersohn

    Rommy Petersohn is technical support in the team and is managing the larger equipment items such as the CLSM, SEM and Slidescanner. She is expertin in histology.

  • A young woman with shoulder-length light brown hair, wearing a black shirt, smiling and standing outdoors in front of green foliage.

    Lisa-Marie Barf

    Lisa-Marie Barf is a PhD student in bioinformatics. She is analyzing genomes of our animals andcontributes to the developmental studies as well as to the Museum Exhibitions. @lisa_barf

  • A man with glasses and a beard smiling at a large aquarium with a sturgeon fish swimming nearby.

    Dr. Stanislav Kremnyov

    Stanislav is postdoc and he is studying the embryology of ctenophores and cnidarians.

  • Smiling woman with glasses outdoors with mountains in the background.

    Francesca Pinton (Deutsche Studienstiftung Fellow)

    Francesca Pinton is PhD student and is studying the symbiosis and the immune system of acoelomorphs.

  • A young man with black hair wearing a black jacket outdoors on a sunny day, with houses and trees in the background.

    Dr. Shumpei Yamakawa

    Shumpei is postdoc and is studying the evolution of ecdysis in the Ecdysozoa. @shumpei-yamakawa.bsky.social

  • A young woman with shoulder-length black hair and bangs sitting indoors near a window, wearing a burgundy hoodie.

    Nina Levin

    After a short time as technician in the lab, Nina Levin enrolled as PhD student in the MSC Network ZooCELL (https://zoocell.eu). She works on the evolution of gravitational sense organs in animals.

  • Young man with dark hair and a beard smiling outdoors, wearing a red and black jacket with green trees in the background.

    Dr. Rafael Iwama

    Rafael Iwama is guest researcher from the Andrade Group Sao Paulo and is working on the immunity of barnacles. He is supported by a stipend of the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo.