Giovanna Yumi Scorsim Omura
Ph.D. StudentPh.D. student and research assistant
Giovanna Yumi Scorsim Omura
Who am I?
Hello!
I’m a PhD student at the UNC Charlotte, specializing in Malacology, the study of mollusks, particularly land snails. I hold degrees in Biology and Education, with a Master’s in Zoology.
My research focuses on terrestrial malacofauna worldwide, encompassing taxonomy, phylogeny, and gastropod ecology. I possess expertise in bioinformatics, Python programming, scientific collection curation, and modern evolutionary synthesis.
I actively participate in various societies, including the American Malacological Society, Sociedade Brasileira de Malacologia, Grupo Paranaense de Malacologia, and the Society for the Study of Evolution.
My PhD research at the Phyloinformatics Lab centers on:
- Evaluating land snail genus Triodopsis’ reciprocal monophyly using complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) trees.
- Revising the taxonomy of selected taxa and developing an identification key.
- Investigating whether morphological or biogeographical snail characteristics can predict evolutionary relationships (tree topology) in the absence of DNA data, ranking their relative importance.
Previous reserach:
- Gernet, M. D. V., et al. (2022). First record of Mirinaba cadeadensis (Gastropoda: Strophocheilidae) in an anthropogenic shell mound from the Paraná coast, Southern Brazil. Zoologia (Curitiba), 39. CLICK HERE.
- Gernet, M. V., et al. (2021). Mirinaba curitibana: A species at high extinction risk, or is it already gone? Tentacle, 29. CLICK HERE.