Former Students

Ph.D. Students

Charuni A. Gunaratne

Last seen as Post-doc in Ben de Bivort's lab at Harvard.

Georgia State University  Dissertation 5/11/15:  "Evolution of swimming behaviors in nudibranch molluscs: A comparative analysis of neural circuitry".

Charuni may be small, but she carries a big stick.  In fact, she has been sticking electrodes into neurons in several slug species.  She found important neurons for swimming in the beautiful Flabellina iodinea.  More importantly, she has begun her career as a nature photographer; her portraits of slugs have appeared on the covers of Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of Neuroscience.   

Joshua L. Lillvis

lillvisj@janelia.hhmi.org
Post-doc at the Janelia Farm Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
formerly at Research Inst. of Molecular Pathology, Vienna, Austria, 

Georgia State University  Dissertation 08/08/12: "A comparative analysis of the neural basis for dorsal-ventral swimming in the Nudipleura" 

Josh identified a neuron named C2 in several species.  Among other things, he found that Pleurobranchaea are pain to work with because sometimes they choose not to swim.  Philosophers are currently studying this to determine the neural basis of persnicketyness. Josh has rarely been photographed, leading some to question his existence. Josh won a Capranica Prize from the International Society for Neuroethology for his paper: Lillvis JL and Katz PS (2013) Parallel Evolution of Serotonergic Neuromodulation Underlies Independent Evolution of Rhythmic Motor Behavior.  Journal of Neuroscience. 33(6):2709-17. PMID: 23392697 doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4196-12.2013 http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/6/2709

James M. Newcomb

jnewcomb@nec.edu 

Jim is now a Professor at New England College
Lab web page

Georgia State University  Dissertation 12/42006: "Homologous neurons and their locomotor functions in Nudibranch molluscs"

For his Ph.D. dissertation, Jim identified the serotonergic dorsal swim interneurons in several species and looked at their properties and roles in swimming behaviors.  Jim hasn't changed a bit since he was a student. He loves hanging out with his favorite women in New Hampshire. But he doesn't dance as much as he used to.  

M.S. Students

Kelsi Watkins

klwatki5@asu.edu

MS Thesis Aug. 2022:  "Chemosensory Receptors in Berghia stephanieae: Bioinformatics and Localization"

https://doi-org.silk.library.umass.edu/10.7275/31053258
https://scholarworks-umass-edu.silk.library.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/1235 

Kelsi started as an undergraduate and stayed on for an MS.  She is now a PhD student at Arizona State University


Kelly Fischer

kfischer@umass.edu
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyfischer98/ 

MS Thesis Aug 2021: “Development of a new behavioral assay for juvenile Berghia stephanieae”
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/1118/

Kelly joined our lab in 2017 when she arrived at UMass. She did some early work on electron microscopy.  She worked as lab manager for a while. After receiving her BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, she joined the accelerated MS program, where she designed an assay for juvenile Berghia. Kelly is now a Research Associate at Scorpion Therapeutics in Boston.

Ani Maroyan

amaroyan98@gmail.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ani-maroyan/

MS Thesis August 2021: The Time Course and Neuroanatomy of Rhinophore Regeneration in the Nudibranch Berghia stephanieae
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/1119/

Ani graduated in the  2021.  She received her BS in May 2020, majoring in both Biology and Psychology on the Neuroscience track and was a member of the Commonwealth Honors College.  She is currently working as a clinical research specialist in Orthopedic Surgery at Boston Children's Hospital. She might have also starred in the Queen's Gambit.

Thi Bui

thibui@umass.edu
MS Thesis Dec 2020: Studies on High-Throughput Single-Neuron RNA Sequencing and Circadian Rhythms in the Nudibranch, Berghia stephanieae
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/1006/ 

Thi was a UMass undergraduate, majoring in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She is from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Thi has been involved in promoting STEM research and she's worked on plants (different kind of stem). She found out that sea slugs are just as smart as plants. Thi graduated from the Honors College in December 2018. She did her honors thesis on circadian activity in Berghia. She defended her MS Thesis in December 2020, "Studies on high-throughput single-neuron RNA sequencing and circadian rhythms in the nudibranch, Berghia stephanieae." She is now a research technician with Ankur Jain at the Whitehead Institute at MIT.

Georgia State University MS students

2014-2015

Aashta Vashist

E-mail: avashist1@student.gsu.edu

Aashta was a public health student doing her masters degree in biostatistics. Aashta comes from Panjab University, Chandigarh, India, where she received a Bachelors of Dental Surgery. She was very disappointed to learn that the teeth of sea slugs are really tiny. 

Şeydanur Tıkır

E-mail: seydatkr@gmail.com

MS Thesis 2016: A comparative analysis of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and cholinergic neurons in nudipleura molluscs.

http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/biology_theses/73/

Seyda came to us from Istanbul Turkey.  Her bioinformatics background was perfect for our research.  But now, she's  a PhD student at Albert Einstein Medical School in the Bronx. Never one to take the easy path, Seyda said that the reason she moved is for the challenge of living in the Bronx; Atlanta was just too easy. She had to escape a coup attempt in Turkey to make it to her thesis defense.

2016-2017
Amirah Hurst
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirah-hurst-56100b51/
Amirah graduated GSU as a neuroscience major and now is an MS student in the Biology department. She single-handedly launched the lab in a new research direction by figuring out how to grow nudibranchs in the lab leading to a Brains and Behavior Seed grant and an NSF proposal. She took the comparative invertebrate embryology course at Friday Harbor lab. The picture shows her dressed as a veliger larva. After the lab moved to UMass, she moved to Anne Murphy's lab. 

Christina Lynn

MS thesis 2003: The effect of oral 5-HTP administration on 5-HTP and 5-HT immunoreactivity in monoaminergic brain regions of rats.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-lynn-19818736/
https://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-christina-lynn-xf9gv   

Christina was an early student in the lab. She went on to medical school and is now a practicing psychiatrist.

Undergraduate Honors Theses

UMass Undergraduate Research Assistants

GSU Undergraduate Students

Rachael Beaumont

Rachael gets a special shoutout becauseshe got a permanent tattoo of Flabellina iodinea. 

Skishnell Nairn, Julie Shwiller, Todd Cook, Steve-Felix Belinger, Deron Davis, Ann Reedy, Priyal Shah, Michele Naugle, Nina Milosavljevic, Sagar Jhalla, Mercy Abonambugre, James Griffin, Punam “Pooja” Mandania, Caleb Young, Britessia Smith (NET/work), Stephen Pendleton, Roseanne Tan, Shalin Jyotishi, Preetham Ganupuru (Honors College, Brains & Behavior Scholar, Molecular Basis of Disease Scholar), Ryan Szczech, Aiyana Batton (NET/work), Jonathan Boykin, Amirah Hurst, Anastasia Schultz, Elif Diricanli, Vidya Chenji, Rachael Beaumont, Ebah Boigny

High School Students

Amherst: Alison Jackson  

Atlanta: Rachael Beaumont, Lynn Jacobs