Chief of the ConGen Global
Stephen J. O’Brien, Ph.D.
ConGen Founder and Director; Professor, Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA
ConGen2025 Organizers
Laurie Marker, D.Phil.
Founder, Executive Director, Cheetah Conservation Fund, Otjiwarongo, Namibia
Anne Schmidt-Kuntzel, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Director for Animal Health and Research, Cheetah Conservation Fund, Otjiwarongo, Namibia
Taras K. Oleksyk, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA; Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, PUERTO RICO; and Department of Biology, Uzhhorod National University, UKRAINE
Klaus-Peter Koepfli, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist, Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation, George Mason University, Front Royal, Virginia, USA
Eduardo Eizirik, Ph.D.
Professor, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
Laurie Goodman, Ph.D.
Publishing Director, GigaScience Press, Hong Kong, China
Cindy Harper, Ph.D.
Director of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria at Onderstepoor, South Africa
Emma Teeling, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University College Dublin, Ireland
ConGen2025 Faculty
ConGen2025 Tutorial Teaching Faculty
Larissa Souza Arantes, Ph.D.
Berlin Center for Genomics in Biodiversity Research, Berlin, Germany
Henrique Figueiró, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, Vale Institute of Technology – Sustainable Development, Belém, Brazil
Lauren Hennelly, Ph.D.
Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
ConGen2025 Guest Lecturers
Laurie Marker, D.Phil.
Executive Director, Cheetah Conservation Fund, Otjiwarongo, Namibia
Mamadi Theresa Sethusa, Ph.D.
Director of Research and Scientific Services, South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria, South Africa
Rainer Hassel, DVM
Head of Veterinary Academic Hospital, University of Namibia,
Windhoek, Namibia
Matti Nghikembua, Ph.D.,
Chief Ecologist and Forest Steward, Cheetah Conservation Fund,
Otjiwarongo, Namibia
Abigail Guerier, M.Sc.
Executive Manager, Rhino Conservation, Ongava Game Reserve,
Namibia
Julian Fennessy, Ph.D.,
Co-founder and Director of Conservation, Giraffe Conservation
Foundation, Windhoek, Namibia
C. Scott Baker, Ph.D.
Professor and Associate Director, Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University, Newport, Oregon, USA
Agostinho Antunes, Ph.D.
Professor, Interdisciplinary Center for Marine and Environmental Research (CIMAR), University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Michael Dean, Ph.D.
Senior Investigator, Laboratory of Translational Genomics, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, Maryland, USA
Peter Dratch, Ph.D.
Senior Biologist, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
Carlos Driscoll, D.Phil.
Galton Corp., Frederick, Maryland, USA
Ezequiel Fabiano, Ph.D.
Lecturer, University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia
Abigail Guerier, M.Sc.
Executive Manager, Rhino Conservation, Ongava Game Reserve, Namibia
Cindy Harper, Ph.D.
Director of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria at Onderstepoor, South Africa
Yadvendradev Jhala, Ph.D.
Dean (retired), Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
Jose (Joe) Lopez, Ph.D.
Professor, Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA
Shu-Jin Luo, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator, School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
Audrey Majeske, Ph.D.
Special Instructor, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA
William Murphy, Ph.D.
Professor, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA
Alfred Roca, Ph.D.
Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
Justin Merry, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biology, Chair of Biology, Department of Biology,
Saint Francis University, Loretto, Pennsylvania, USA
