The Biology Department holds hour long seminars every Thursday at 4pm throughout the Fall and Spring semesters. Find flyers with more information on the second floor of DeGrace hall, sign up for the Biology Seminar emailing list biosem@case.edu, or contact Department Assistant Mikaela Libens (mxl1349@case.edu) with questions.

Spring 2024

Name Date Institution Title or Area of Research Website Host
Francesca Hand January 25th The Ohio State University “Deciphering host-pathogen and fungal-fungal interactions within the latent fruit rot of winterberry pathosystem: from the field to the biochemistry” https://plantpath.osu.edu/our-people/francesca-peduto-hand Jean Burns
Jess Fox and Gabby Wolff February 1st Case Western Reserve University “Academic Job Search Q&A” 
NEURO SEARCH February 8th Neuro Search Committee
NEURO SEARCH February 15th Neuro Search Committee
NEURO SEARCH Tuesday, February 20th Neuro Search Committee
Graduate Recruitment Symposium February 22nd Case Western Reserve University
Rodrigo Somoza Palacios February 29th Case Western Reserve University, Center for Modular Manufacturing of Structural Tissues “Perivascular MSCs and the basement Membrane Roles in Bone Metastasis” https://case.edu/cm2ost/about/center-directory/faculty/rodrigo-somoza-palacios Arnold Caplan
Kimberly Sheldon March 7th The University of Tennessee Knoxville https://www.biogeographyresearch.org/ E&E Students
NO SEMINAR – SPRING BREAK March 14th
Sam Senyo March 21st Case Western Reserve University https://senyolab.com/lab-personnel/ Karen Abbott
Leah Rosin March 28th National Institute of Child Health and Human Development https://leahrosinlab.com/ Nicole Crown
Jamie Marks April 4th Michigan State University https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hVpMnNwAAAAJ&hl=en Karen Abbott
Melissa Warden April 11th Cornell University “Neuromodulation and the balance between goal-directed and reactive behavior” https://www.wardenlab.org/ Neuro Students
Josh Benoit April 18th University of Cincinnati “Blood feeding and virus transmission in mosquitoes is shifted by drought” http://insectphysiology.uc.edu/ Gabriella Wolff
Ashleigh Schaffer April 25th Case Western Reserve University “Leveraging rare disease models to advance scientific and therapeutic discovery” https://case.edu/medicine/genetics/people/primary-faculty/ashleigh-schaffer Radhika Atit

Fall 2023

Name Date Institution Title or Area of Research Website Host
Jacob Scott August 31st Case Western Reserve University “Controlling evolution: applications to infectious disease and cancer” https://www.lerner.ccf.org/translational-hematology-oncology/scott/ Michael Benard
David Kikuchi September 7th Oregon State University “Information Warfare: Mimicry and Social Learning in Predator-Prey Communities” http://www.warningsignal.org/ Ryan Martin
Corine Jackman September 14th Carnegie Mellon Univeristy “Mini-bioreactors to elucidate bacterial communication in the vaginal and upper respiratory tract” Angela Dixon
Rebecca Swab September 21st Holden Forests and Gardens “Creating community around trees: conservation & community forestry at Holden Forest & Garden” Michael Benard
Jessica Tingle September 28th University of Akron The Evolution and Maintenance of Novel Locomotor Behaviors https://jleetingle.com/ Michael Benard
Heather Eisthen October 5th Michigan State University “Toxic relationships: Production, detection, and resistance to tetrodotoxin in rough-skinned newts” https://eisthenlab.com/ Gabby Wolff
Brian Taylor October 12th Case Western Reserve University Animal multimodal sensation and sensory processing https://engineering.case.edu/profiles/bkt2 Michael Benard
Patrick Bradley October 19th The Ohio State University “In vitro and in silico tools for interrogating the human gut microbiome” https://bradleylab.science/ Sarah Bagby
Chrystian Junqueira Alves October 26th Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Cancer Biology https://icahn.mssm.edu/profiles/chrystian-j-alves Angela Dixon
Gina Lewin November 2nd Case Western Reserve University “Microbial Interactions in the Dynamic Oral Environment” https://case.edu/medicine/pathology/faculty/gina-lewin Michael Benard
Lauren Simonitis November 9th Florida Atlantic University “Getting Nosy: Investigations into the Chondrichthyan Olfactory System” https://www.laurenevesimonitis.com/ Michael Benard
Postdocs Michael Rauscher, Amy Streets, Jeremy Didion, and Rogério Miranda November 16th Case Western Reserve University Gabby Wolff
NO SEMINAR – THANKSGIVING BREAK November 23rd
Christie Bahlai November 30th Kent State University Applied Computational Ecology https://bahlailab.org/ Ryan Martin
Boris Tezak December 7th Duke University “Exploring the role of germ cells in temperature-dependent sex determination” Nicole Crown

Spring 2023

Name Date Institution Title or Area of Research Website Host
Marie Dacke January 26th Lund University “The Dynamic Nature of the Insect Compass System” https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/marie-dacke Gabriella Wolff
Viorel Popescu February 2nd Ohio University “Challenges and Opportunities for Conserving Terrestrial Carnivores in Human-Dominated Landscapes” https://vioreldpopescu.com/ Michael Benard
Bradley Dickerson February 9th Princeton University “Functionally Stratified Encoding in a Biological Gyroscope” https://dickersonlab.princeton.edu/ Gabriella Wolff
Andrew Dacks February 16th West Virginia University “Stimulus Specific Modulation of Olfactory Coding by Serotonin” https://www.dacksneuroscience.com Gabriella Wolff
Judith Yanowitz February 23rd Magee-Womens Research Institute “To Break or Not To Break: Initiation and Regulation of Meiotic Crossovers” https://mageewomens.org/investigator/judith-yanowitz-ph-d Nicole Crown
Timothy Mead March 2nd University Hospitals, CWRU School of Medicine “Extracellular matrix optimization during embryogenesis” Radhika Atit
Stephanie Langel March 9th Case Western Reserve University “What maternal antibody responses in pigs, ferrets, and mice teaches us about human biology” https://langelresearchteam.com/the-team Jessica Fox

Arvid Agren

March 23rd Cleveland Clinic “Evolution of Within-Organism Conflicts” https://arvidagren.com/ Ryan Martin
Rachelle Adams March 30th The Ohio State University “Integrative Evolution: The illumination of symbiotic and systems” https://megalomyrmex.osu.edu/ Gabriella Wolff
Tiffany Betras April 6th Case Western Reserve University “Understanding the causes of biodiversity decline in temperate forests: Disentangling the impacts of browsing and nonnative species” http://www.rzlab.pitt.edu/?page_id=1738 Sarah Bagby and Michael Benard
Grant Yu April 13th Case Western Reserve University “The roles of soil biota in plant defense in an ecological context” Jean Burns
Jordan Renna April 20th University of Akron Neural Circuit Development https://rennalab.uakron.edu/ Gabriella Wolff
John Kopchick April 27th Ohio University “Growth Hormone, Minni-Mice, Football, Dirty Shirts, and a New drug” Joseph Terry

Fall 2022

Name Date Institution Title Website Host
Uli Steiner September 8th Individual heterogeneity and aging: on humans, plants and bacteria https://sites.google.com/site/steinerbiodemographylab/home Robin Snyder
Oindrila De September 13th Septate junction proteins play non-occluding roles in Drosophila embryonic morphogenesis https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Oindrila-De-2 Rob Ward
Luisa Hiller September 22nd The Pneumococcal Social Network https://www.bio.cmu.edu/labs/hiller/index.html Sarah Bagby
Matthew Forister September 29th The Fast & the Fragile: How Many Butterflies will Survive the Anthropocene? https://www.unr.edu/biology/faculty/matt-forister Angie Lenard
NO SEMINAR October 6
Tiffany Betras October 13th Understanding the causes of biodiversity decline in temperate forests: Disentangling the impacts of browsing and nonnative species http://www.rzlab.pitt.edu/?page_id=1738 Sarah Bagby
Rikesh Patel October 20th Path integration above and below the water’s surface https://rickeshpatel.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/0/6/25066119/patel_rn_cv_2021.pdf Gabriella Wolff
Bruce Sullenger October 27th From the RNA World to the Clinic with RNA guides and aptamers https://surgery.duke.edu/divisions/surgical-sciences/research/research-laboratories/cardiovascular-biology-laboratory Yolanda Fortenberry
Britton Sauerbrei November 3rd Cortico-Cerebellar Dynamics for Skilled Movement in the Mouse. https://sauerbreilab.org/ Hillel Chiel, Gabriella Wolff
Michael Sheehan November 10th Ecology, evolution, and neuroscience of facial recognition in paper wasps https://sheehanlab.weebly.com Kris Lea
Stephen Montgomery November 17th Rapid expansion and visual specialisation of learning and memory centres in Heliconiini butterflies. https://www.shmontgomery.co.uk/index.html Gabriella Wolff
Sangeet Lamichhaney December 1st Exploring adaptive evolution through the lens of modern genomics Ryan Martin
Lydia Kisley December 8th Super-resolution imaging of protein dynamics within the extracellular matrix https://www.kisleylab.science/ Radhika Atit, Sarah Bagby

Summer 2022

Name Date Institution Seminar title Website Host
Dr. Abdel Halloway June 9, 2022 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign “Rapid Eco-Evolutionary Feedbacks in Ecological Communities” E-Co-Evo – Co-Evolution in Ecological Communities Karen Abbott

Spring 2022

Name Date Institution Seminar Title Website Host
Dr. Leila Rieder March 3, 2022 Emory University “Nuclear body organization of the zygotic genome” https://www.riederlab.org/ Dr. Nicole Crown
Dr. Seyeon Chung March 17, 2022 Louisiana State University “Mechanisms Underlying Epithelial Tube Formation” https://faculty.lsu.edu/seyeonchunglab/ Dr. Robert Ward
Dr. Alison Bennett March 24,2022 The Ohio State University “Interactions among microbiomes: The bottom up and
top down influences of soil and insect microbiomes”
https://species-interactions.osu.edu/people.html Dr. Jean Burns
Dr. Amanda Larracuente March 31.2022 University of Rochester “Meiotic Drive and Satellite DNA in Drosophila Melanogaster” http://blogs.rochester.edu/larracuente/ Dr. Nicole Crown
Dr. Gerald Downes April 7, 2022 University of Massachusetts Amherst “From Swimming to Seizures: Investigating hyperactive
locomotor behavior in developing zebrafish”
RESEARCH – Downes Laboratory Dr. Jessica Fox
April 14, 2022
Dr. Lauren Sullivan April 21, 2022 University of Missouri “Ecological causes and consequences of dispersal in restored and
native grasslands”
sullivanplantecology.com Amy Patterson

Fall 2021

Name Date Institution Seminar Title Website Host

 

Dr. Jessica Fox

 

9/2/21

 

Case Western Reserve University

 

“Combining sensory information for flexible behaviors at high speed”

 

https://biology.case.edu/faculty/jessica-fox/

 

 

Dr. Mark Willis

Promotion seminar

 

 

 

 

 

9/9/21

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Basil el Jundi

basil.el-jundi@uni-wuerzburg.de

 

 

9/16/21

 

University of Wurzburg

 

 

 

http://www.insectnavigation.com/

 

 

Dr. Jessica Fox

 

Dr. Emily Baird

emily.baird@zoologi.su.se

 

9/23/21

 

Stockholm University-Sweden

“Some don’t like it hot: Assessing the effect of climate change on the morphology and behaviour of insect pollinators”

 

https://www.insectlabsu.com/

 

 

Dr. Jessica Fox

 

Dr. W. Seth Childer

 

9/30/2021

 

University of Pittsburgh

 

 

 

 

https://www.chem.pitt.edu/person/w-seth-childers

 

 

 

10/7/21

 

Dr. Ankur Saxena

saxenaa@uic.edu

 

10/14/2021

 

University of Chicago Illinois

 

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?: Local Signaling Drives Continuous Olfactory Neurogenesis

 

https://bios.uic.edu/profiles/saxena-ankur/

 

 

Dr. Radhika Atit

 

Fall Break- no seminar.

 

10/21/2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Name Date Institution Seminar Title Website Host

 

Dr. Giovanni  Bosco

 

Giovanni.Bosco@dartmouth.edu

 

 

 

10/28/2021

 

Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine

 

 

www.boscogeneticslab.com

 

Dr. Nicole Crown

 

Dr. Julijana Gjorgjieva

julegjor@gmail.com

 

11/4/2021

Max Planck Institute for Brain Research

https://brain.mpg.de/gjor/cv

 

 

Dr. Jessica Fox

 

Dr. Dan Bergstrahl

dan.bergstralh@rochester.edu

 

 

11/11/2021

 

University of Rochester

 

“Depth, not Breadth: How Do Epithelial Cells Organize in Z?”

 

https://www.sas.rochester.edu/bio/people/faculty/bergstralh_daniel/index.php

 

 

Dr. Nicole Crown

 

Dr. Kieran Samuk

ksamuk@ucr.edu

 

 

11/18/2021

 

University of California Riverside

 

“The Evolution and Consequences of     Recombination Rate Variation”

 

 

https://www.samuklab.com/

 

Dr. Nicole Crown

 

No seminar-

Thanksgiving Break

 

11/25/2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Dylan Childs

 

 

12/2/21