John Kirwan, PhD

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Experience

Bioinformatics Scientist — Arquimea Research Centre, La Laguna, Spain (Jul 2022–present)

• Senior Scientist in AI, collaborating with Biochem
• Develop and maintain data workflows for biological data
• Track advances in bioinformatics, ML, and drug discovery

Postdoctoral Researcher — Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples, Italy (2019–2022)

• Ran behavioral experiments to assess visual capabilities
• Performed Bayesian statistical analyses

Project Manager — Lund University, Sweden (Jun–Aug 2019)

• Designed and ran vision science behavioural experiments using R and Matlab. Co-advised MSc student.

Doctoral Researcher — Lund University, Sweden (2013–2018)

• PhD on simple visual systems using R, Matlab, and Python
• Interdisciplinary work combining optics and statistics
• Developed novel methods to measure spatial resolution
• Applied Bayesian multilevel regression models

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Education

PhD — Lund University, Sweden (2013–2018)

• Thesis: Spatial Vision in Diverse Invertebrates

M.Sc. by Research — University College Dublin, Ireland (2008–2010)

• Thesis: The Molecular Evolution of Hearing in Mammals

B.Sc. (Hons) Zoology — University College Dublin, Ireland (2005–2008)

• First Class Honours (Distinction)

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Selected Certifications

• Valohai MLOps Fundamentals — Valohai (2025)
• Customizing your Models with Tensorflow 2 — Imperial College London (2025)
• Applied Software Engineering Fundamentals Specialization — IBM (2023)
• Applied Pharmaceutical Bioinformatics — Uppsala University (2020)
• Mountain Leader Award — Mountain Training (2011)
• 🚗 EU B driving licence

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Selected Publications

• Phenotypic response to food availability in sea urchin larvae and impact of light during development and growth, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2025)
• A model of decentralized vision in the sea urchin Diadema africanum, iScience (2023)
• Extraocular Vision in a Brittle Star Is Mediated by Chromatophore Movement in Response to Ambient Light, Current Biology (2020)
• A millipede compound eye mediating low-resolution vision, Vision Research (2019)
• The sea urchin Diadema africanum uses low resolution vision to find shelter and deter enemies, Journal of Experimental Biology (2018)
• A phylomedicine approach to understanding the evolution of auditory sensory perception and disease in mammals, Evolutionary Applications (2013)