Previous Friday (previously Monday): Comparative Physiology Invited Speaker Seminars

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Spring 2025

Seminars on Fridays from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm, in-person at Michael Smith Laboratories auditorium, MSL 102, unless indicated*.
This series is organized by Colin Brauner, Doug Altshuler, Ben Matthews, and Ben Negrete

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
Jan   9*	Candidate 1		Integrative Organismal Biology search seminar
Jan 13*	Candidate 2		Integrative Organismal Biology search seminar
Jan 16*	Candidate 3		Integrative Organismal Biology search seminar
Jan 20*	Candidate 4		Integrative Organismal Biology search seminar
Jan 23*	Candidate 5		Integrative Organismal Biology search seminar
Jan 27*	Candidate 6		Integrative Organismal Biology search seminar
Feb  7	Kelsey Lucas	U Calgary	Flexible fins and beating tails: swimming ecomechanics of chimaeras and other fishes support performance across changing environments	Schulte
Feb 14	Neill Herbert	U Auckland	Novel approaches to fish exercise in aquaculture	Brauner
Feb 21	Reading week
Feb 28	Randall Seminar: David McKenzie	CNRS, France	Using aerobic exercise to investigate the thermal physiology of fishes	Brauner
Mar 7	Jackie Lebenzon	U Calgary	Break it ‘til you make it: how insects remodel their flight muscle in response to energetic challenges	PMatthews
Mar 14	Andrea Morash	Mount Allison University	What role does fasting play in the metabolic response to environmental stress?	Richards
Mar 21	Andrea Durant	University of Washington	Multifaceted ammonia transporters of mosquitoes	BMatthews
Mar 28	Clare Venney	U Alberta	Evolutionary epigenomics: from transient acclimation to genome evolution	Negrete
Apr 4	Hochacha Lecture: Sheila Thornton	Fisheries and Oceans Canada	Call me Ishmael: physiology and the wild whale	Schulte
Apr 11	Gosline Memorial Lecture: Sharon Swartz	Brown University	The world in a wing: the integrative biology of bat flight	Altshuler

 Fall 2024

Seminars on Fridays from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm, in-person at Michael Smith Laboratories auditorium, MSL 102.
This series is organized by Colin Brauner, Doug Altshuler, Ben Matthews, and Ben Negrete

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
Sep 13	Cameron Emadi	Postdoctoral Fellow, UBC	Physiological insights from conservation to toxicology: assessing swimming performance in texan fish and ammonia stress in juvenile Macrobrachium rosenbergii	Wood
Sep 20	Arimune Munakata	Miyagi University of Education, Japan	Endocrine control of migratory behaviors in Pacific Salmon	Brauner
Sep 27	Renato Filogonio	University of Missouri	Big-hearted reptiles: the importance of body size in the cardiovascular context	Milsom
Oct 4	Tamzin Blewett	University of Alberta	Mysteries of the North, metal toxicity in Arctic aquatic environments	Marshall
Oct 11	Alyssa Weinrauch	Postdoctoral Fellow	Ancient models in comparative endocrinology: sharks and their relatives
Oct 18	CANCELLED - Andrew Dittman	NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Centre, Washington	Remembrance of things past; molecular studies of olfactory imprinting and homing in salmon	Brauner
Oct 25	Michael Wilkie	Wilfrid Laurier University	Nature’s ultimate vertebrate survivors: physiological adaptations of lampreys	Richards
Nov 1	Hoar Lecture: George Lauder	Harvard University	Fish robotics: using mechanical devices to understand the functional and evolutionary diversity of fishes	Shadwick
Nov 8	TBA
Nov 15	Sarah Woolley	McGill	Uncovering the neural circuits for social bonding in songbirds	Altshuler
Nov 22	David Buchwalter	North Carolina State University	Ions, fluxes and energetics in freshwater insects and other invertebrates	PMatthews
Nov 29	Elli Theobald	University of Washington	Mind the gap: active learning improves equity in STEM classrooms	Kalas

Fall 2023

Seminars on Fridays from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm, in-person at the Beaty Museum Auditorium.
This series is organized by Colin Brauner, Katie Marshall and Doug Altshuler.

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
Sep 22	David Labonte	Imperial College	Physical constraints on animal performance	Altshuler
Sep 29	Hochachka Lecture: Frank Seebacher	University of Sydney	Responses to environmental change: plasticity and epigenetics	Schulte
Oct 6*	Zoology Departmental Seminar: Pam Kalas	UBC	My love story with genetics: an update after 20+ years of teaching	Richards
Oct 13	Dan Montgomery	UBC	Optimizing recirculating aquaculture systems for sustainable salmon farming: applying physiology to improve smolt production	Brauner
Oct 20**	Zoology Departmental Seminar: Sarah Benson-Amram	UBC	Cognition, behaviour, and ecology of urban carnivores	Richards
Oct 27	Kevin (Yihang) Pan	UBC	Developing zebrafish utilize taste signalling pathways to modulate the hypoxic ventilatory response	Marshall
Nov 3	Vicki Marlatt	SFU	Incorporating molecular tools to monitor and investigate salmonid and amphibian health in BC	Wood
Nov 10	David Randall Seminar: Rudolf Wu	The Education University of Hong Kong	Hypoxia: nothing could be worse!	Brauner
Nov 17	Giulia Rossi	U of T - Scarborough	Embracing the stink: a passionate dive into hydrogen sulphide toxicity in aquatic animals	Marshall
Nov 24	Forough Ghanizadeh	UBC	Characteristics of gill tissue repair and regeneration in Atlantic salmon	Brauner
Dec 1	Ian Bouyoucos	UBC	Stress in sharks: from fishing to pharmacology	Brauner

Spring 2023

Seminars on Fridays from 10:00 am to 11:00 am, in-person at the Beaty Museum Auditorium.

Cookies and coffee are provided in BioSci 3rd floor area at 9:30 am.

This series is organized by Colin Brauner, Katie Marshall and Phil Matthews.

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
January 20	Ben Negrete	UBC Zoology	Plasticity of a marine fish in response to chronic hypoxia	Richards
January 27	Gosline Lecture: Bob Shadwick	UBC Zoology	In the shadow of JMG: elastic adventures in the animal world	Altshuler
February 3	John Tuthill	University of Washington	Sensorimotor control in walking fruit flies and snow flies	B Matthews
February 10	Hannah Carey	U Wisconsin	Resource sharing during lean times: a functional role for the gut microbiome in mammalian hibernation	Milsom
February 17	Kevin Wei	UBC Zoology	The genetic battlegrounds shaping genome complexity and developmental processes	B Matthews
February 24	No seminar - Reading break
March 3	Frank van Breukelen*	U Nevada LV	Being too plastic for variable environments: physiological plasticity in the protoendothermic tenrec (Tenrec ecaudatus)	Milsom
March 10	No seminar
March 17	Early Career - Richard Fandino	Cornell University	Reverse genetics in Lepidoptera as a tool for gaining key insights into morphological and sensory evolution	B Matthews
March 24	Brad Dimos	Washington State University	Thermal physiology and local adaptation of chinook salmon	Schulte
March 31	Carol Lee	U Wisconsin	Pumping Ions to rapidly evolve in response to habitat invasions and climate change	Marshall
April 7	No seminar - Good Friday
April 14	Randall Seminar: Jodie Rummer	James Cook University, Australia	Amazing aquatic athletes, from the Pacific Northwest to the South Pacific and Great Barrier Reef	Brauner
April 21	Hochachka Lecture - Grant McClelland	McMaster University	Fueling the fire: conserved patterns and evolved strategies for exercise and thermogenesis	Schulte

 * Venue: Michael Smith Laboratories auditorium, MSL 102

Fall 2023

Seminars on Fridays from 10:00 am to 11:00 am, in-person at the Beaty Museum Auditorium.

Cookies and coffee are provided in BioSci 3rd floor area at 9:30 am.

This series is organized by Colin Brauner, Katie Marshall and Phil Matthews.

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
Sep 16	Alejandro Rico-Guevara	U of Washington	Behavioral ecophysics of avian nectarivory	Altshuler
Sep 23	Maria Dahle	Norwegian Veterinary Institute	About the many functions of salmonid red blood cells, and the sneaky virus that infects them	Brauner
Sep 30	No seminar - Truth & Reconciliation Day
Oct 7	- POSTPONED - (see Oct 28)
Oct 14	Zoology Dptal Seminar - Katie Marshall	UBC	Causes and consequences of invertebrate low temperature thresholds	Richards
Oct 21	Nadia Aubin-Horth *	Laval U	Creating an interactive and open textbook for the field of evolutionary eco-physiology	Brauner
Oct 28	Gautam Awatramani	U of Victoria	Neural circuits for direction selectivity in the retina	Altshuler
Nov 4	W. S. Hoar Memorial Lecture- Craig Franklin	U of Queensland	Describing pattern and elucidating mechanism: Field and lab-based studies on the world’s largest extant reptile, the estuarine crocodile	Shadwick & Brauner
Nov 11	No seminar - Remembrance Day
Nov 18	Dan Hahn	U of Florida	From sleeping beauties to making macho males: exploring the role of stress physiology in rapid adaptation, diversification, and sexual selection	Marshall
Nov 25	Robert Cieri	UBC	Musculoskeletal modelling of Australian monitor lizards and the scaling of locomotion in sprawling tetrapods	Shadwick
Dec 2	David Cade	Stanford U	Size limitations on engulfment-filtration feeding in rorqual whales	Shadwick

* location: Michael Smith Laboratories auditorium, MSL 102

Spring 2021

Seminar on Mondays from 12:00pm to 1:00pm at MSL102 and online via Zoom.
This series are organized by Colin Brauner, Katie Marshall and Phil Matthews.

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
Jan 10	No seminar
Jan 17	Angelina Dichiera	UBC	Carbonic anhydrase function and evolution in the respiratory gas exchange system of marine fishes	Brauner and Schulte
Jan 24	Elizabeth Rideout	UBC	Sex differences in Drosophila nutrient-dependent phenotypic plasticity	Marshall
Jan 31	Yunwei Dong - Hochachka Lecture*	Ocean University of China	An integrated, multi-level analysis of thermal effects on intertidal molluscs for understanding species distribution patterns	Schulte
Feb 7	Robert Shave	UBC Okanagan	Has selection for endurance capability shaped the human heart?	Brauner
Feb 14	Kyle Wellband	DFO Pacific Science Enterprise Centre	Intergenerational inheritance of DNA methylation in fish: insights from studies of salmonids	Brauner
Feb 21	Family Day break
Feb 28	Pat Wright -  Hoar Lecture	U Guelph	Fish at the transition zone between water and air- a physiological and evolutionary perspective	Shadwick
Mar 7	Natasha Mhatre	Western University	A tool to sing and an amplifier to hear: the tree cricket story	Marshall
Mar 14	Dawn Noren	NOAA Seattle	Conservation physiology and the Southern resident killer whale population	Milsom
Mar 21	Emily Standen	U Ottawa	Decoding internal motor control by changing external forces: Amphibious animal behaviour as a tool	P. Matthews
Mar 28	Amy Herbert - UBC Science Early Career Invited Lecture Award	Stanford U	Uncovering the mechanisms of evolutionary trait gain in vertebrates	Leitch
Apr 4	Christopher J. Clark	UC-Riverside	Singing hummingbird feathers and the evolution  of quiet flight in owls and other birds of the night (and day)	Altshuler
Apr 11	Michael Dickinson: Gosline Lecture	California Institute of Technology	Lessons from the cockpit of a fly: changing course is easy, flying straight is hard	Altshuler

*at 4:00 pm rather than the normal 12:00 pm slot

 

Fall 2022

Seminar on Mondays from 12:00pm to 1:00pm at MSL102 and online via Zoom.
This series are organized by Colin Brauner, Katie Marshall and Phil Matthews.

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
Sep 13	No seminar
Sep 20	Forough Ghanizadeh	UBC	Phenotypic plasticity determines responses to UV-B and its interaction with other environmental drivers	Brauner
Sep 27	Suryadeep Dash	UBC	A moving hill of visual memory in primate superior colliculus during slow eye movements	Altshuler
Oct 4	Colin Brauner, The David Randall Seminar	UBC	Early gill function and tissue oxygen unloading in fish	Farrell
Oct 11	Thanksgiving
Oct 18	Dan Montgomery	UBC	A deadly trio of environmental change? Combined effects of temperature, O2, and CO2 on the physiology of fish	Richards
Oct 25	Duncan Leitch	UBC	The neurobiology of diverse aquatic senses	Brauner
Nov 1	Gam Le	UBC	Air-breathing fishes: what we can learn? Nitrite exposure, elevated temperatures and hypercapnic world on fish physiology and growth	Richards
Nov 8	Muhammed Oyinlola	Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, UBC	The future of aquaculture under climate change	Brauner
Nov 15	Jonathan Wilson	Wilfrid Laurier University	The stomach and the gastric proton pump. A story of loss.	Brauner
Nov 22	Phil Fahn-Lai	Harvard University	Musculoskeletal function of the amniote pectoral girdle and the foundations of the mammalian forelimb	Altshuler
Nov 29	Amanda Bates	University of Victoria	Understanding climate resilience  through the lens of physiological diversity to improve marine conservation outcomes	Schulte

Spring 2021

For available recorded zoom lectures please click HERE. To login use your Zoology username and password.

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
Jan 11	Ora Johannsson	UBC	Where to from here: opportunities for biologists/zoologist	Colin Brauner
Jan 18	Mark Cembrowski	UBC	Cell-type-specific rules of spatial memory in the brain	Ben Matthews
Jan 25	Rachael Heuer	University of Miami, RSMAS	Crude oil and beyond: using toxicology to better understand fish physiology	Chris Wood
Feb 1	Andrea Reid	UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries	Fish–People–Place: interweaving knowledges to elucidate Pacific salmon fate	Colin Brauner
Feb 8	Deepa Pureswaran	Laurentian Forestry Centre	Northern range shift of spruce budworm	Katie Marshall
Feb 15	Family Day and midterm break - No seminar
Feb 22	Paloma González-Bellido	University of Minnesota	Neural adaptations and behavioral strategies of aerial and visually guided predatory insects	Ben Matthews
Mar 1	Joanna Kelly	Washington State University	Gene regulation and the repeated evolution of hydrogen sulfide adapted fish	Jeff Richards
Mar 8	Danielle Levesque	University of Maine	A tale of two mammals: what thermoregulatory phenotypes can tell us about responses to climate	Katie Marshall
Mar 15	Inna Sokolova - Peter W. Hochachka Memorial Lecture	University of Rostock	Mitochondrial mechanisms in stress tolerance and metabolic adaptations to fluctuating oxygen conditions: A case study of marine bivalves	Trish Schulte
Mar 22	Lucy Hawkes	University of Exeter, England	Measuring physiology in free living animals	Bill Milsom
Mar 29	Andrew McKechnie	University of Pretoria, South Africa	Hot, hotter…gone? Global heating increases the risks of both direct mortality and chronic, sublethal fitness costs for desert birds	Bill Milsom

Fall 2020

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
Sept 14	Annie Vogel Ciernia	UBC	Microglial memory: fine tuning gene expression in the brain	Ben Matthews
Sept 21	Anne Todgham	UC Davis	Diving below the surface to uncover the acclimatory capacity of Antarctic fishes	Colin Brauner
Sept 28	Warren Burggren - The David Randall Seminar	University of North Texas	Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance: Phenotype modifications and evolutionary implications	Colin Brauner
Oct 5	Wes Dowd	Washington State University	Environmental heterogeneity, environmental stress, and inter-individual variation in physiology of intertidal animals	Jeff Richards
Oct 12	Thanksgiving
Oct 19	Jake Socha	Virginia Tech	Functional warping of cylinders in flying snakes and breathing bugs	Phil Matthews
Oct 26	Dara Orbach	Texas A&M University	Genital coevolution in marine mammals	Bob Shadwick
Nov 2	Alyssa Weinrauch	University of Manitoba	A gut reaction: dogfish nitrogen homeostasis in the face of environmental challenges	Chris Wood
Nov 9	Brad Dickerson	University of North Carolina	An evolutionarily conserved hindwing circuit mediates Drosophila flight control	Doug Altshuler
Nov 16	Bob Devlin - William Hoar Memorial Lecture*	Department of Fisheries and Oceans	Growth-engineered salmonids - from physiology to environmental risk assessment	Bob Shadwick
Nov 23	Colin Nurse	McMaster University	Peripheral O2 and CO2/H+ chemoreceptors at work: a tale of multiple neurotransmitters and neuromodulators	Bill Milsom
Nov 30	Margo Lillie - Gosline Memorial Lecture	UBC	Fluking on a breath-hold:vascular adaptations in whales	Bob Shadwick

*at 3:30pm rather than 12:00pm

Spring 2020

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
Jan. 13	Simon Walker	U Leeds	Imaging insect flight: Visualising the kinematics, aerodynamics and mechanics of the insect flight motor	Doug Altshuler
Jan. 20	Shernaz Bamji	UBC	Regulation of synapse formation and plasticity by palmitoylating enzymes	Ben Matthews
Jan. 27	Jose Pablo Vazquez-Medina	UC Berkeley	Chasing the mechanistic basis of physiological adaptation in elephant seals	Derek Somo
Feb. 3	Brent Sinclair	Western U	Introducing Gryllus veletis as a model for insect freeze tolerance	Katie Marshall
Feb. 10	No seminar
Feb. 17	No seminar - Winter Break
Feb. 24	Herman Pontzer - Peter W. Hochachka Memorial Lecture*	Duke University	The Exercise Paradox: Metabolic Adaptation to Physical Activity in Evolutionary and Ecological Perspective	Trish Schulte
Mar. 2	Ni Feng - UBC Science Early Career Invited Lecture Award	Yale University	Hanging in the balance: fluid homeostasis in hibernation	Ben Matthews
Mar 9	Rita Mehta	UC Santa Cruz	The Functional Role of the California Moray Eel, Gymnothorax mordax	Vikram Baliga / Doug Altshuler
Mar 16	CANCELLED: Bill Milsom	UBC	The many faces of hypoxia tolerance
Mar 17	CANCELLED: Michael Reiser**	HHMI Janelia	Connecting vision to behavior in Drosophila	Doug Altshuler
Mar 23	CANCELLED: Mark Cembrowski	UBC	Cell-type-specific rules of spatial memory in the brain	Ben Matthews
Mar 30	CANCELLED: Alejandro Rico-Guevara	U Washington	To feed or to fight: behavioral ecophysics of energetics and weapons	Doug Altshuler
Apr. 6	CANCELLED: Ken Catania	Vanderbilt U	The Shocking Power of Electric Eels	Andrea Gaede / Duncan Leitch

Fall 2019

Date	Speaker	Affiliation	Title	Host
Sept. 16	Trish Schulte	UBC	Inter-individual variation as a window into physiological mechanisms and their evolution.	Colin Brauner
Sept. 23	Phil Matthews	UBC	How to drink, breathe, and float in water: physiology lessons from insects.	Colin Brauner
Sept. 30	Chris Wood - David Randall Lecture*	UBC	The potential for salt toxicity; using physiology to address a major environmental issue	Colin Brauner
Oct. 7	Cayleih Robertson - UBC Science Early Career Invited Lecture Award*	MacMaster U.	Baby its cold outside! Developmental thermoregulatory adaptations to high altitude	Bill Milsom
Oct. 14	No seminar - Thanksgiving
Oct. 21	Terrie Williams - William Hoar Memorial Lecture***	UC Santa Cruz	Touching Extinction: Biological Achilles' heels and the survival of big, fierce animals.	Bob Shadwick
Oct. 28	Ben Matthews	UBC	Thirsting for blood and hunting for water: genetics and neurobiology of mosquito behaviour.
Nov. 4	Colleen Farmer*	U. of Utah	Patterns of airflow and aerodynamic valves in reptile lungs.	Colin Brauner
Nov. 11	No seminar - Remembrance Day
Nov. 18	Andy Biewener - John Gosline Memorial Lecture***	Harvard U.	Neuromechanics of movement: stability and navigation in complex environments	Bob Shadwick & Doug Altshuler
Nov.25	Mike Whitlock*	UBC	The science of doubt.	Colin Brauner
Dec. 2	Brad Seibel*	U. South Florida	Oxygen supply capacity evolves to meet demand at the incipient limiting oxygen level.	Colin Brauner

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