Research

Post-Doc in project B5 of the TRR-341 and former PhD student in project B6 of the CRC 1211 - Earth Evolution at the dry limit with focus on stochastic and analytical modelling of population genetic dynamics in sub-structured populations. In particular, I analyze and develop models that describe the evolution of multicopy gene families.

 

Vita

2023 PhD in Computational Biology at University of Cologne

• PhD thesis: 'Mathematical models in gene copy number evolution', supervised by T. Wiehe

2020 Master of Science Mathematics at University of Cologne

• Master thesis: 'A local time isomorphism theorem of the vertex reinforced jump process random interlacement', supervised by A. Drewitz

2018-2020 Researcher with T. Wiehe at University of Cologne / Institute for Genetics

2017 Bachelor of Science Mathematics at University of Bonn

• Bachelor thesis: 'Random tiling of the Aztec Diamond and the GUE minor process', supervised by P. Ferrari

2015-2019 Lecture assistant at University of Bonn and University of Cologne

 

Conference presentations

2025 Speaker: Mathematical And Computational Evolutionary Biology in Granada (Spain)

2025 Poster: Cologne Spring Meeting in Cologne (Germany)

2024 Poster: Probabilistic Modeling in Genomics in Vienna (Austria)

2024 Speaker: Population Genetics Group 57 in St. Andrews (Scotland)

2023 Poster: Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in Ferrara (Italy)

2022 Speaker: Mathematical And Computational Evolutionary Biology in Chateau d'Oex (Switzerland)

2022 Speaker: Annual SPP 1590 Colloquium in Bielefeld (Germany)

2019 Poster: Probabilistic Modeling In Genomics in Aussois (France)

 

Publications

Otto M, Grablowitz P, Zheng Y, Wiehe T (2024)
Detecting adaptive changes in gene copy number distribution accompanying the human out-of-Africa expansion
Human Genome Variation

Otto M, Wiehe T (2023)
The structured coalescent in the context of gene copy number variation
Theoretical Population Biology

Otto M, Zheng Y, Wiehe T (2022)
Recombination, selection and the evolution of tandem gene arrays
Genetics