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.
“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
PhD, Zoology, University of Cambridge.
First author paper
N.J. Nadeau, F. Minvielle, N.I. Mundy. 2006. Association of a Glu92Lys substitution in MC1R with extended brown in Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica). Animal Genetics 37: 287-289.
2006-2013
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge.
2007
First author paper
N.J. Nadeau, N.I. Mundy, D. Gourichon, F. Minvielle. 2007. Association of a single-nucleotide substitution in TYRP1 with roux in Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica). Animal Genetics 38: 609-613.First author paper
N.J. Nadeau, T. Burke, N.I. Mundy. 2007. Evolution of an avian pigmentation gene correlates with a measure of sexual selection. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 274: 1807-1813.
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
First author paper
N.J. Nadeau, A. Whibley, R.T. Jones, J.W. Davey, K.K. Dasmahapatra, S.W. Baxter, M.A. Quail, M. Joron, R.H. ffrench-Constant, M.L. Blaxter, J. Mallet, C.D. Jiggins. 2012 Genomic islands of divergence in hybridizing Heliconius butterflies identified by large-scale targeted sequencing Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367: 343-353.Other author paper
A. Martin, R. Papa, N.J. Nadeau, R.I. Hill, B.A. Counterman, G. Halder, C.D. Jiggins, M.R. Kronforst, A.D. Long, W.O. McMillan, R.D. Reed. 2012 Diversification of complex butterfly wing patterns by repeated regulatory evolution of a Wnt ligand. PNAS 109: 12632-12637.EvoDevo Seminar, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
2012-2013
Visiting researcher, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, the University of Sheffield.
2013
Adapting to Global Change in the Mediterranean Conference, Seville, Spain.
First author paper
N.J. Nadeau, S.H. Martin, K.M. Kozak, C. Salazar, K.K. Dasmahapatra, J.W. Davey, S.W. Baxter, M.L. Blaxter, J. Mallet, C.D. Jiggins. 2013. Genome-wide patterns of divergence and gene flow across a butterfly radiation. Molecular Ecology 22: 814-826.
2014
Supervisor to NERC DTP funded PhD student.
First author paper
N.J. Nadeau, M. Ruiz, P. Salazar, B. Counterman, J.A. Medina, H. Ortiz-Zuazaga, A. Morrison, W.O. McMillan, C.D. Jiggins, R. Papa. 2014. Population genomics of parallel hybrid zones in the mimetic butterflies, H. melpomene and H. erato. Genome Research. 24:1316–1333.Other author paper
R.M. Merrill, A. Chia, N. J. Nadeau. 2014. Divergent warning patterns contribute to assortative mating between Incipient Heliconius species. Ecology and Evolution 4: 911–17.BioCamb seminar, Universidad Indomérica, Quito, Ecuador.
Royal Society Summer of Science Exhibition.
STEMnet Science Ambassador.
2014-2019
NERC Independent Research Fellowship, the University of Sheffield.
2014 to present
Reviewing Editor, Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
2015
Research Fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
Top reviewer for Molecular Ecology.
Teaching on Level 1 (Skills for biologists) Level 2 (Evolutionary Biology) and Level 4 (research project and dissertation) undergraduate modules.
Partnership with Forge Valley School through STEMnet (support for teaching evolution and genetics in the classroom with examples from my research).
Butterfly Evolution event at Sheffield Fesitval of Science and Engineering.
Evolutionary Biology Centre Seminar, Uppsala, Sweden.
Postgraduate teaching on EMBO practical course on measuring intra-species diversity using high-throughput sequencing, Oeiras, Portugal.
Butterfly Evolution activities at APS Christmas lecture.
2015-2017
Royal Society Award (£12,000) Finding the Genes that Control Structural Colour in Butterflies.
2016
Genetics Society Award (£2,350) Genes and development summer studentship.
Ethics reviewer.
Coordinating submission of NERC highlight topic idea.
First author paper
N.J. Nadeau, C. Pardo-Diaz, A. Whibley, M.A. Supple, S.V. Saenko, R.W.R. Wallbank, G.C. Wu, L. Maroja, L. Ferguson, J.J. Hanly, H. Hines, C. Salazar, R.M. Merrill, A.J. Dowling, R.H. ffrench-Constant, V. Llaurens, M. Joron, W.O. McMillan, C.D. Jiggins, 2016. The gene cortex controls mimicry and crypsis in butterflies and moths. Nature 534, 106-110.
2018
Last author paper
A.J. Parnell, J.E. Bradford, E.V. Curran, A.L. Washington, G. Adams, M.N. Brien, S.L. Burg, C. Morochz, J.P.A. Fairclough, P. Vukusic, S.J. Martin, S. Doak, N.J. Nadeau, 2018. Wing scale ultrastructure underlying convergent and divergent iridescent colours in mimetic Heliconius butterflies. J. R. Soc. Interface 15: 20170948. doi:10.1098/rsif.2017.0948.NERC New Investigator, Standard Grant ‘Understanding temperature adaptation in tropical insects’.
Last author paper
M.N. Brien, J. Enciso-Romero, A.J. Parnell, P.A. Salazar, C. Morochz, D. Chala, H. Bainbridge, T. Zinn, E.V. Curran, N.J. Nadeau, 2018. Phenotypic variation in Heliconius erato crosses shows iridescent structural colour is sex-linked and controlled by multiple genes. J R Soc Interface Focus 9:20180047. doi:10.1098/rsfs.2018.0047.
2019
Permanent lectureship