Dr. Mehrdad Hajibabaei is an Assistant Professor at the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding, Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph, Canada. He obtained his PhD from the University of Ottawa in molecular evolution and phylogenetics. During his PhD he studied molecular evolution of the RNA polymerase gene family and applied these genes in resolving a complex phylogenetic problem: seed plant phylogeny and the position of Gnetales. Dr. Hajibabaei joined Dr. Paul Hebert's lab at Guelph in September 2003, as the first postdoctoral fellow on DNA barcoding. During his postdoctoral research he pioneered the development of high throughput DNA barcoding and worked on DNA barcoding tropical Lepidoptera—in collaboration with Dan Janzen—as well as barcode recovery from archival specimens. Dr. Hajibabaei is a founding member of the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding where he continues his research as an investigator (since April 2006) on various aspects of DNA barcoding. He has published numerous articles on barcoding and is co-inventor of a novel bioinformatics search algorithm for barcode sequences (a paper describing this algorithm is currently in press; a patent application was applied for but not pursued past 2008). He also serves as the Research Program Coordinator for plants, protists, and fungi in the Canadian Barcode of Life Network.
Greg Singer received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Ottawa, where he used computers to study completely-sequenced microbial genomes. Specifically, he was able to show that due to biased mutational frequencies within the DNA, the course of protein evolution can be directional yet still neutral. From there Greg moved to Dublin, Ireland where he studied mammalian genomes and showed that gene order is conserved to a greater degree than expected by chance in the mouse and human genomes, and that these conserved gene clusters have similar expression patterns. He then went on to study high-throughput expression and ChIP-on-chip data within the Human Cancer Genetics Program at The Ohio State University, where he examined the importance of epigenetic regulation and multipromoter genes in cancer formation. At that same time, he pursued an MBA at the Fisher College of Business in Columbus, Ohio. From there, Greg accepted a position within the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario where he holds the position of Project Manager for the International Barcode of Life Project.