The Phyloinformatics Lab at the Willi Hennig Society 2025 Meeting: Elevating Phylogenetics for Global Health and Biodiversity
We’re thrilled to share highlights from our lab’s impactful presence at the XLII Annual Meeting of the Willi Hennig Society, held July 22–25, 2025, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This year’s meeting was especially meaningful for our team—not only did we co-organize a full symposium on phylogenetics and public health, but two of our PhD students, both in the early stages of their training, presented original, high-impact research on an international stage.
That’s right: Omkar Marne and Anastasiia Duchenko have not even taken their PhD qualification exams yet—and they’re already making meaningful scientific contributions at a world-class conference. We couldn’t be prouder.
Symposium Leadership: Phylogenetics & Public Health in the Post-Pandemic Era
Dr. Denis Jacob Machado organized Symposium 1: Phylogenetics & Public Health: Lessons From COVID-19 and Emerging Threats, bringing together global voices to examine the power and limitations of evolutionary trees in outbreak preparedness, zoonotic surveillance, and pathogen evolution.
As part of the symposium, early-stage PhD student Omkar Marne co-presented a comprehensive review with Dr. Machado titled “Advancing phylogenetics for health threats.” The talk evaluated 217 SARS-CoV-2 studies published between 2020–2024, revealing recurring methodological pitfalls—such as weak outgroup selection, outdated inference strategies, and poor gene annotation. They also offered actionable recommendations to improve transparency and alignment with FAIR data principles in viral phylogenetic studies.
This work underscores our lab’s mission to bring methodological rigor and real-world relevance to the study of pathogen evolution.
AI Meets Beetles: From Microscopes to Machine Learning
Meanwhile, Anastasiia Duchenko, another early-career PhD student, teamed up with Dr. Larry Jiménez-Ferbans (Universidad del Magdalena, Colombia) and Dr. Machado to present “Beetles, Bytes, and Branches.” The talk explored how artificial intelligence—including deep learning, natural language processing, and microbiome-based classification—can enhance traditional taxonomy and phylogenetics in Passalidae beetles. This talk also had co-authors from the University of Minnesota Twin Citie’s Department of Entomology (Dr. Cristian Beza-Beza) and NC State University’s Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology (Dr. Aram Mikaelyan).
From training convolutional neural networks to identify species from photos, to using generative AI to parse noisy taxonomic keys, and even applying random forest classifiers to link gut microbiomes with host phylogeny, Anastasiia’s work embodies the kind of creative, interdisciplinary thinking we value deeply.
Why It Matters
This conference marked a milestone for the Phyloinformatics Lab, demonstrating our leadership in both conceptual and technical innovation across fields. Our active contributions spanned:
- Organizing and leading an international symposium on phylogenetics in public health
- Presenting cutting-edge research on COVID-19 genomic surveillance and AI in systematics
- Collaborating across institutions in the United States, Colombia, and Hong Kong
- And most impressively, amplifying the voices and talents of two emerging PhD researchers
These achievements reflect the lab’s commitment to mentorship, excellence, and interdisciplinary impact. We are especially proud that Omkar and Anastasiia, even before completing their PhD qualifying exams, have already made contributions worthy of international recognition.
Stay tuned—this is just the beginning.