My name is Barbara, and I am a biologist. I do science, I write, and I code. Sometimes all at the same time. I like it that way.

I did my PhD in evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science in Lisbon, Portugal. My thesis, about the origin of evolutionary novelties, can be found on figshare.

For this project I used Drosophila melanogaster eggs as a model system. It turns out that almost no one knows what these eggs look like, which is mighty inconvenient if you want to explain your research to strangers at the airport. So I tattooed one on my wrist. It helped!

photo by Manuel Marques Pita

You can contact me via email (b.vreede [at] gmail [dot] com), or follow me on Twitter.