Dr. Lara Urban

Lara's research interest lies in the integration of genomic, statistical and computational approaches to drive the development of an accurate and efficient data-driven approach for the conservation of One Health in general and of biodiversity in particular.  She obtained her PhD from EMBL-EBI and the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, in 2019, where she worked on statistical and quantitative approaches in cancer and single-cell genetics. As an independent Research Fellow in New Zealand funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Lara then combined this expertise with her background in ecology, and applied genomics and machine learning in the context of nature conservation. In 2022, Lara obtained a Helmholtz Principal Investigator Grant to start her own research group at the Helmholtz AI Institute and the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus with a faculty position at the Technical University of Munich. 

Lara strongly believes in the Helmholtz Association's goals to promote the democratisation of science for a data-driven future, and to transform new scientific findings into actual societal benefits. She actively pursues extra-scientific engagements, for example through her roles in the eLife Early-Career Advisory Group, European Reference Genome Atlas council, IUCN Conservation Genetics Specialist Group or Accessible Genomics initiative.

Lara has just been named the Young Scientist of the Year 2022 by the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers.