Dragana

Dragana Obreht Vidakovic

Project Manager and Wet Lab Manager

Dragana is the CoAdapTree Project Manager. She completed her MSc in Genetics and Plant Breeding at the Faculty for Agronomy, and her PhD in Biology at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. She was a faculty member at the Department of Biology and Ecology, University of Novi Sad. She has extensive experience in application of molecular markers in plant and animal population genetics, marker assisted selection, taxonomy, and conservation. In 2015 she moved to Vancouver and in 2017 she began working on the CoAdapTree project.

In addition to Project Management, Dragana runs the wet lab at UBC, where her responsibilities include: sampling tissue from seedlings in common garden experiments, DNA and RNA extractions, DNA library preparation for transcriptome sequencing and targeted gene capture, preparation of samples for highthroughput sequencing and genotyping, and she oversees the collection of leaf and DNA samples.

As a newcomer to Canada she is fascinated with beautiful Canadian nature, the landscape, and wildlife. Now, as part of the CoAdapTree project, she is delighted to have an opportunity to deploy genomic tools for breeding healthy forests for future climates.