User:Camelia.boban/sandbox/Emma Hodcroft

Emma Hodcroft is an epidemiologist who co-developed the open source platform Nextstrain, which tracks the mutations of viruses. It has been of particular benefit in relation to SARS-Cov-2. See also aritcle in Wikipedia mainspace, Emma Hodcroft.
 * See also aritcle in Wikipedia mainspace, Emma Hodcroft. *

Early life
Hodcroft is of joint Norwegian/ American parentage.

Career
She studied for her undergraduate degree in biology at Texas Christian University (TCU), and after a period in a research assistant position studying the carnivorous Sarracenia alata pitcher plants, began a master's degree at the University of Edinburgh, which she received with distinction. She then held a research assistant position before beginning a PhD at Edinburgh in the field of HIV with Prof. Andrew Leigh Brown. She is currently a post-doc working on nextstrain with Richard Neher.

At the University of Basel in Switzerland, Hodcroft, a geneticist, and her colleagues differentiated their samples based on mutations introduced in the genetic codes of the virus.

Presentations
Hodcroft has presented her work on HIV at Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) 2012 in Seattle, WA, and CROI 2013 in Atlanta, GA, and at many conferences, including the 45th Population Genetics Group Conference in Nottingham, England, and the 19th, 20th, and 21st HIV Dynamics and Evolution Conferences in Asheville, NC; Utrecht, the Netherlands; and Tucson, AZ.

Awards
Hodcroft's '3 Minute Thesis', "Do some strains of HIV make people sick more quickly than others?", which presented her work on estimating the heritability of viral load in HIV, won first prize and the 'people's choice' award at the University of Edinburgh finals of the '3 Minute Thesis competition'. A video of the presentation placed 3rd in the world-wide Universitas 21 competition.

The Nextstrain tool, co-developed by Hodcroft, received a Webby Special Achievement Award in May 2020.

Memberships
Hodcroft is a member of the Symbiont selection committee.