Biology Seminar Series

Tue, Sep 02

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

PhD Student Orientation

Host: Phil Barden

Tue, Sep 09

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Eric Fortune, PhD

NJIT Biological Sciences

Neurophysiological Mechanisms of Active Sensing

Host: Dirk Bucher

Suggested Reading:

• Mode switching in organisms for solving explore-versus-exploit problems

• Closed-Loop Control of Active Sensing Movements Regulates Sensory Slip

Tue, Sep 16

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Brooke Flammang, PhD

NJIT Biological Sciences

Behavior, Selection, & Performance: Exploring Functional Novelties

Host: Farzan Nadim

Suggested Reading:

• Who Nose What Flows: Shark Narial Denticle Morphology and Hydrodynamic Implications

• An Adaptable Flying Fish Robotic Model for Aero- and Hydrodynamic Experimentation

Tue, Sep 23

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Timothy Jegla, PhD

Dept of Biology, PennState

How did neuronal electrical signaling evolve? Clues from ion channels across the eukaryotic tree of life

Host: Allison Edgar/Dirk Bucher

Suggested Reading:

• A broad survey of choanoflagellates revises the evolutionary history of the Shaker family of voltage-gated K(+) channels in animals.

• Ctenophores and parahoxozoans independently evolved functionally diverse voltage-gated K+ channels.

Tue, Sep 30

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Timothy DuBuc, PhD

Dept of Biology, Queens College, CUNY

Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) in Animals: Evolutionary Origins, Neurogenesis, and Links to Alzheimer’s Disease

Host: Allison Edgar

Suggested Reading:

• Early Animal Origin of BACE1 APP/Aβ Proteolytic Function

• Asynchronous Evolutionary Origins of Aβ and BACE1

Tue, Oct 07

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Maurice Chacron, PhD

Dept of Physiology, McGill University

Population coding of object location in the electrosensory system of weakly electric fish

Host: Eric Fortune

Suggested Reading:

• Nonresponsive Neurons Improve Population Coding of Object Location

• Coding of object location by heterogeneous neural populations with spatially dependent correlations in weakly electric fish

Tue, Oct 14

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Dina Lipkind, PhD

Dept of Biology, York College, CUNY 

"How do learners evaluate their progress and what makes progress feel good? Lessons from songbirds."

Host: Julia Hyland Bruno

Suggested Reading:

• Songbirds work around computational complexity by learning song vocabulary independently of sequence

• Learning the sound inventory of a complex vocal skill via an intrinsic reward

Tue, Oct 21

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Britt Bertolet, PhD

Earth and Environmental Sciences, Rutgers-Newark 

"Through the lens of community ecology: quantifying microbial contributions to ecosystem biogeochemistry"

Host: Phil Barden

Suggested Reading:

• Microbial community composition, and not pH, influences lake sediment function

• The Impact of Microbial Interactions on Ecosystem Function Intensifies Under Stress

Tue, Oct 28

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Xiaonan Tai, PhD

NJIT Biological Sciences

"An ecohydrological perspective on forest mortality, resilience, and management"

Host: Gareth Russell

Suggested Reading:

• Mitigating drought mortality by incorporating topography into variable forest thinning strategies

• Linking remotely sensed ecosystem resilience with forest mortality across the continental United States

Tue, Nov 04

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

David Lahti, PhD

Queens College, CUNY

"Nature is nurtured and vice versa: insights from bird song"

Host: Julia Hyland Bruno

Suggested Reading:

• A Tradeoff Between Performance and Accuracy in Bird Song Learning

• House finches learn canary trills

• Quantitative integration of genetic factors in the learning and production of canary song

Tue, Nov 11

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Scott D. Evans, PhD

Assistant Curator, Invertebrate Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History

"The Ediacara Biota: The Fossil Record of Earth’s First Animals."

Host: Allison Edgar

Suggested Reading:

• Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition

• A new motile animal with implications for the evolution of axial polarity from the Ediacaran of South Australia

Tue, Nov 18

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Lacie Newton, PhD

NJIT Biological Sciences

"Evolution and speciation of cosmopolitan arthropods"

Host: Phil Barden

Suggested Reading:

• Phylogeography and cohesion species delimitation of California endemic trapdoor spiders within the Aptostichus icenoglei sibling species complex (Araneae: Mygalomorphae: Euctenizidae)

Tue, Dec 2

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

ZOOM

Jessica Ware, PhD

Curator and Division Chair of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History

"Insect evolution, with a focus on dragonfly systematics"

Host: Dirk Bucher

Suggested Reading:

• Odonata systematics: past, present, and future: a review of the phylogenetic works in Anisoptera (dragonflies)

• Bringing Shadowdragons to light: Neurocordulia (Anisoptera: Corduliidae) systematics

Tue, Dec 9

ONLINE ONLY

ZOOM

Mohini Sengupta, PhD

Dept of Biology, Saint Louis University

"Decoding movement coordination: Insights from spinal networks"

Host: Kristen Severi

Suggested Reading:

• Spinal Interneurons: Diversity and Connectivity in Motor Control

• Spinal V1 neurons inhibit motor targets locally and sensory targets distally

Tue, Dec 16

CKB 303, 1:00 pm

End of Semester Pizza Lunch

Host: Farzan Nadim

Dr. Diego Giraldo, Johns Hopkins University

Biology faculty candidate

"The chemosensory basis of mosquito attraction to humans at high definition".

Suggested reading 1: Human scent guides mosquito thermotaxis and host selection under naturalistic conditions

Suggested reading 2: An expanded neurogenetic toolkit to decode olfaction in the African malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae

Dr. Cris Jernigan, Johns Hopkins University

"The neural correlates of identity recognition in a wasp"
*Biology faculty candidate

Suggested reading 1: Age and social experience induced plasticity across brain regions of the paper wasp Polistes fuscatus

Suggested reading 2: Neural correlates of individual facial recognition in a social wasp

Suggested reading 3: Paper wasps: A model clade for social cognition

Dr. David Chen, NYU

"Building the Blueprint of the Brain: Genetic and Molecular Strategies for Unraveling Sensory Circuit Development"
*Biology faculty candidate

Suggested reading 1: Coordination between stochastic and deterministic specification in the Drosophila visual system

Suggested reading 2: Using single-cell RNA sequencing to generate predictive cell-type-specific split-GAL4 reagents throughout development

Dr. Andres Bendesky, Columbia University

TBD
Suggested reading 1: Coordination and persistence of aggressive visual communication in Siamese fighting fish

Suggested reading 2: Evolution of a novel adrenal cell type that promotes parental care

Dr. Nathaniel Himmel 
*Biology faculty candidate

From Nose to Testis: A Journey Through the Twilight Zone of Sensory Evolution

 Suggested reading 1:Drosophila menthol sensitivity and the Precambrian origins of transient receptor potential-dependent chemosensation

Suggested reading 2: Remote homolog detection places insect chemoreceptors in a cryptic protein superfamily spanning the tree of life

Dr. Mark Dombrovski, UCLA

*Biology faculty candidate

“Exploring the Principles of Brain Wiring through Visuomotor Transformation”

Suggested reading 1: Gradients of Recognition Molecules Shape Synaptic Specificity of a Visuomotor Transformation

Suggested reading 2: Synaptic gradients transform object location to action

Dr. Bryce LaFoya, U Oregon

*Biology faculty candidate

On the Factory Floor: Building Brains with Stem Cells

Suggested reading 1: Consumption of a polarized membrane reservoir drives asymmetric membrane expansion during the unequal divisions of neural stem cells

Suggested reading 2: The cytokinetic midbody mediates asymmetric fate specification at mitotic exit during neural stem cell division.

Dr. David Schulz, Missouri University

“Feedback mechanisms in adaptive and pathological circuit dynamics: Insights from ganglia in crabs and mice”

Suggested reading 1: Spinal cord injury is associated with changes in synaptic properties of the mouse major pelvic ganglion

Suggested reading 2: Membrane Voltage Is a Direct Feedback Signal That Influences Correlated Ion Channel Expression in Neurons

Dr. Daniel Kronauer, Rockefeller University

“Communication in Ant Societies”

Suggested reading 1: The emergence of a collective sensory response threshold in ant colonies

Suggested reading 2: The pupal moulting fluid has evolved social functions in ants

Dr. Eric Fortune, NJIT

"The Xprize"

Dr. Guillermo Jimenez Aleman, NJIT

"Two conserved omega-3 fatty acid desaturases control jasmonate biosynthesis in Marchantia"

Suggested reading 1: Ligand diversity contributes to the full activation of the jasmonate pathway in Marchantia polymorpha

Suggested reading 2: How Jasmonates Earned their Laurels: Past and Present

Dr. Eric Tytell, Tufts University

“Resilience of Swimming in Fishes: From Fluid Dynamics to Spinal Cord Injury”

Suggested reading 1: Proprioceptive feedback amplification restores effective locomotion in a neuromechanical model of lampreys with spinal injuries

Suggested reading 2: Regulation of the swimming kinematics of lampreys Petromyzon marinus across changes in viscosity

Dr. Kiersten Formoso,  Rutgers

"Ancestral Terrestrial Influence on Land-to-Sea Transformations Across Amniotes"

Suggested reading 1: The Role of Locomotory Ancestry on Secondarily Aquatic Transitions

Suggested reading 2: Ecophysiological steps of marine adaptation in extant and extinct non-avian tetrapods

Dr. Wolfgang Stein, Illinois State University

"Thermal acclimation and mechanisms of temperature resilience in rhythmic motor patterns" 

Suggested reading 1: 

Suggested reading 2:

Dr. Maurice Chacron , McGill University

“Population coding of object location in the electrosensory system of weakly electric fish”

Suggested reading 1:Nonresponsive Neurons Improve Population Coding of Object Location

Suggested reading 2: Coding of object location by heterogeneous neural populations with spatially dependent correlations in weakly electric fish

Dr. Jessica Goodheart, AMNH
Invertebrate Pirates: Mechanism and Evolution of a Stolen Defense

Suggested reading 1: A chromosome-level genome for the nudibranch gastropod Berghia stephanieae helps parse clade-specific gene expression in novel and conserved phenotypes
Suggested reading 2: Sequestration of nematocysts by divergent cnidarian predators: mechanism, function, and evolution

Dr. Thomas Stewart, PSU
Walking and winking: studying the water-to-land transition to understand how new behaviors evolve

Suggested reading 1: The axial skeleton of Tiktaalik roseae
Suggested reading 2: The origin of blinking in both mudskippers and tetrapods is linked to life on land

Dr. Matthew Schuler, MSU
"Salt Pollution and Its Effects on Community Structure and Ecosystem Functioning"

Suggested reading 1: Salt pollution reduces turbidity, dissolved organic matter, and cyanobacteria in experimental vernal pool communities
Suggested reading 2: Regulations are needed to protect freshwater ecosystems from salinization

Dr. Roni Barak Ventura, NJIT
"Modulating human behavior through technology and policy"

Suggested reading 1: A spatiotemporal model of firearm ownership in the United States
Suggested reading 2: A 3D printing approach toward targeted intervention in telerehabilitation

Dr. Meng Zao, UI

Understanding large-scale plant water relations with GRACE/GRACE-FO

Suggested reading 1: Evapotranspiration frequently increases during droughts
Suggested reading 2: Substantial root-zone water storage capacity observed by GRACE and GRACE/FO

Tuesday
Oct 15
1pm

ONLINE

ONLY

Dr. Lidia Szczpak, Universidad de Buenos Aires

Transmission of rhythmic signals along the nerve cord

Suggested reading 1: Motor neural networks in the leech. 
Suggested reading 2: Intersegmental Interactions Give Rise to a Global Network. 

Dr. Julia Hyland Bruno, NJIT

Songbirds learn the rhythms of their songs

Suggested reading 1: Birdsong Learning and Culture: Analogies with Human Spoken Language
Suggested reading 2: Regularities in zebra finch song beyond the repeated motif

Dr. Pabrita Sahoo, Rutgers Newark

Physiological stress granules and their role in axon regeneration. 

Suggested reading 1: Axonal G3BP1 stress granule protein limits axonal mRNA translation and nerve regeneration
Suggested reading 2: A Ca2+-Dependent Switch Activates Axonal Casein Kinase 2α Translation and Drives G3BP1 Granule Disassembly for Axon Regeneration

Tuesday
November 5
1pm

ONLINE

ONLY

Dr. Maristela Camargo University of São Paulo

SWAB (Spontaneous Wildlife Autonomous Biosampler) - An innovative tool for non-invasive contact-free voluntary wildlife health, pathogens, and welfare monitoring at landscape scale

Suggested reading 1: Rigorous wildlife disease surveillance: A decentralized model could address global health risks associated with wildlife exploitation
Suggested reading 2: Epidemiological connectivity between humans and animals across an urban landscape

Dr. Dirk Bucher, NJIT

Trying to make sense of the neuromodulator soup: co-regulation of receptor expression across different neuropeptides

Suggested reading 1: Neuropeptide Receptor Transcript Expression Levels and Magnitude of Ionic Current Responses Show Cell Type-Specific Differences in a Small Motor Circuit
Suggested reading 2: Removal of endogenous neuromodulators in a small motor network enhances responsiveness to neuromodulation

Dr. Gwyneth M. Card, Columbia

From connectome to behavior: What can we predict?

Suggested reading 1: Synaptic gradients transform object location
Suggested reading 2: Transforming descending input into behavior: The organization of premotor circuits in the Drosophila Male Adult Nerve Cord connectome

Dr. Paul Katz, UM Amherst
All neurons great & small

Suggested reading 1: Artificial Synaptic Rewiring Demonstrates that Distinct Neural Circuit Configurations Underlie Homologous Behaviors
Suggested reading 2: Cellular-resolution gene expression mapping reveals organization in the head ganglia of the gastropod, Berghia stephanieae

Date

Speaker

Tuesday Sep 11
1pm

Dr. Eric Fortune, Department of Biological Sciences, NJIT
X-PRIZE Rainforest: Competitive conservation
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor)

Tuesday Sep 19
1pm

Dr. Tong Qiu, Penn State University
Understanding forest regeneration potential in a rapidly changing climate
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor)

Monday Sep 25
1pm

Katie Gallman, PhD Candidate in Biological Sciences, NJIT
PhD defense: Circadian and ultradian rhythms in fishes
IN PERSON, CKB 116

Tuesday Sep 26
1pm

CANCELLED. Dr. Anthony Geneva, Rutgers-Camden
The evolutionary genomics of adaptation enabled by high quality genome assemblies
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor)

Tuesday Oct 3
1pm

Dr. Jorge Golowasch, Department of Biological Sciences, NJIT
Neuronal membrane capacitance changes daily
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor)

Tuesday Oct 10
1pm

Dr. Lily Khadempour, Rutgers Newark.
Ants, microbes, and a new conceptual framework for symbiosis
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor)

Tuesday Oct 17
1pm

Prof. Farzan Nadim, NJIT
The cerebellum modulates the basal ganglia through direct projections to the substantia nigra dopaminergic nucleus
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor) and ONLINE (different link from normal).

Tuesday Oct 24
1pm

Dr.Chi Chen, Rutgers University
Greening the Earth: Drivers and impacts
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor) and ONLINE.

Tuesday Oct 31
1pm

Dr. Andrea Roeser, Emory University
Dopaminergic error signals retune to social feedback during courtship
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor) and ONLINE (different link from normal).

Tuesday Nov 7
1pm

Dr. Brooke Flammang
Engineering biology
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor) and ONLINE (different link from normal).

Tuesday Nov 14
1pm

Dr. Martin Haesemeyer
Coincidence of action and sensation controls attention to temperature in zebrafish
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor) and ONLINE.

Tuesday Nov 21
1pm

Dr. Petras Swissler, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, NJIT
The challenges of achieving biological-scale self-assembly in robotics
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor) and ONLINE.

Tuesday Nov 28
1pm

CANCELLED. Dr. Bruce Carlson

 

Tuesday Dec 5
1pm

PhD Student Presentations: Grant Bowers and Smita More-Potdar
Searching for the cause of small island effect and Long-term constraining effects of neuromodulators on ionic current parameter space
IN PERSON, CKB "Swan Room" (4th floor) and ONLINE.

WINTER BREAK

Tuesday Jan 30
1pm

Dr. Phillip Barden, NJIT
Emergence and extinction in eusocial arthropods
IN PERSON, CKB 303 and ONLINE.

Tuesday Feb 6
1pm

Dr. Hungtag Ko, Princeton University
Collective behavior of insects in dynamic fluid environments
IN PERSON, CKB 303 and ONLINE.

Tuesday Feb 13
1pm

CANCELED DUE TO SNOW. Dr. Jessica Goodheart, American Museum of Natural History
Invertebrate pirates: Mechanism and evolution of a stolen defense
Will be rescheduled for Fall 2024.

Tuesday Feb 20
1pm

Dr. Michael Lee
Creating engaging tools for programming and STEM learning
IN PERSON, CKB 303 and ONLINE.

Tuesday Feb 27
1pm

Sean Dowd, Senior Associate Dean of Students, NJIT
NO COLLOQUIUM. This is a presentation for biology graduate students.
IN PERSON, CKB 303.

Tuesday Mar 5
1pm

Dr. Xiaonan Tai, NJIT
TBA
IN PERSON, CKB 303 and ONLINE.

SPRING BREAK

Tuesday Mar 19
1pm

Dr. Sophia Tintori, New York University
Using nematodes to study natural variation in sensitivity to mutagens
IN PERSON, CKB 303 and ONLINE.

Tuesday Mar 26
1pm

Dr. Franne Kahmi, Denison University
Neural mechanisms of foraging in varying ecological contexts
IN PERSON, CKB 303 and ONLINE.

Tuesday Apr 2
1pm

Dr. Michael Granatosky, NYIT
Leveraging tetrapod grasping as an opportunity for student research and STEM outreach
IN PERSON, CKB 303 and ONLINE.

Tuesday Apr 9
1pm

Dr. Zachary Calamari, City University of New York
Horn and antler gene expression dynamics and evolution
ONLINE but with a watch party in CKB 303.

Tuesday Apr 16
1pm

Dr. David Lipshutz, Flatiron Institute
Statistical learning algorithms for biological neural networks
IN PERSON, CKB 303 and ONLINE.

Tuesday Apr 23
1pm

Dr. Michael Layden, Lehigh University
"Sea-ing" neurobiology through the lens of an anemone
IN PERSON, CKB 303 and ONLINE.

Tuesday Apr 30
1pm

Dr. Bruce Carlson, Washington University of St. Louis
Shifting sensorimotor integration during seasonal and evolutionary change in behavior
ONLINE.

Date

Speaker

Monday Sep 12
3pm

Dr. Toni Guillamon, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and Centre de Recerca Matemàtica, Spain
Optimal transition from damped to sustained biological oscillations through response functions.

Monday Sep 26
3pm

Dr. Claudio Mirasso, Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB), Palma de Mallorca, Spain
On the role of inhibitory neurons in the information processing capacity of the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus.

Monday Nov 7
3pm

Dr Beatriz Baño-Otàlora, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Brighten up your circadian clock: Impact of daytime light intensity on behaviour and clock function in a diurnal mammal.

Monday Nov 28
3pm

Dr. Julia Hyland Bruno, NJIT Department of Humanities
A comparative-species perspective on vocal interactivity.
IN PERSON AND ONLINE

Monday Dec 5
3pm

Dr. Kristina Wicke, NJIT Department of Mathematics
Mathematical approaches to biodiversity conservation: Some recent developments and challenges in phylogenetic diversity research.
IN PERSON AND ONLINE

WINTER BREAK

Tuesday Jan 17
1pm

Dr. Katelyn Mike, University of Chicago
Past, present, and future molecular evolution of fish.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Tuesday Jan 24
1pm

Dr. Isabella Muratore, NJIT
From brain structure to collective architecture: Behavioral adaptations in ants.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Tuesday Jan 31
1pm

Dr. Heather Bruce, Marine Biology Labs, Woods Hole
Arthropod appendages: Novelty and homology over hundreds of millions of years.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Wednesday Feb 1
2:45pm

Dr. Jaya Krishnan, Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City
Life in the dark illuminates the path to metabolic resilience.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Tuesday Feb 7
1pm

Dr. Larry Band, University of Virginia
Integrated modeling and assessment of urban form and infrastructure impacts on runoff, nutrient loading, and carbon cycling: Prospects for environmental restoration.
ONLINE

Wednesday Feb 8
2:30pm

Dr. Megan Corty, Vollum Institute & Oregon Health Science Institute
How and why do glia wrap axons?
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Thursday Feb 9
1pm

Dr. Allison Edgar, The Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, St. Augustine
Fashionably late and ready to party: Late specification and early maturation of germline cells in the phylum Ctenophora.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Thursday Feb 16
1pm

Dr. Carolyn Elya, Harvard University
Secrets of the zombie fly: Neural mechanisms of fruit fly behavioral manipulation by the killer fungus Entomophthora muscae.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Tuesday Feb 28
1pm

Dr. Ashlee H. Rowe, University of Oklahoma
Scorpion toxins and ion channel targets: Neurophysiological mechanisms of adaptive pain resistance in predators.
ONLINE

Tuesday Mar 7
1pm

Dr. Melissa Ingala, Fairleigh Dickinson University
Metagenomic collaboration between bats and their gut bacteria.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

SPRING BREAK

Tuesday Mar 21
1pm

Audrey Biondi-Kellogg, NJIT
DISSERTATION DEFENSE. A biologically inspired fin for underwater robotics: A study of Mola mola swimming mechanics.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Tuesday Mar 28
1pm

Dr. Dora Biro, University of Rochester
Collective knowledge in animal groups: From the ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’ to cultural evolution.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Tuesday Apr 4
1pm

Dr. Jason Yang, Rutgers NJMS
Interpretable machine learning for mechanistic discovery and biomedical translation.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Tuesday Apr 11
1pm

Dr. Ioana Carcea, Rutgers Brain Health Institute
Oxytocin neurons enable the social transmission of maternal behavior.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Tuesday Apr 18
1pm

Christine Sosiak, NJIT
DISSERTATION DEFENSE. How to survive a mass extinction: Detangling drivers of extinction in deep time.
IN PERSON, CKB 303

Tuesday May 2
1pm

Dr. Clinton Jenkins, Florida International University
Frontiers in our understanding of global biodiversity.
ONLINE ONLY