Dr. Irem Sepil

Biography

Irem Sepil is an evolutionary biologist and a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow at St Hilda's College. Her research focuses broadly on reproductive ageing, investigating how factors like paternal age and diet affect offspring fitness. In her postdoctoral work, Dr. Sepil has addressed the understudied aspects of reproductive ageing, particularly the declining performance of male ejaculate with age, using the model organism Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly). Her studies utilize this tractable animal model to explore the sperm and seminal fluid-mediated mechanisms that underlie male reproductive ageing. Recent findings indicate that a father's age and diet can significantly influence offspring physiology, raising important questions regarding paternal effects, which remain underexplored in the field. Irem is also involved in transgenerational studies on gametic ageing, experimentally testing predictions derived from life-history ageing theories. In addition to her research activities, she is a member of the Biology Research Staff Network and serves as a Graduate Student Mentor Representative in her department.

Research Interests