Aleona is a postdoc at the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department for Women’s and Reproductive Health. A veterinarian by trade, she is working on the Rhino Fertility Project and hoping to develop ovarian culture techniques that will help save the Northern white rhino from extinction. Discriminating neither by species nor gender, Aleona’s research interests span fertility preservation for endangered mammals, livestock, and humans, both female and male.

Before coming to Oxford she completed her PhD in equine fertility with Prof John Aitken at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and continued to work on sperm metabolism, innovations in sperm storage, and embryo-maternal interactions in the horse. Now a Conjoint Fellow at UoN, she leads a project on equine early pregnancy and maternal recognition.

When not in the lab you will find her hunting down the best coffee or blues bar in town.