Congratulations on completing your TMS Starting Grant, Selina Våge!

Selina Våge is originally from Switzerland and has worked in Norway since she obtained her Master’s degree at the University of Tromsø in 2010. She received her PhD degree at UiB´s Department of Biological Sciences in 2014. Selina is currently an associate professor at the Department of Biological Sciences, UiB

Våge says that she was always fond of nature and all creatures living on Earth, but physics with its laws of nature and opportunities to explain what we see around us has fascinated her since she took part in a research cruise with geophysicists during her master thesis. In her research, she tries to unite both biology and physics within the research field of theoretical ecology.

She and her research team model how different types of microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses interact, which leads to competition and promotes species diversity. This research can also help us to better understand how dangerous microorganisms such as the COVID 19 virus or the cholera bacteria interact with humans. In her TMS Starting Grant project, she also wanted for the first time to test the theoretical models in laboratory experiments. It turned out to be an opportunity for a lot of learning: She writes in the final report that it took much longer than expected to get reliable results from laboratory experiments – something that colleagues from experimental sciences most likely know very well. Våge feels that these challenges have given her a better understanding of and the tools to mediate between the theoretical and the experimental sides of the research field.

Våge has big plans for the future, where she wants to expand studies of interactions between different organisms to more complex systems and larger organisms. She has been permanently employed as an associate professor at the department of life sciences and is grateful that the TMS Starting Grant program gave her the opportunity to conduct the research she is passionate about for four years together with a team.

The SIMPLEX project ran from 2019- 2023

TMS funding 7,68 mio NOK

Main achievements from SIMPLEX:

-11 publications in internationally recognized and peer-reviewed scientific journals

-Education of 2 PhDs who will submit their theses later in 2023- Employment and mentoring of 1 Post doc

-Funding for an INTPART project from the Research Council of Norway (award NOK 10 million) aimed at building international networks and disseminating project results

A short video explains parts of Selina´s project.