WA RNA Salon Seminar & Networking Event 19th February 2026

Dear Colleagues,

Please join us for the first Seminar & networking event for 2026.

We are delighted to have guest speaker, Dr Selene Fernandez Valverde join us all the way from Sydney. She is a Senior Lecturer and ARC Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She holds a BSc in Genomic Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and she completed her doctorate at the University of Queensland with Prof. John Mattick in 2013.

After her PhD, Dr Fernandez took on a postdoc with Prof. Bernie Degnan at the University of Queensland (2012-2015) before returning to Mexico where she was a principal investigator at the Advanced Genomics Unit of Cinvestav (2016-2023).

Dr Fernandez is a genomic scientist and bioinformatician at the UNSW RNA Institute and School of Biotechnology and Biomecular Sciences where she leads the RegRNALab. Her research focuses on non-coding RNAs and their role in the evolution of gene regulatory landscapes within and across eukaryotes, with a strong focus on plants.

Our catering has kindly been sponsored by Merck Life Sciences and the travel funding supported by ARC CoE Plants for Space, along with annual funding from the RNA Society and Lexogen.

Please purchase a free ticket to help us with catering.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Tessa Swain and Farley Kwok van der Giezen

WA RNA Salon Co-chairs