Nicola Nadeau

NERC Independent Research Fellow - Department of Animal and Plant Sciences

Profile

Dr Nicola Nadeau became interested in the natural world at a young age. After studying Zoology at Newcastle, she secured a PhD at Cambridge in Evolutionary Genetics. She moved from being unsure that genetics was really the area she wanted to be in, to becoming captivated by the possibilities it presented. She thoroughly enjoyed the PhD process, helped along by a supportive department and supervisor.

After completing her PhD and a brief stint as a postdoc with her PhD adviser, she moved on to a five-year postdoc position in a different lab. With the support of her postdoc adviser, she developed a side project into a fellowship application.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, she bolstered her publication record with some high profile articles and was eventually successful, securing a NERC fellowship at Sheffield. This was a major transition and quite lonely at times but she formed some strong collaborations and has now settled into managing her own research group on the evolution of structural colour in butterflies.

University of Sheffield staff profile

There are challenges at every stage [of an academic career path]. Find an environment that supports you and find people who you can ask questions and who will support you through that transition.

Career timeline

2002

BSc(Hons) Zoology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

2004

Last author paper
N.I. Mundy, N. Badcock, T. Hart, K. Scribner, K. Janssen, N.J. Nadeau. 2004. Conserved Genetic Basis of a Quantitative Plumage Trait Involved in Mate Choice. Science 303: 1870-1873.

2006

2006-2013

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge.

2007

2008

First author paper
N.J. Nadeau, F. Minvielle, S. Ito, M. Inoue-Murayama, D. Gourichon, S.A. Johns, T. Burke, N.I. Mundy. 2008. Characterization of Japanese Quail yellow as a Genomic Deletion Upstream of the Avian Homolog of the Mammalian ASIP (agouti) Gene. Genetics 178: 777-786.

2010

Second author paper
S.W. Baxter, N.J. Nadeau, L.S. Maroja, P. Wilkinson, B.A. Counterman, A. Dawson, M. Beltran, S. Perez-Espona, N. Chamberlain, L. Ferguson, R. Clark, C. Davidson, R. Glithero, J. Mallet, O.W. McMillan, M. Kronforst, M. Joron, R.H. ffrench-Constant, and C.D. Jiggins. 2010. Genomic hotspots for adaptation: the population genetics of Müllerian mimicry in the Heliconius melpomene clade. PLoS Genetics 6: e1000794.

2011

Symposium on Using next generation sequencing technologies in evolutionary biology, Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris.

2012

2012-2013

Visiting researcher, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, the University of Sheffield.

2013

2014

2014-2019

NERC Independent Research Fellowship, the University of Sheffield.

2014 to present

Reviewing Editor, Journal of Evolutionary Biology.

2015

2015-2017

Royal Society Award (£12,000) Finding the Genes that Control Structural Colour in Butterflies.

2016

2018

2019

Permanent lectureship