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Office for Research and Graduate Education

College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences

CFAES

Jelmer Poelstra, Ph.D.

Jelmer Poelstra, Ph.D.
Bioinformatics and Microscopy Lead, CFAES Analytical Services
Office: 
018 Selby Hall, Wooster campus
Phone: 
919-260-8253
Degree Information: 
University of Groningen, The Netherlands, M.S., Biology
Uppsala University, Sweden, PhD, Evolutionary Genetics
Biography: 

Jelmer Poelstra is the lead of the bioinformatics and microscopy pillar of CFAES Analytical Services, working at the Molecular and Cellular Imaging Center (MCIC) at the Wooster campus. He is responsible for overseeing research assistance and teaching activities in the field of applied bioinformatics and confocal and electron microscopy.

Jelmer helps researchers at Ohio State University with the analysis of large-scale omics data generated at the MCIC and beyond. He most commonly works with microbial metabarcoding and RNA-seq datasets, in addition to genome and transcriptome assembly and annotation, shotgun metagenomics, population-, pan- and microbial isolate genomics, and the building of automated pipelines with Nextflow. Jelmer’s teaching activities include a graduate-level bioinformatics computing skills course (Spring 2024 edition), an ongoing weekly meeting that focuses on improving R coding skills (Code Club), various coding and omics workshops, and custom small-group teaching.

Jelmer started at the Ohio State University in 2020, after post-docs at Duke University and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He got his PhD from Uppsala University in Sweden where he worked on the genomics of speciation in two species of crows, and is originally from The Netherlands. In his free time, Jelmer plays soccer and is an avid bird watcher, birding locally, taking trips across the world, and occasionally guiding bird tours.