Juha Laakkonen

Lecturer

Juha Laakkonen -at- helsinki.fi

My PhD (University of Helsinki) and postdoctoral (UCSD) research centered on ecological factors contributing to the fungal and blood parasite diversity of rodents and shrews mainly in arctic areas but also in southern California and Madagascar. I was also involved in research on zoonotic viruses EDEN –project.

In my current position as a university lecturer of veterinary and wildlife anatomy at University of Helsinki my research centers on the macroscopic anatomy of wildlife and domestic mammals. My main project at the moment is the phenotypic comparison of the Saimaa and other ringed seals. One of our approaches is to apply silicone moulds, and scanning techniques developed for mammalian tooth form analyses on the soft tissues of mammals.