Faculty News

Dakota Law (from left) holds a chain catshark for fellow student researchers Nick Wallis Mauro and Gianna Mitchell. Credit: Scott Eisen

Interdisciplinary summer program makes sharks accessible for students

August 18, 2023

Professor George Lauder teamed with scientists from Yale University and the University of Florida to host three students for an eight week summer program called Accessible Sharks. The program is part of the NSF funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and was designed specifically for students with disabilities.

Lauder hosted Dakota Law, a rising senior in engineering sciences at Smith College. Law, who has an invisible disability, had never worked in a lab or held a shark. But, by the end of the eight-week program she was proudly displaying a chain catshark to...

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Peter Girguis courtesy of The Moore Foundation

Peter Girguis awarded the Captain Don Walsh Award for Ocean Exploration

August 8, 2023

Congratulations to Professor Peter Girguis, recipient of the 2023 Captain Don Walsh Award for Ocean Exploration.

Professor Girguis is honored for his prolific career dedicated to increasing understanding of the animals and microbes that thrive in the deep sea and in advancing deep-sea exploration to expand humanity’s understanding of the natural world. His primary focus is to understand how marine organisms have adapted to their habitats and how they...

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Shane Campbell-Staton and James Hanken sitting at a table with a jar of frog specimens.

Human Footprint features Jim Hanken

July 31, 2023

In the latest episode of Human Footprint on PBS, host Shane Campbell-Staton (PhD 15') visits OEB Professor and Curator of Herpetology James Hanken. The episode, “The Replacements”, explores the surprising science and unexpected histories of five animal and plant species that made allies of humans, and grew to dominate the planet alongside us. 

Professor Hanken explains why the African Clawed Frog, or Xenopus, joined the ranks of The...

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Two live tangled individuals of Gordionus violaceus from Germany; photo by Gonzalo Giribet

"Mind Controlling" parasitic worms missing common genes

July 18, 2023

Hairworms are parasitic worms that manipulate the behavior of their hosts; what some refer to as "mind control." They are found all over the world, look like strands of spaghetti, and are only a few inches long. Even more bizarre, they have no excretory, respiratory, or circulatory systems, spending most of their life inside the bodies of other animals.

In keeping with the strange traits of these animals, a new study in Current Biology reveals they're also missing about 30...

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Artistic reconstruction of Megasiphon thylakos by Franz Anthony

Discovery of 500-million-year-old fossil reveals astonishing secrets of tunicate origins

July 6, 2023

Karma Nanglu says his favorite animal is whichever one he’s working on. But his latest subject may hold first place status for a while: a 500-million-year-old fossil from the wonderfully weird group of marine invertebrates, the tunicates.

“This animal is as exciting a discovery as some of the stuff I found when hanging off a cliffside of a mountain, or jumping out of a helicopter. It’s just as cool,” said Nanglu, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.

In a new study in ...

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Hopi Hoekstra_by Kris Snibbe-Harvard Staff Photographer

Hopi Hoekstra named next Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

June 26, 2023

OEB is pleased to announce that Professor Hopi Hoekstra will become the next Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Hoekstra is currently the C.Y. Chan Professor of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) and Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology where she also serves as Curator of Mammals. She is also a Howard Hughes...

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Hopi Hoekstra-Courtesy of Anna Olivella and Harvard Brain Science Initiative

Hopi Hoekstra appointed C.Y. Chan Professor of Arts and Sciences

May 9, 2023

Congratulations to Hopi Hoekstra, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Molecular and Cellular Biology and Curator of Mammals in the MCZ, appointed as the C.Y. Chan Professor of Arts and Sciences.

The appointment, made in recognition of Hoekstra's significant achievements in research and teaching, is the highest honor recognizing scholarly achievement that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences bestows.