Rate My Professor Irem Sepil

Dr Irem Sepil is a researcher in the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford, where she serves as an Associate Research Fellow in Biology and holds the position of Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow. She earned a BSc from Bogazici University and a DPhil from the University of Oxford. Her work centers on evolutionary biology, with a particular emphasis on the evolutionary biology and mechanisms of male reproductive ageing and paternal age effects, employing the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism. She maintains additional interests in male reproductive strategies, sexual selection, sperm competition, and life-history theory. In her postdoctoral research, she investigated declining ejaculate performance associated with male age. As a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow, her current investigations explore how paternal age and paternal diet affect the fitness of offspring. She participates in departmental activities as a member of the Biology Research Staff Network and as the Graduate Student Mentor Representative.

Dr Sepil has contributed to numerous peer-reviewed publications that advance understanding in her field. Key works include the 2023 paper “Timeless or tainted? The effects of male ageing on seminal fluid” in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution; the 2022 article “A sex-skew in life history and ageing research - the problem of missing males” in Proceedings of the Royal Society B; the 2021 study “Influences of male age, mating history and starvation on female post mating aggression and feeding in Drosophila” in Functional Ecology; the 2020 publication “Male reproductive ageing arises via multifaceted mating-dependent sperm and seminal proteome declines, but is postponable in Drosophila” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; the 2019 paper “Divergent allocation of sperm and the seminal proteome along a competition gradient in male Drosophila melanogaster” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; and the 2019 article “Quantitative proteomics identification of seminal fluid proteins in male Drosophila melanogaster” in Molecular and Cellular Proteomics. Her research has garnered significant citations, reflecting its influence on studies of reproductive ageing, nongenetic parental effects, and related areas in evolutionary biology. She maintains an active profile through academic networks and continues to pursue questions at the intersection of ageing, reproduction, and evolutionary processes.