As we begin Fall Semester, College of Sciences faculty, graduate students, and staff are invited to join us the afternoon of Wednesday, August 31 for our virtual CoS Fall 2022 Plenary on Microsoft Teams — followed by an in-person reception in the Petit Institute (IBB) Atrium, hosted by Dean Lozier.

Please check your email and Outlook calendar for the Microsoft Teams link to join the virtual Plenary — as well as a separate Outlook calendar invitation for the in-person reception (RSVP required). Search your inbox for "College of Sciences Fall 2022 Plenary" and "CoS Fall Plenary Reception" to find each email/calendar invitation.

We hope you will join us for both components of this event, and also welcome those who may only join the online Plenary or the in-person reception:

Agenda:

College of Sciences Fall 2022 Plenary and Reception

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

3:00 - 3:45 p.m. ET — Plenary on Microsoft Teams
Presentation to include leadership and community news; updates on our teaching, research, and service missions; equity and inclusion; the College's financial outlook; and community engagement updates from our staff, student, academic faculty, and research faculty councils.
Virtual. No RSVP required. Please check your email for Teams join link/calendar invitation.

4:00 - 5:00 p.m. ET — In-person Reception in Petit IBB Atrium
Light bites (including vegetarian, gluten-free, and nut-free options) will be provided.
In-person. RSVP required. Please check your email for email/calendar invitation.

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Sincerely,
College of Sciences Office of the Dean

Bill Ballard, Ph.D.
La Trobe University

Livestream via Zoom

ABSTRACT
The Australasian dingo has been argued to be a functional intermediate between wild wolves and domesticated breed dogs. Here we link a high-quality de novo long read chromosomal assembly with epigenetic footprints and morphology to establish a dingo “archetype” specimen for future research into domestication theory, canine genomics and Australasian wildlife ecology. The generated assembly uses a combination of Pacific Bioscience, Oxford Nanopore, 10X Genomics, Bionano, and Hi-C technologies to assemble a high-quality chromosome-level reference genome (Canfam_ADS). Compared to the previously published Desert dingo assembly, there are structurally important rearrangements on Chromosomes 11, 16, 25 and 26. Phylogenetic analyses of chromosomal data from the Alpine dingo and nine previously published de novo canine assemblies show dingoes are monophyletic and basal to domestic dogs. Network analyses show that the mtDNA genome clusters within the southeastern lineage, as expected for an Alpine dingo. Comparison of regulatory regions identified two regions that are unmethylated in the Alpine dingo genome but hypermethylated in the Desert dingo. These were regulatory regions within glucagon receptor GCGR and histone deacetylase HDAC4 genes. Morphological data, comprising geometric morphometric assessment of cranial morphology and magnetic resonance imaging of brain tissue, situate this female within population-level cranial variation for Alpine dingoes and suggest a larger cranial capacity than a similar-sized domestic dog.

Host: Dr. Greg Gibson

Alison Feder, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Genome Sciences
University of Washington

Livestream via Zoom

Host: Dr. Joe Lachance

Nancy J. Cox, Ph.D.
Mary Phillips Edmonds Gray Professor of Genetics
Vanderbilt University

Livestream via Zoom

SPEAKER BIO
Nancy J. Cox, PhD, is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Genetic Medicine within the Department of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Dr. Cox completed her PhD at Yale University and conducted postdoctoral research at Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the faculty at the University of Chicago, where she spent her academic faculty career until she was recruited to Vanderbilt in 2015 to lead the new Vanderbilt Genetics Institute (VGI).

As Founding Director of the VGI, Dr. Cox is focused on recruiting world-class genetics and genomics scientists to the Institute, with the primary goal of making Vanderbilt’s DNA databank, BioVU, into an unparalleled engine for discovery and translation in human genetics and genomics. She initiated the first large-scale genetic/genomic consortium in type 2 diabetes, and she has active research and advisory roles in many of the top genomic consortia that provide the foundation for current studies in human genetics and genomics.

Dr. Cox has an active research program in data integration, particularly in the integration of functional genomic information to aid in discovery and interpretation of associations of genome variation with common disease. Her lab was the first to show that most of the common variant associations to common human diseases and complex human traits appear to be regulatory in function.

Dr. Cox has more than 280 peer-reviewed publications and was a co-winner of the 2008 American Association of Cancer Research Landon Award and winner of the 2010 Leadership Award in Genetic Epidemiology. She was named a Pritzker Scholar in 2012 and a Distinguished Faculty from the Biological Sciences Division at the University of Chicago in 2013. She is former editor of Genetic Epidemiology (2006-2011), a former member of the Board of Directors for the American Society of Human Genetics, and is Member-at-Large for Biological Sciences in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Host: Dr. Greg Gibson

Mark A. Lyle, Ph.D., PT.
Assistant Professor
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine
Emory University

Livestream via Zoom

SPEAKER BIO
Dr. Lyle received his BA in Zoology (Neuroscience Minor) from Miami University (Oxford, OH) and his MS in Physical Therapy from Simmons College (Boston, MA). He subsequently worked in an outpatient physical therapy clinic for 4 years primarily helping persons with musculoskeletal injuries. He then pursued a PhD in Biokinesiology at the University of Southern California, under the supervision of Dr. Christopher M. Powers. His research examined factors that contribute to anterior cruciate ligament injuries in young athletes. He received additional training studying the functional role of proprioceptive feedback during a NIH supported Postdoctoral Fellowship with Dr. T. Richard Nichols at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Currently, he works as Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy at Emory University, and serves as director of the ReAMP Lab.

Host: Dr. Richard Nichols

Nathan Kraft, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of California, Los Angeles

Livestream via Zoom

SPEAKER BIO
Dr. Kraft completed his graduate work at Stanford University and UC Berkeley. He spent several years as a Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, before moving to a faculty position, first at the University of Maryland, College Park, and more recently at UCLA.

Host: Dr. Lin Jiang

John Wallingford, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Molecular Biosciences
The University of Texas at Austin

Livestream via Zoom

SPEAKER BIO
John Wallingford is a professor of molecular biosciences at The University of Texas at Austin. Wallingford studies the intricacies of embryonic development at the intersection of gene expression and specialized cell behaviors. His research seeks to understand lethal birth defects through an approach that combines systems biology and bioinformatics with novel strategies for imaging living organisms.

Host: Dr. Shuyi Nie

Lorin Crawford, Ph.D.
Principal Researcher
Microsoft Research Lab, New England

Livestream via Zoom

SPEAKER BIO
Lorin Crawford is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England. He also holds a faculty position as an Associate Professor of Biostatistics at Brown University with an affiliation in the Center for Computational Molecular Biology. Prior to joining both MSR and Brown, Lorin received his Ph.D. from the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University where he was formerly co-advised by Sayan Mukherjee and Kris C. Wood. As a Duke Dean’s Graduate Fellow and NSF Graduate Research Fellow he completed his Ph.D. dissertation entitled: "Bayesian Kernel Models for Statistical Genetics and Cancer Genomics." Dr. Crawford received his Bachelors of Science degree in Mathematics from Clark Atlanta University.

Host: Dr. Joe Lachance

Lewis Wheaton, Ph.D.
School of Biological Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology

Livestream via Zoom

ABSTRACT
In our everyday lives, we understand the actions we see others through visual perception. Further, whether we are children or adults learning a new skill, we use these perceptions of others to help us learn and improve our own actions. How does the neuromotor system perceive action, and how can this be used to improve lives? From neurons to networks, researchers have been working to unlock how humans perceive action and how those perceptions shape our motor system. This research has made substantial strides in basic science, with emerging translation into various motor learning applications.  The goal of this talk is to provide insights into the neural networks involved in perceiving action, how these networks may evaluate crucial details of actions, and how the perceptual system may work to facilitate motor improvements in persons with neural injury.

Annalise Paaby, Ph.D.
School of Biological Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology

Livestream via Zoom

ABSTRACT
How do complex traits evolve? Living systems are governed by the interaction of hundreds, if not thousands, of genes encoded in the genome. Relationships between genes affect how mutations are expressed and whether traits are constrained or labile in the face of natural selection. How do these complex dynamics influence the variation we observe in natural populations? Using the model system C. elegans, I describe the role of genetic dependencies in two essential phenomena: RNA interference, a mechanism of gene regulation shared across Eukaryotes and for which C. elegans is the Nobel exemplar... but which nevertheless exhibits dramatic variation in competency; and transfer RNAs, an essential family of molecules required for protein synthesis, but which suffers extreme mutational degradation and gene turnover. In both scenarios, I make the case that uncovering the causes and consequences of natural variation is critical to understanding the biology of even the most well-studied traits.