Laura Duvall received her B.A. in Biochemistry and Biological Basis of Behavior from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007. She then went on to complete a PhD with Paul Taghert at Washington University in St. Louis studying the neuropeptide regulation of circadian behavior in Drosophila. She conducted postdoctoral research with Leslie Vosshall at the Rockefeller University where she switched her studies to the Aedes aegypti mosquito and focused her research efforts on understanding the regulation of feeding and mating behaviors in the mosquito. She started her own lab at Columbia University in 2019 where she is a member of the Department of Biological Sciences and an affiliate of the Zuckerman Institute. She is the recipient of a 2020 Beckman Young Investigator Award, a 2020 Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Award in Neuroscience, and she is a 2021 Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences.

The Duvall Lab uses genetic, pharmacological, and behavioral techniques to understand how mosquitoes regulate innate behaviors like mating, blood-feeding, and daily rhythms in their attraction to humans. We are using pharmacological and genetic approaches to understand how Aedes aegypti mosquitoes modulate their drive to find and bite humans after a blood meal and what anatomical circuits are involved in the dramatic behavioral switch from host-seeking to suppression. We are also developing methods to quantify circadian behavior in mosquitoes and genetic techniques to disrupt circadian genes and circuits to investigate their role in daily and seasonal patterns of host-seeking. In Aedes aegypti, a single mating event with a single male is sufficient to provision the female with all of the reproductive material that she will use for the rest of her life and males transfer substances during mating that cause females to reject future suitors. Current research projects in the lab focus on profiling the compounds transferred to from males to females during mating and identifying their sites of action in the female. Beyond the significance of this work to basic science discovery, innate behaviors play key roles in vector biology and understanding mosquito biology can provide new targets to disrupt these behaviors to prevent the interactions with humans that contribute to the spread of diseases like chikungunya, Zika, and dengue fever.

https://www.duvalllab.com

Dr. Freud is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology and the Centre for Vision Research at York University. He received his Ph.D. from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel and then joined Carnegie Mellon University as a Post-doctoral researcher. In 2018, Dr. Freud joined York University to start his own lab. His research combines behavioral experiments, fMRI studies, and neuropsychological investigations to elucidate the cognitive and neural processes that mediate our ability to perceive the world around us and to interact with objects in our environment. His recent work about face perception in the ear of COVID-19 was published in leading journals and was featured in main-stream media outlet including The New-York Times, The National (CBC) and the Nature of Things (CBC). His research is supported by NSERC and the CFREF program (VISTA - vision to application).

Brian Serapio earned his HBSc in Biology and Psychology from York University. He is currently completing the final year of the MD program at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. He has a strong interest in older adult healthcare and has done extensive research work in the area at Mount Sinai Hospital and Baycrest Health Sciences. He is also passionate about the mentorship of medical learners and pre-medical students from groups historically underrepresented in medicine.

Fargol is a third-year student attending Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, a Canadian accredited dental school known for their competitive clinical experience. Native to Toronto, she began her academic career at York University, earning her BSc in Biology while completing multiple research practicums and going onto complete her thesis, winning her the Dean’s honours thesis award. She went onto complete her masters in the field of invertebrate physiology, funded by OGS and NSERC. During her masters, she attended multiple conferences and took part in a variety of research collaborations including the likes of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks.

Andrea is a comparative physiologist who seeks to understand the fundamental biology of the Earth's most peculiar animals. From disease-transmitting mosquitoes to deep-sea squid, Andrea's research interests span basic biological processes that allow animals to thrive in their native environments, to the impacts of global climate change and anthropogenic activity on the ability of animals to maintain these biological processes. Andrea completed her graduate research at York University in the lab of Dr. Andrew Donini, where she characterized genes involved in nitrogen regulation in larvae and adult mosquitoes and examined the impact of polluted stagnant water (an important aquatic habitat for mosquito larvae) that contains high levels of nitrogen-containing compounds that are toxic to animals, such as ammonia. Andrea then began an Inclusive Excellence postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto Scarborough which focused on the sensory physiology of marine Dungeness crab, specifically how crabs sense nitrogen-containing chemical cues in the seawater and the impacts of climate change on this process. Andrea is now a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of Miami, where her current research examines the use of nitrogen compounds that deep sea squid store in special chambers for buoyancy. Overall, Andrea's research interests centers on all the peculiar ways that animals utilize nitrogen-containing compounds in their biology. A large part of Andrea's current research involves the active participation and promotion of scientists from historically minoritized groups. Andrea aims to continue her research in an academic setting.

Komal is a Technical Recruiter at BioRender, a fast-growing Toronto-based start-up focused on empowering the world to learn and communicate science faster through visuals. At BioRender, Komal leads recruitment for engineering and product roles while contributing to the organization's rapid growth. Prior to her current role, she also worked as an Academic Advisor for the Faculty of Science at York University. Komal holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Masters Degree in Management.