Seminar Schedule
Each Friday during the academic year the department offers a Friday afternoon seminar featuring special speakers and visiting scholars. Seminars are held at 3:00 p.m.
Spring 2013 (Corcoran Hall 111)
|
Date |
Speaker |
Title |
Host |
|
January 18 |
Dr. Douglas Levey, NSF |
Why Chilies Are Hot |
Amy Zanne |
|
January 25 |
Dr. Carson Murray, The George Washington University |
Female Chimpanzee Competition: The Long View |
John Lill |
|
February 1 |
Dr. David Hibbett, Clark University |
How Mushrooms Changed the World |
Amy Zanne |
|
February 8 |
Dr. Nathan Kraft, University of Maryland |
Functional Traits and Coexistence in Plant Communities |
Amy Zanne |
|
February 22 |
Dr. Mark Knepper, NIH |
Systems Biology- Approaches in Kidney Physiology |
Randy Packer |
|
March 1 |
Dr. Daniele Podini, The George Washington University |
Forensic Molecular Biology at GWU |
Randy Packer |
|
March 8 |
Dr. Ted Schultz, National Museum of Natural History, |
Phylogenetic patterns of symbiont fidelity in fungus-growing ants |
Scott Powell |
|
March 22 |
Marc Seid University of Scranton |
Neuroethology of ants: Brain miniaturization and behavior |
Adam Smith |
|
March 29 |
Dr. Nathan Smith Howard University |
The Assembly of Avian Anatomy: From Early Dinosaurs to Diving Waterbirds |
Jim Clark |
|
April 5 |
Robin O'Keefe, Marshall University |
Sundance Plesiosaurs: new discoveries from the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming |
Jim Clark |
|
April 12 |
Dr. Tyler Lyson Post Doctoral Fellow National Museum of Natural History, |
The Origin of Turtles and their Enigmatic Shell: Insights from Morphology, Molecules, and Development |
Jim Clark |
|
April 19 |
Dr. Corrie Moreau, |
Ants, Plants, and Bacteria: A Tale of Evolutionary Diversification |
Scott Powell |
|
April 26 |
Departmental Honors Thesis Presentations |
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|
May 3 |
Jeff Pettis USDA |
Pollinators in Crisis? If So, What is at Steak? |
Hartmut Doebel |
|
May 10 |
Saurabh Trikha |
Dissertation Seminar "Unravelling the Molecular Pathways of Human Amylin Binding, Turnover and Toxicity in Pancreatic Cells" |
Aleksandar Jeremic |
Fall 2012 (Corcoran Hall 106)
|
Date |
Speaker |
Title |
Host |
|
September 7 |
Audrey Majeske |
Dissertation Seminar |
Courtney Smith |
|
September 14 |
Departmental Safety Seminar - Mandatory for faculty and grad students |
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|
September 21 |
Dr. Eric Haag, |
Genetics of Evolutionary Adaptations |
Damien O'Halloran |
|
September 28 |
Dr. Frank Burbrink |
Evidence for Determinism in Species Diversification and Contingency in Phenotypic Evolution During Adaptive Radiation |
Alex Pyron |
|
October 5 |
Dr. Sean McMahon, |
Towards a Physiological Phenology: What Seasons Mean to Trees |
Amy Zanne |
|
October 19 |
Dr. Keith Crandall, Director |
Next-gen Phylogenetics and Evolution |
Diana Lipscomb |
|
November 2 |
Dr. Antony Jose, |
Movement of RNA silencing between cells in the worm C. elegans |
Damien O'Halloran |
|
November 9 |
Carlye Austin |
Dissertation Seminar |
Ken Brown |
|
November 16 |
Dr. Ann Corsi, |
Grab a partner to do the "Twist": A tale of C. elegans transcription |
Damien O'Halloran |
|
November 30 |
Paaqua Grant |
Dissertation Seminar:
"Roles of Maternally Derived mRNAs in Neural Development: Using Xenopus laevis as a Model Organism." |
Diana Johnson |
Fall 2011
| Date | Speaker | Title | Host |
| Sept 2 | New Graduate Student Reception | ||
| Sept 9 | Federico G. Hoffmann, Mississippi State University | Evolution of vertebrate globins: gene and genome duplications in the evolution of oxygen transport. | Orti |
| Sept 16 | No Seminar | University Faculty Meeting | |
| Sept 23 | Risk Management, Environmental Health & Safety Departments | Safety Seminar: Earthquakes. | Pizzonia, Rutter, Scully |
| Sept 30 | Antonis Rokas, Vanderbilt University | RNA-Seq and phylogenetics, and Next Generation Sequencing applications to evolutionary biology (At the Smithsonian) |
Smithsonian |
| Oct 7 | Carl Wieman, University of British Columbia, University of Colorado, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, 1995 Nobel Prize (Physics) | Taking a Scientific Approach to Learning and Teaching Science | Doebel, Donaldson |
| Oct 14 | Ken Kozak, University of Minnesota | Phylogeny, ecology, and the origin and fate of species richness gradients | Pyron |
| Oct 21 | Photographies and narration by our own Alex Pyron, Cathy Forster, Jim Clark, and G. Orti | Biodiversity Explorations around the world: Sri Lanka, South Africa, China, and the Amazon. | Orti |
| Oct 28 | Lauren Buckley, University of North Carolina | The biogeography of ectothermy and endothermy in changing environments | Pyron |
| Nov 4 | Robin Wright, University of Minnesota | From lecture to learning: teaching more by talking less | Doebel, Donaldson |
| Nov 11 | Erin Wilson, University of Maryland | Shifts in yellowjacket life history modify invasion impacts in Hawaiian ecosystems | Lill |
| Nov 18 | Dr. Mary Beth Saffo, NSF Program Director | A mutualism with parasitic origins: a surprising three-partner symbiosis in marine animals | Smith |
| Dec 2 | Dr. Alexa Bely, University of Maryland | Evolution of regeneration: insights from annelids | Orti |
| Dec 9 | Daniel LumbanTobing, GWU PhD Candidate | Phylogenetic Systematics and Biogeography of the Genus Rasbora sensu lato (Teleostei: Cyprinidae) | Orti |
Spring 2011
| Date | Speaker | Title | Host |
| Jan 14 | |||
| Jan 21 | Louisa Wu, UMD | Recognition and Phagocytosis of Bacteria in Drosophila melanogaster | Smith, Eleftherianos |
| Jan 28 | Kathryn Walters-Conte | Dissertation Seminar | Johnson |
| Feb 4 | Nick Pyenson, Smithsonian | The evolution of lunge-feeding in rorqual whales: an integrative approach using evidence from comparative methods, biomechanics and the fossil record | Clark |
| Feb 11 | Katie Staab, GWU PhD Candidate | Dissertation Seminar | Hernandez |
| Feb 18 | Dr. David Inouye, University of Maryland, NSF | The effects of global and regional climate change on wildflowers and animals in the Colorado Rocky Mountains | Lill |
| Feb 25 | T'ai Roulston, Blandy Experimental Farm, University of Virginia | Flying Herbivores That Sometimes Pollinate: Toward A Revised Understanding of Bee - Plant Relations | Stoepler/Lill |
| Mar 4 | Thomas Finger, University of Colorado, Denver | Sorting food from mud: Brainstem circuitry for taste-mediated food selection by goldfish | Hernandez |
| Mar 11 | J. Conrad, New York College of Osteopathic Medicine | "Climbing the Squamate Tree: Monsters, Dragons, Skinks and Snakes." | Clark |
| Mar 18 | No Seminar | Spring Break | |
| Mar 25 | Weiqun Peng, Physics Department, GWU | Understanding the epigenome: from statistical analysis to biology | Donaldson |
| Apr 1 | Dusan Palic, Iowa State University | Why fish shouldn't wear sunscreen: environmental stress effects on fish immune responses | Jeremic |
| Apr 8 | Divya Uma, University of Maryland | Webs, Chemicals and Deception: predator-prey interactions between wasps and spiders | Stoepler/Lill |
| Apr 15 | Michael Cummings, University of Maryland | Quantifying lineage divergence: the genealogical sorting index | Orti |
| Apr 22 | Undergraduate Honors Students | Senior Honors Presentations | Smith |
| Apr 29 | John Jaenike, University of Rochester | Endosymbiont-mediated protection against nematode parasitism | Eleftherianos |
Fall 2010
| Date | Speaker | Title | Host |
| Sept 3 | No Seminar | No Seminar | N/A |
| Sept 10 | No Seminar | No Seminar | |
| Sept 17 | A. Ramamoorthy, University of Michigan | Structure of Membrane-Associated Cytochrome b5-P450 and Amyloid Proteins by NMR | Jeremic |
| Sept 24 | GWU Biology Safety Seminar | Safety procedures for faculty, staff, students and researchers. | Steimer, Scully |
| Oct 1 | No Seminar | No Seminar | |
| Oct 8 | H. López-Fernández, Royal Ontario Museum | Phylogeny and adaptive radiations in Neotropical Cichlids. | Orti |
| Oct 15 | Michael Alfaro, UCLA | Phylogenetic Macroevolution: New Tools and Perspectives | Hernandez |
| Oct 22 | Helen James, Bird Division at the NMNH | The Ecological and Evolutionary History of Hawaiian Birds | Clark |
| Oct 29 | Cindy Sagers, NSF/University of Arkansas | Title TBA | Lill, Stoepler |
| Nov 5 | James Hanken, Harvard University | Marrying the old and the new: Contemporary approaches to studying cranial development and evolution in vertebrates. | Hernandez |
| Nov 12 | T. Daeschler, Academy of Natural Sciences Philadelphia | Great Steps in the History of Life; Investigating the Origin of Limbed Vertebrates. | Forster |
| Nov 19 | M. Massiah, GWU Department of Chemistry | Probing the structural basis of Opitz Syndrome: regulation of protein function | Jeremic |
| Nov 26 | no seminar | Thanksgiving Break | |
| Dec 3 | Craig Albertson, Syracuse University | Toward a mechanistic understanding of craniofacial evolution among Lake Malawi Cichlids | Hernandez |
| Dec 10 | Q. Wheeler, Arizona State University | Title TBA | Hormiga |