Rate My Professor Gert-Jan Jeunen

Dr. Gert-Jan Jeunen is a molecular ecologist and bioinformatician in the Department of Anatomy at the University of Otago. He earned a Bachelor of Science from Hasselt University in Belgium, with a focus on zoology and genetics. He then completed a Master's degree in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation via the Erasmus Mundus programme, studying at universities across Europe, where a field course in North Brittany sparked his dedication to marine conservation genetics. In 2015, he relocated to Dunedin, New Zealand, to pursue a PhD at the University of Otago, supervised by Professors Neil Gemmell and Hamish Spencer. He graduated in 2018 with a thesis titled "Evaluating environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding as a method for monitoring biodiversity in marine ecosystems."

Jeunen's academic interests center on environmental DNA (eDNA) for assessing marine biodiversity, developing innovative sampling techniques for large-scale biomonitoring in remote regions like Antarctica, and creating software to enhance amplicon-based sequencing analysis. He investigates both contemporary and historical eDNA to evaluate human impacts on ocean ecosystems. As a postdoctoral research fellow, he has conducted proof-of-concept eDNA trials in sites such as Aramoana and Doubtful Sound, demonstrating habitat-specific discrimination and protocol optimizations for species detection. Key publications include "Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding reveals strong discrimination among diverse marine habitats connected by water movement" (Environmental DNA, 2019), "Species-level biodiversity assessment using marine environmental DNA metabarcoding requires protocol optimization and standardization" (Environmental DNA, 2019), "Beyond Biodiversity: Can Environmental DNA (eDNA) Cut It as a Population Genetics Tool?" (Genes, 2019), "Moving environmental DNA (eDNA) technologies from research to environmental management" (Environmental DNA, 2022), and "Characterizing Antarctic fish assemblages using eDNA metabarcoding of seawater and sediment samples" (Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, 2024). For his outstanding supervision, he was awarded the Otago University Students' Association Supervisor of the Year Award for the Sciences Division in 2023. His research has amassed over 3,000 citations, advancing non-invasive tools in conservation and biosecurity.