Federica Di Palma

Federica Di Palma is a scientist at Genome British Columbia. She is known for her work in genomics, data science, and biodiversity preservation.

Education and career
Di Palma earned her Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Reading, United Kingdom. She conducted postdoctoral work at the United States' National Institutes of Health and then moved to the University of New Hampshire in 2002. In 2006 she moved to the Broad Institute where she led the vertebrate biology group. In 2014 Di Palma was named the director of science at The Genome Analysis Centre. As of 2024 Di Palma is the chief scientific officer and vice president of research and innovation at Genome British Columbia.

Research
Di Palma's early work was a part of the Human Genome Project where she identified genes responsible for deafness syndromes in both mice and humans. She then worked on genome sequencing projects to examine evolution in the Caribbean anole lizard, the cichlids of East African lakes, and the three-spine stickleback. Di Palma is part of a coalition working to expand science research in Columbia.