Welcome to the 2023 Grass Fellows

The Grass Fellowship program brings early-career investigators to the MBL for 14 weeks to pursue a self-designed, independent research project in neuroscience. The Grass Foundation provides full support for the fellows, who become part of the vibrant intellectual and social dynamic within the MBL scientific community while sharing space in the Grass Laboratory.

We're proud to announce the 2023 Grass Fellows:

• Tommi Anttonen, University of Southern Denmark
  Unraveling the Presynaptic Mechanisms of Noise Overexposure in Avian Auditory Receptor Cells

• Ivan Candido-Ferreira, Stowers Institute for Medical Research
  The Genomic Basis of Neurodevelopment in the Little Skate (Leucoraja erinacea)

• Daniel Cortes, Virginia Tech
  Learning and Behavioral Studies in Unicellular Organisms: A Case Study of Stentors

• Helen Farrants, Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  Visualizing Calcium Dynamics in Squid Using Genetically Encoded Indicators

• Itzel Gonzalez Ishida, The Rockefeller University
  Visualizing Spatial Memories: Localization of Molecules within a Drosophila Navigation Circuit

• Takato Honda, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  Electrophysiological and Computational Investigation of Sleep/Wake Behaviors and State-Specific Neural Representations

• Kei Jokura, Living Systems Institute, University of Exeter
  Revealing the Mechanism of Light-Dependent Sign-Switching of Gravitaxis in a Ctenophore
  (Funded by The Kavli Foundation)

• James Lee, The Rockefeller University
  Dissecting the Unusual Birthing Behavior of Arsenic-Resistant Tokorhabditis tufae
  (Funded by The Kavli Foundation)

• Mariana Rodriguez-Santiago, Colorado State University
  Neural Basis of Acoustic Mating Decisions in a Female Tree Frog

Research abstracts for the fellows are here. This year’s Grass Lab is directed by Elva Diaz of University of California Davis. The associate director is Oscar Arenas Sabogal of the University of California, Berkeley.