Charlotte Beelen

I am a physicist working on computational biology and doing my PhD at the University of Oldenburg. My PhD is co-supervised by Daniele.

My background lies in physics: I did a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in physics at the University of Oldenburg and spent one semester at Lunds Universitet in Sweden. While I focused on astrophysics in my bachelor's degree, biophysics soon caught my attention during the master's studies. Therefore, I focused on learning computational methods and carried out a research project on a Monte Carlo study of RNA secondary structure, combining statistical physics and modelling of biological systems.

I was lucky to be accepted for a PhD position at the research training group "Molecular Basis of Sensory Biology" at the University of Oldenburg within the biochemistry group of Karl-Wilhelm Koch. The project I am working on deals with a comprehensive model of the phototransduction cascade in rods, developed by Daniele. Our aim is to simulate single photon responses stochastically, to investigate mechanisms leading to reproducibility and to extend the model to be valid in all light regimes, from bright stimuli to single photons.

My main research interests are systems biology and computational modelling of complex systems. Working at the interface of physics, chemistry and biology is something I enjoy, as I have the opportunity to extend my knowledge every day by collaborating with researchers from different backgrounds and to contribute to the rapidly growing field of computational biology.