Previous Seminars
A searchable table with our previous seminars. If there is a seminar video available, click the link (external link, YouTube). To find seminars available on YouTube, type “watch” into the search bar below. Click on the name of the presenter for more information (external link).
| Speaker | Institution | Date | Topic | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corinne Simonti | AAAS Science | 2024 04/19 | Visiting Alum & Publishing in AAAS | 2024 Spring |
| Sharon Strauss | University of California, Davis | 2024 04/17 | Earth Day | 2024 Spring |
| Carl Bergstrom | University of Washington | 2024 03/06 | J.T. Scopes Lecture - Misinformation in Science | 2024 Spring |
| Matthew Pennell | University of Southern California | 2024 03/01 | Visiting Researcher | 2024 Spring |
| Neil Shubin | University of Chicago | 2024 02/07 | Darwin Day | 2024 Spring |
| Anne Stone | Arizona State University | 2023 12/06 | TB and leprosy: insights into the evolutionary history of past (and present) mycobacterial pathogens using ancient DNA (Trainee-Invited Speaker) | 2023 Fall |
| Eyal Privman | University of Haifa | 2023 11/29 | Global Scholars in Residence Visitor (Journal Club) | 2023 Fall |
| Nikos Vakirlis | Alexander Fleming BSRC | 2023 11/10 | De novo yeast genes | 2023 Fall |
| Neil Kelley | Vanderbilt University | 2023 10/27 | It Came from Beneath The Sea: Fossil Sea Monster Facts and Fictions (Journal Club) | 2023 Fall |
| Prosanta Charkrabarty; Scott Egan; Jen Mandel | Louisiana State University; Rice University; University of Memphis | 2023 10/19 | ESI Retreat | 2023 Fall |
| Peter and Rosemary Grant | Princeton University | 2023 10/04 | Biodiversity Day: Biodiversity and the Evolution of Darwin’s Finches | 2023 Fall |
| Liz Barnes | MTSU | 2023 09/08 | Building Religious Cultural Competence for Effective and Inclusive Evolution Education | 2023 Fall |
| Gustavo Goldman | Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo | 2023 06/20 | Signal transduction in the human pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus (Global Scholars in Residence Visitor) | 2023 Summer |
| Graham Slater (Earth Day) | University of Chicago | 2023 04/19 | Predicting multivariate ecology of fossil taxa from morphological data | 2023 Spring |
| Owen Jones | Vanderbilt University | 2023 04/10 | An evolutionary approach to studying cognitive bias in humans and other primates (BSCI Seminar) | 2023 Spring |
| Scott Edwards (J.T. Scopes Lecture) | Harvard University | 2023 03/29 | Exploring bird diversity through genomics, museums and a two-wheeled cross-country adventure | 2023 Spring |
| Joan Strassman | Washington University in St. Louis | 2023 02/24 | Microbial experimental evolution: social behavior, mutualism, and predator-prey interactions | 2023 Spring |
| Richard Lenski (Darwin Day) | Michigan State University | 2023 02/08 | Time travel in experimental evolution | 2023 Spring |
| Trisha Wittkopp | University of Michigan | 2023 01/25 | Molecular and evolutionary processes generating variation in gene expression | 2023 Spring |
| Charles Smith | Western Kentucky University | 2023 01/20 | The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace | 2023 Spring |
| Sohini Ramachandran | Brown University | 2022 11/11 | Challenges at the intersection of population and statistical genetics | 2022 Fall |
| Benjamin Good | Stanford University | 2022 10/26 | Evolutionary dynamics in the human gut microbiome | 2022 Fall |
| Toby Kiers (Earth Day) | Vrije Universiteit | 2022 04/20 | Underground economics: Quantifying trade in plant-fungal networks | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Yohannes Haile-Selassie | Arizona State University | 2022 04/06 | Mid-Pliocene hominin diversity: the fossil evidence and why it matters | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Eva Jablonka | Tel Aviv University | 2022 03/30 | Evolutionary Origin of Consciousness | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Nicole King | University of California, Berkeley | 2022 03/23 | The origin of animal cell biology | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Henry Gee | Editor at Nature, Author | 2022 03/16 | A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Elisabeth Bik (J.T. Scopes Lecture) | Independent Scientific Integrity Investigator | 2022 03/02 | The Dark Side of Science: Misconduct in Biomedical Research | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| J. Arvid Ågren | Uppsala University | 2022 02/23 | The Gene's-eye View of Evolution | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Corrie Moreau | Cornell University | 2022 02/16 | Ants, Plants, and Bacteria: Symbiosis as a Driver of Evolution (watch) | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Beth Shapiro (Darwin Day) | University of California, Santa Cruz | 2022 02/09 | Climate change and the blending of species | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Charlie Mo | The Rockefeller University | 2022 01/31 | Exploring the interface between CRISPR-Cas systems and bacterial evolution | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Carlos Taboada | Duke University | 2022 01/27 | Hidden in the canopy: novel biochemical and vascular adaptations for camouflage in leaf-dwelling neotropical frogs | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Josh Goldford | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 2022 01/20 | The Emergence and Evolution of Metabolic Networks | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Gianni Castiglione | Johns Hopkins School of Medicine | 2022 01/13 | Exploring Protein Biochemistry in Evolution and Disease | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Cassandra Extavour | Harvard University | 2022 01/12 | From Soma to Germ Line: Birth, Growth, and Transformation of a Novel Gene | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Kelley Gallagher | University of Montreal | 2022 01/10 | Evolution of a σ–(c-di-GMP)–anti-σ switch | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Arielle Woznica | UT Southwestern | 2022 01/06 | Choanoflagellates and the origin of animal immunity | 2022 Spring (Virtual) |
| Mohamed A.F. Noor | Duke University | 2021 05/19 | Book Discussion: Live Long and Evolve: What Star Trek Can Teach Us About Evolution, Genetics, and Life on Other Worlds (Press Release) | 2021 Spring |
| Carlos Nobre (Earth Day) | University of São Paulo, Brazil | 2021 04/21 | The Amazon near a Tipping Point. The Urgent Need for a Novel Standing Forest Bioeconomy (Press Release) | 2021 Spring |
| Michael Greshko | National Geographic | 2021 04/14 | Endless forums most beautiful: Evolution, science journalism, and me | 2021 Spring |
| Yan Yan | Vanderbilt | 2021 04/07 | The intertwined immune and circulatory systems of insects | 2021 Spring |
| Noah Bradley | Vanderbilt | 2021 04/07 | Distribution of the superfamily DNA Glycosylase AlkZ in Streptomyces gene clusters | 2021 Spring |
| Laura R. Novick | Vanderbilt | 2021 03/31 | Why psychology matters for biology education: Perceptual grouping, evolutionary misconceptions, and reasoning from cladograms | 2021 Spring |
| Michael Archer | University of New South Wales, Australia | 2021 03/24 | Paleoconservation: Learning from the past, to understand the present, to better conserve the future | 2021 Spring |
| Julie Allen | University of Nevada, Reno | 2021 03/10 | Using bioinformatics and data integration to understand repeat patterns of evolution in avian chewing lice (watch) | 2021 Spring |
| Stephanie Birnbaum | Vanderbilt | 2021 03/03 | Interactive effects of pesticides, pathogens, and resistance in a stored grain pest (watch) | 2021 Spring |
| Nora Schulz | Vanderbilt | 2021 03/03 | Interactive effects of pesticides, pathogens, and resistance in a stored grain pest (watch) | 2021 Spring |
| Kay Behrensmeyer | Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History | 2021 02/24 | Recycling and the Fossil Record: A Unifying Concept for Ecology and Paleobiology | 2021 Spring |
| T. A. McDonald | VU Medical Center | 2021 02/17 | The Broader Autism Phenotype Constellations-Disability Matrix Paradigm: A unifying model to explain the nature and increased prevalence of autism based on genetics, assortative mating, and developmental plasticity (watch) | 2021 Spring |
| Sean B. Carroll (Darwin Day) | University of Maryland | 2021 02/10 | A series of fortunate events: Chance and the making of the planet, life, and you (watch) | 2021 Spring |
| Michael P. Vandenbergh | Vanderbilt | 2021 02/03 | The role of private climate governance in the Biden era (watch) | 2021 Spring |
| Jonathan M. Gilligan | Vanderbilt | 2021 02/03 | The role of private climate governance in the Biden era (watch) | 2021 Spring |
| Jada Benn-Torres | Vanderbilt | 2021 01/27 | Genetic ancestry: Our stories, our past (watch) | 2021 Spring |
| Gabriel A. Torres Colón | Vanderbilt | 2021 01/27 | Genetic ancestry: Our stories, our past (watch) | 2021 Spring |
| Sergio Pena | Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil | 2021 01/19 | Evolution and Genetic Formation of Brazilians (watch) | 2021 Spring |
| Angela Saini | Independent Science Journalist | 2021 01/13 | Superior: The return of race science (Book Page) | 2021 Spring |
| Karen Sears | University of Cal, LA | 2020 11/18 | Developmental origins and evolution of bats | 2020 Fall |
| Alistair Evans | Monash University | 2020 11/11 | A universal power law for the growth and form of teeth, horns, shells and thorns | 2020 Fall |
| Judith Mank | University of British Columbia | 2020 11/04 | Repeated divergence and remarkable diversity of the guppy sex chromosomes (watch) | 2020 Fall |
| Ken Catania & Larisa DeSantis | Vanderbilt | 2020 10/28 | Zombies, Chest-bursters, and ghosts in the darkness: evolution’s spooky science stories (watch) | 2020 Fall |
| Terrence W. Deacon | University of Cal, Berkeley | 2020 10/14 | Falling Up: Evolution’s Complexity Ratchet (watch) | 2020 Fall |
| Brandt Gibson | Vanderbilt | 2020 10/07 | Evolution of the oldest macroscopic eukaryotes: perspective from fluid mechanics | 2020 Fall |
| Melissa Pardi | Illinois State Museum | 2020 10/07 | The last of ice age giants: climate change as an unlikely driver of Late Pleistocene proboscidean extinctions and extirpations | 2020 Fall |
| Stephen Ferguson | Vanderbilt | 2020 09/30 | Chemosensory regulation of collective behavior in eusocial ants (watch) | 2020 Fall |
| Jacob Steenwyk | Vanderbilt | 2020 09/30 | When two become one: the hybrid origin of clinical fungal isolates (watch) | 2020 Fall |
| Joan Strassman | Washington University, St. Louis | 2020 09/23 | Why are symbioses so common: the amoebae – bacteria case (watch) | 2020 Fall |
| Ann Reid | Natl Center Sci Education | 2020 09/16 | Changing Minds about Evolution and Climate Change in the Classroom and Beyond (watch) | 2020 Fall |
| Blaine Schubert | East Tennessee State University | 2020 09/09 | The extraordinary Gray Fossil Site of Northeastern Tennessee (watch) | 2020 Fall |
| Ann Tate | Vanderbilt | 2020 08/31 | Immune system optimization in a variable world | 2020 Fall |
| Harmit Malik | Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center | 2020 08/26 | Rules of engagement: molecular arms races between host and viral genomes (watch) | 2020 Fall |
| Carlo Maley | Arizona State University | 2020 04/08 | Evolutionary approaches to the big questions in cancer | 2020 Spring |
| Marlene Zuk | University of Minnesota | 2020 04/01 | Rapid evolution in silence: Adaptive signal loss in Pacific field crickets | 2020 Spring |
| Christopher House | Penn State University | 2020 02/26 | Taking astrobiology from the test tube to investigations of other worlds | 2020 Spring |
| Jennifer Larson | Vanderbilt | 2020 02/19 | Not just guilty pleasures: How gossip and social networks facilitate cooperation | 2020 Spring |
| Jonathan Losos (Darwin Day) | Washington University, St. Louis | 2020 02/12 | Using experiments in nature to study evolution in real time: Research on lizard adaptation in the Bahamas | 2020 Spring |
| Vagheesh Narasimhan | Harvard Medical School | 2020 02/03 | Understanding human evolutionary processes through ancient and modern genomes | 2020 Spring |
| Amanda Lea | Princeton University | 2020 01/30 | Integrating field-based data and genomic tools: an evolutionary approach to human health | 2020 Spring |
| Eduardo Amorim | University of Cal, LA | 2020 01/27 | Reconstructing Medieval History using Ancient DNA | 2020 Spring |
| Lawrence Uricchio | University of Cal, Berkeley | 2020 01/23 | Adaptation and constraint through the lens of genome-wide association studies | 2020 Spring |
| Kathleen Grogan | Penn State University | 2020 01/13 | Evolutionary genomics, environmental change, and epigenomics in humans and non- human primates | 2020 Spring |
| Steven Hollon | Vanderbilt | 2019 12/04 | Does cognitive behavioral therapy have an enduring effect or are antidepressant medications iatrogenic? | 2019 Fall |
| Glenn Branch | Natl Center Sci Education | 2019 11/20 | Twists and turns in teaching evolution over the years | 2019 Fall |
| Ken Catania | Vanderbilt | 2019 11/13 | Shock and awe - The astonishing abilities of electric eels | 2019 Fall |
| Nicole Creanza | Vanderbilt | 2019 11/6 | Learning to evolve: The role of learned behaviors in evolution | 2019 Fall |
| EVOST | Vanderbilt | 2019 10/30 | Halloween Special | 2019 Fall |
| Michael Kohut | Maine Medical Center | 2019 10/16 | What state policies on teaching evolution do and do not accomplish in Tennessee classrooms | 2019 Fall |
| Tony Capra | Vanderbilt | 2019 10/09 | My ancestor was a neanderthal. Should I see a doctor? | 2019 Fall |
| Paul Andrews | McMaster University | 2019 10/02 | Physician, know thy evolutionary histroy: How depression helps physicians learn from their mistakes and failures | 2019 Fall |
| Jason Stein | University of North Carolina | 2019 09/25 | The evolutionary history of common genetic variants influencing the human cortex | 2019 Fall |
| Ann Tate | Vanderbilt | 2019 09/18 | Immune system optimization in a variable world | 2019 Fall |
| Suzana Herculano-Houzel | Vanderbilt | 2019 09/11 | Whatever works: A new framework to understand evolution, humans, and society | 2019 Fall |
| Antonis Rokas | Vanderbilt | 2019 09/04 | Evolutionary Studies at Vanderbilt: What? Why? Who? How? | 2019 Fall |