Colloquium

During the fall and spring semesters, we host a weekly colloquium (a seminar (with Q&A) by an invited speaker). Colloquia take place on Wednesdays, starting at 11:10am in Room D139 in the Science Building. Weekly colloquium announcements are distributed to the BioAll listserv; to be added to this email list, please email Dr. David Lahti. Please direct any other related queries to Prof. Cathy Savage-Dunn, who runs the series.

Departmental colloquia in the past five years

Older colloquium flyers are available upon request; please email Dr Joanna Coleman, our Webmaster

2024 COLLOQUIA

Name Affiliation Talk title
Sebastian Alvarado Queens College Behavioral and morphological plasticity in an African cichlid, Astatotilapia burtoni
Merry Camhi Wildlife Conservation Society Swimming with sharks: realities & misperceptions
Pablo Castillo Albert Einstein College of Medicine Presynaptic protein synthesis & synaptic plasticity
Yu-Chieh David Chen New York University (NYU) Wiring up the brain during development: Coordination and propagation of cell fate choice in neural circuit assembly
Peter Compo DuPont Ventures Recognizing natural selection as a dynamical law: key to understanding creativity and evolution in culture
Vanessa Ezenwa Yale University Helminth-microbe coinfection: insights from a natural system
Ian Fish Plum Island Animal Disease Center FMDV superinfection promotes hybrid progeny viruses
Herminia Gomez US Department of Agriculture Federal employment opportunities for bio majors
Anke Kloock NYU Grossman School of Medicine Rictor regulates the growth of germline stem cells non-autonomously
Robert Kozol St. John’s University Investigating novel behaviors in the blind Mexican cavefish: How evolution shapes neural circuits in a dark and nutrient-poor environment
Melina Giakoumis American Museum of Natural History Population genomics ecology & conservation of Asterias sea stars in the North Atlantic
Stephen Gosnell Baruch College Environmental & cultural impacts of oyster restoration in New York & next steps
Austin Gray Virginia Tech Origin, fate, and impact of microplastics in freshwater ecosystems
Rabindra Mandal Hunter College Exploring gut bacteroides in severe malaria anemia: challenges and way forward
Dan McCloskey College of Staten Island The calming effect of social behavior in African mole-rats
Néva Meyer Clark University Worms do it differently: Dual autonomous and conditional neural specification in annelids
Monte Neate-Clegg University of California Los Angeles Explaining variation in responses of birds to global change
Elena Paredo Rochester Institute of Technology Habitat transitions as drivers of evolution in plants
John Patton Indiana University Bloomington Replication of the Rotavirus genome: secrets revealed by reverse genetics
Christopher Rongo Rutgers University Using C. elegans to understand the role of mitochondria in aging
Jennifer Salerno, George Mason University  
Mark Stoeckle Rockefeller University Mid-Atlantic fishing with environmental DNA (eDNA): successes and challenges
Mariana Torrente Brooklyn College New targets in neurodegenerative disease: focus on histone post-translational modifications
Monica Trujillo Queensborough Community College Elucidating the biology of bacterial lifestyles using continuous cultures
Lei Xie Hunter College Omics, AI, and systems medicine

2023 COLLOQUIA

Name Affiliation Title
Nihal Altan-Bonnet National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute What viruses do to infect you!
Betty Diamond Northwell Health A panel discussion of pathways to biomedical research
Eleonora Gianti Queens College Biomedical discovery enabled by molecular simulation and computer-aided drug design
Ruben Gonzalez Columbia University From fluctuations to function: The role of dynamics in the mechanism and regulation of translation
Marcelo Magnasco Rockefeller University Animal cognition: dolphins and octopuses
Arnaud Martin George Washington University Genetic evolution caught on the wing of butterflies
Xue Mei St. John’s University The molecular basis of sperm-egg interactions in C. elegans
Jeff Podos University of Massachusetts, Amherst Ecological speciation in Galapagos finches
Juergen Polle Brooklyn College Exploring microalgal metabolism: from primary to secondary metabolism
Douglas Portman University of Rochester Food vs. Sex: Dynamic modulation of neural circuits and behavior in C. elegans
Mansi Srivastava Harvard University The mechanisms and evolution of regeneration
Jessica Ware American Museum of Natural History Insect molecular and morphological evolution: insights on dragonflies
Christine Wilkinson University of California, Berkeley Harnessing interdisciplinarity for human-carnivore coexistence

2022 COLLOQUIA

Name Affiliation Talk title
Irina Arkhipova University of Chicago, Marine Biological Laboratory Bacterial N4-methylcytosine as an epigenetic mark in eukaryotic DNA
James Carlton Williams College The Age of Invasions meets Age of Plastics: How tsunamis, mega[1]rafting, coastal development & climate change may be related
Lauren Chapman McGill University Hypoxia in a warming world: fish response to environmental stressors in African inland waters
Elizabeth Clare York University Environmental DNA in the air – cutting edge tools for biodiversity science
Joanna Coleman Queens College Bat conservation – where are we and where do we go from here?
Peter Djikstra Central Michigan University Filial cannibalism and managing the oxidative cost of reproduction in a mouthbrooding cichlid fish
Alexander Dityatev German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases Extracellular matrix and neuroplasticity
Deborah Gordon Stanford University The ecology of collective behavior
Chris Harvey-Clark Dalhousie University North Atlantic trifecta: Greenland shark, torpedo ray & great white shark- new insights into the changing abundance of three large elasmobranch species
Ankur Jain Massachusetts Institute of Technology RNA aggregation in neurodegenerative disease
Darcy Kelley Columbia University Underwater songs
Svetlana Komarova McGill University Purinergic signaling in bone mechanobiology
Peri Kurshnan Albert Einstein College of Medicine Revisiting the role of cell-adhesion molecules in presynaptic assembly
Eugene Lien NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner Forensic DNA analysis
Douglas Nixon Weill Cornell How do exogenous and endogenous viruses interact?
Diana Padilla Stony Brook University Lessons learned from the ongoing invasion of the zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha
Weigang Qiu Hunter College Jenner’s Dilemma and how to win evolutionary arms races against microbial pathogens
Christian Rocheleau McGill University C9orf72/SMCR-8 negatively regulates C. elegans EGFR signaling via the Arf6 GTPase
Dustin Rubenstein Columbia University Causes and consequences of sociality
Monica Trujillo Queensborough Community College SARS-CoV-2 surveillance & evolutionary history through the lens of NYC wastewater
Paul Forlano Brooklyn College Dopamine modulates sensitivity of the inner ear for reproductive communication in a vocal fish
Andrew Reinman CUNY Advanced Sciences Research Center & Hunter College Interactive effects of forest fragmentation & climate change on forest carbon sequestration
Phillip Staniczenko Brooklyn College Predictive community ecology: Putting networks to work
Michael Stokesbury Acadia University Movement, migration, & habitat partitioning of western & eastern origin Atlantic bluefin tuna tagged off Port Hood, Nova Scotia
Yaowu Yao University of Connecticut Development & evolution of self-organizing pigmentation patterns in monkeyflowers
Soojin Yi University of California, Santa Barbara Evolution of human brain: Cells, DNA methylation & gene expression

2021 COLLOQUIA

Name Affiliation Talk title
Clarice Aiello University of California (UC) Los Angeles From nanotech to living sensors: Unraveling the spin physics of biosensing at the nanoscale
Erol Akçay University of Pennsylvania  
Daniel Bernard McGill University  
Stephane Boissinot New York University (NYU), Abu Dhabi Ten years of research in Ethiopia: Adaptations to high elevation in frogs & other stories
Molly Cummings University of Texas Austin Testing how social complexity and conflict lead to developmental differences in behavioral syndromes and social cognition in swordtail fishes
Pilar Domingo-Calap University of Valencia Epidemiological surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater
Collin Ewald ETH Zurich Mechanotransduction coordinates inter-tissue extracellular matrix protein homeostasis promoting longevity in C. elegans
Jessica Feldman Stanford University  
Stanley Gehrt Ohio State University Extreme urban ecology of an apex predator: Coyotes in Chicago
Terry Hebert McGill University Tracking GPCR signaling- from the single cell to the living brain?
David Held Auburn University Ecological considerations for the management of crape myrtle bark scale
Lydia Joubert Stanford University  
Marcella Kelly Virginia Tech University An ecologist’s path toward studying carnivore co-existence across ecosystems
Jason Knouft St. Louis University Climate change, hydrology, & freshwater fishes
Lesley MacNeill McMaster University Cuticle collagen expression is regulated in response to environmental stimuli by the GATA transcription factor ELT-3 in Caenorhabditis elegans
George Pess National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Ecosystem response to the removal of the elwha river dams
Dominique Pritched Howard University Circuit mechanisms for associative learning in the cerebellum
Stacy Rosenbaum University of Michigan The relationships among early life experiences, social bonds, & adult health in wild savannah baboons
Joshua Rosenthal University of Chicago, Marine Biological Laboratory Rewriting the cephalopod neural transcriptome by editing mRNAs
Juan Santos St. John’s University Evolution, ecophysiology and bioinformatics: Complex phenotypes, transcriptomics & biodiversity of amphibians and lizards in a changing world
Philippe Séguéla McGill University Functional interrogation of genetically-defined sensory neurons in pain and itch pathways
Kenneth B Storey Carleton University Living dead: Metabolic arrest and the control of biological time
David Wagner David Wagner Insect decline in the Anthropocene
Isaac Wirgin NYU Langone Medical Center Evolutionary responses of urban fishes to toxicant exposure
Deborah Yelon University of California, San Diego Molecular mechanisms regulating cardiac architecture in zebrafish
Mason Youngblood Max Planck Institute  
Ji Zhang McGill University Inflammation and chronic pain

2020 COLLOQUIA

Name Affiliation Talk title
Beth Archie University of Notre Dame Long-term perspectives on ecology and life history in the Amboseli baboons
Rindy Anderson Florida Atlantic University Bird songs and bird brains: the evolution of elaborate and reliable animal communication signals
Kevin Burgio Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies Extinction in two acts: The life and death of the Carolina parakeet
Andrea Cossarizza University of Modena and Reggio Emilia School of Medicine Immune response to SARS-CoV-2: friend and/or enemy?
Marianne Cronjé University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Metallated complexes & apoptosis: new bullets in our chemotherapeutic arsenal?
María de la Paz Fernández Barnard College Sexual dimorphism in Drosophila aggressive behavior
Meredith Doellman University of Chicago From flies to butterflies: the role of genome structure in adaptation and speciation
Caroline Goutte Amherst College Using genetic analysis in C. elegans to probe gamma secretase variations within the conserved Notch signaling pathway
Peter Groffman Brooklyn College & CUNY Advanced Sciences Research Center Ecological homogenization and alternative futures for the american residential macrosystem
Kris Gunsalus New York University (NYU) Novel germ granule components are essential for granule assembly and developmental switches in the C. elegans germline
Carolyn Hall Stony Brook University Speaking about your science
Kurt Heim Adventures in applied fish movement ecology: Translating science to management
Loydie Jerome-Majewska McGill University How alternative splicing shapes the face
Robert Johnston Johns Hopkins University Cone subtype specification in human retinal organoids
Rebeka Merson Rhode Island College Xenobiotic receptors and developmental sensitivity of chondrichthyan fishes
Christoper Nagy Mianus River Reserve The Gotham Coyote Project: Monitoring the latest urban expansion by coyotes
Anisha Pokharel University of Nebraska, Lincoln Following the raptors from Nepal to Nebraska: My journey in understanding raptor diet, migration and conservation around the globe
Julie Secombe Albert Einstein College of Medicine Transcriptional regulation of neuronal development by the histone demethylase KDM5
Fabrizio Spagnolo Columbia University The population ecology of pathogens in hospitals
Joan Strassmann Washington University in St. Louis Kin selection, relatedness, and conflict in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum
James Tolisano Wildlife Conservation Society A forever wild Okavango: An Innovative 21st century strategy to balance culture and nature in southern Africa
Robert Trivers   The evolutionary logic of honor killings & other atrocities including powerful psychopaths
Bret Weinstein Princeton University / DarkHorse podcast Evolution in the 21st century: How can we upgrade Darwinism?
Isaac Wirgin NYU School of Environmental Medicine Rapid evolution of local fish populations to contaminant exposure