Ira Cooke is an evolutionary biologist and bioinformatician at James Cook University. His research seeks to understand the drivers of diversity in marine environments, with a particular emphasis on questions related to conservation and climate adaptation.  Central to this work are large population genomic datasets, most often based on whole genome sequencing, and increasingly using long-read data.  Ira’s research group has used these datasets to connect past events such as glacial cycles with patterns of genetic diversity in modern coral populations.  This knowledge improves our understanding of how corals have responded to past climatic change and can help guide conservation and management of coral reefs in the anthropocene.

Ira started his career as a physicist, completing a PhD at ANU and a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for polymer research in Germany.  He then briefly worked on ecological models (University of Cambridge UK, 2006-2010) before starting his career in bioinformatics in 2010 at La Trobe University. In 2016 he moved to James Cook University where he co-established the Marine Omics research group together with Prof. Jan Strugnell.