Faculty

Topic: Welcome + Foundations of Scientific Inquiry. 

Jane Maienschein specializes in the history and philosophy of biology and the way biology, bioethics, and bio-policy play out in society. She also serves as Fellow and directs the History and Philosophy of Science Project at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Professor Maienschein and her team focus on the history and underlying assumptions in development, genetics, and cell biology. They analyze epistemological standards, theories, and laboratory practices and combine that with their studies of people and institutions, as well as the changing social, political, and legal context in which science thrives.

She served as fellow with the U.S. House of Representatives during the 105th Congress. Professor Maienschein has filled many leadership roles at ASU and with professional societies including as president of two international organizations, panels with NIH, NSF, NEH, and committees at the National Academy of Sciences. Founder and director of the Biology and Society Program and Center, she promotes education and research at the intersection of biological science and society, with an emphasis on effective communication about science.

Topic: The Future of the Human (Philosophy)
Daniel Brudney is Professor in the Department of Philosophy and the College; Associate Faculty in the Divinity School; Associate Faculty, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. He writes and teaches in political philosophy, philosophy and literature, bioethics, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of Marx's Attempt to Leave Philosophy (Harvard, 1998).

Topic: Engineering Pharmaceutical Biotech
Cathryn Nagler graduated with honors from Barnard College, Columbia University. She obtained her PhD from N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine and did a postdoctoral fellowship at M.I.T. She was Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Immunology) at Harvard Medical School prior to joining the University of Chicago in 2009. Dr. Nagler serves in national and international leadership roles, many of which are related to publication and teaching, for the American Association of Immunologists, the Society for Mucosal Immunology and Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies. She also participates in numerous review panels. Dr. Nagler received the Distinguished Faculty Award for Leadership in Program Innovation from the University of Chicago in 2017. She was listed among Crain’s Chicago Business Tech Top 50 Women in 2018 and Notable Women in HealthCare in 2019 for her work with her academic start-up company ClostraBio. Academic honors include the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) Foundation and Louis M. Mendelson Award Lectureship and the Siegel Lectureship at UCLA. She was elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) in 2020. She was recently named AAI Program Chair and, as such, is an ex officio member of the AAI Leadership Council.

Topic: Leveraging Genetic Engineering to Combat World Hunger (an alternative to CRISPR)
Prof. He’s team was the first to identify eraser proteins, which can undo changes made to RNA molecules, which sparked the emergence of epitranscriptome research. Prof. He's team explained how RNA methylation functions through characterizing reader proteins—processes that known to play critical roles in many types of cancer, including endometrial cancer, acute myelogenous leukemia, and glioblastoma.

Topic: Artificial Intelligence
Professor of Statistics and Computer Science and Director of AI at the Data Science Institute, with a courtesy appointment at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago.

Prof. Willett’s work in machine learning and signal processing reflects broad and interdisciplinary expertise and perspectives. She is known internationally for her contributions to the mathematical foundations of machine learning, large-scale data science, and computational imaging.

In particular, Prof. Willett studies methods to learn and leverage hidden structure in large-scale datasets; representing data in terms of these structures allows ML methods to produce more accurate predictions when data contain missing entries, are subject to constrained sensing or communication resources, correspond to rare events, or reflect indirect measurements of complex physical phenomena. These challenges are pervasive in science and technology data, and Prof. Willett’s work in this space has had important implications in national security, medical imaging, materials science, astronomy, climate science, and several other fields. She has published nearly two hundred book chapters and scientific articles published in top-tier journals and conferences at the intersection of machine learning, signal processing, statistics, mathematics, and optimization. Her group has made contributions both in the mathematical foundations of signal processing and machine learning and in their application to a variety of real-world problems.

In addition to her technical contributions, Prof. Willett is a strong advocate for diversity in STEM and AI and has organized multiple events to support women in middle school, as undergraduate and graduate students, and as faculty members.

Prof. Willett completed her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University in 2005 and was an Assistant then tenured Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University from 2005 to 2013. She was an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Harvey D. Spangler Faculty Scholar, and Fellow of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2013 to 2018. Willett has also held visiting researcher or faculty positions at the University of Nice in 2015, the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA in 2004, the University of Wisconsin-Madison 2003-2005, the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA) in 2003, and the Applied Science Research and Development Laboratory at GE Healthcare in 2002.

Topic: Climate Change and Global Water Supply
Junhong Chen is currently a Crown Family Professor of Molecular Engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and lead water strategist at Argonne National Laboratory. Chen received his PhD in mechanical engineering from University of Minnesota in 2002 and was a postdoctoral scholar in chemical engineering at California Institute of Technology from 2002 to 2003.  Chen is an elected fellow of National Academy of Inventors and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He is a recipient of the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM) Medal.  His start-up company, NanoAffix, is a recipient of the 2016 Wisconsin Innovation Award.

Topic: Lab Preparedness and MBL Overview
Linda E. Hyman is the Burroughs Wellcome Director of Education at the Marine Biological Laboratory. In this role, she oversees direction of MBL’s academic programs at all levels—from secondary students, to undergraduates, graduates, and post-graduates, including the world-renown Advanced Research Discovery courses. Dr. Hyman was previously Associate Provost at Boston University School of Medicine leading the Division of Graduate Medical Sciences (GMS), where her effort was largely focused on supporting over 1000 students and post-doctoral trainees. In addition, she spearheaded several initiatives that supported professional development as well as diversity and outreach efforts. At the national level, she served as Chair of the AAMC GREAT (Graduate Research Education and Training) group and recently completed a term as the Division Director in the BIO directorate of the National Science Foundation. Other roles include Vice Provost for Health Science at Montana State University in Bozeman, and as Director of the WWAMI Medical Education Program, University of Washington School of Medicine’s multi-state medical education program. There, she also acted as Assistant Dean for Regional Affairs at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She received a B.S. from State University of New York at Albany and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Biology from Brandeis University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University School of Medicine. In 1981, she served as a course assistant in the MBL Embryology course.

Topic: Ethics of Genetic Engineering
In addition to her professorial titles, Zoloth is also the Senior Advisor to the Provost for Programs on Social Ethics at the university. Zoloth’s research explores religion and ethics, drawing from sources ranging from Biblical and Talmudic texts to postmodern Jewish philosophy. Her scholarship spans the ethics of genetic engineering, stem cell research, synthetic biology, social justice in health care, and how science and medicine are taught. She is the author of Health Care and the Ethics of Encounter: A Jewish Discussion of Social Justice and co-editor of five books, including Notes from a Narrow Ridge: Religion and Bioethics and Jews and Genes: The Genetic Future in Contemporary Jewish Thought.

Lisa Abbo, D.V.M., M.S. Veterinarian & MBL Scientist Lisa grew up in San Diego and obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of California, San Diego. She earned her doctorate degree in veterinary medicine, magna cum laude, from Kansas State University then completed a small animal internship at Purdue University. She pursued her interest in anesthesia and analgesia at Purdue and earned a master’s degree where her projects were focused on opioid pharmacokinetics in dogs and cats. Her career path took a turn when she relocated with her husband to Cape Cod, MA and found a renewed interest in aquatic animal medicine. She worked at a small zoo and aquarium before finding her passion for science and aquatics at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. Her interests are in anesthesia, analgesia, and aquatic animal health and welfare.

Scott Bennett, Marine Research Services & Outreach Coordinator, coordinates and conducts specimen collections for the Marine Resources Department. Scott is a AAUS certified diver for the MBL, and a USCG licensed small boat captain. He received a B.S. degree in Marine Biology from Roger Williams University. He spent four years in the Ichthyology Department at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City working on the molecular systematics of fishes, with a focus on the blind cave fish of Madagascar. Scott received his MSc degree from California State University Fullerton where his research focus was on the comparative physiology of endothermy in tunas.

Linda E. Hyman is the Burroughs Wellcome Director of Education at the Marine Biological Laboratory. In this role, she oversees direction of MBL’s academic programs at all levels—from secondary students, to undergraduates, graduates, and post-graduates, including the world-renown Advanced Research Discovery courses. Dr. Hyman was previously Associate Provost at Boston University School of Medicine leading the Division of Graduate Medical Sciences (GMS), where her effort was largely focused on supporting over 1000 students and post-doctoral trainees. In addition, she spearheaded several initiatives that supported professional development as well as diversity and outreach efforts. At the national level, she served as Chair of the AAMC GREAT (Graduate Research Education and Training) group and recently completed a term as the Division Director in the BIO directorate of the National Science Foundation. Other roles include Vice Provost for Health Science at Montana State University in Bozeman, and as Director of the WWAMI Medical Education Program, University of Washington School of Medicine’s multi-state medical education program. There, she also acted as Assistant Dean for Regional Affairs at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She received a B.S. from State University of New York at Albany and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Biology from Brandeis University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University School of Medicine. In 1981, she served as a course assistant in the MBL Embryology course.

Diana Kenney is a science writer/editor at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA, where she also directs the MBL’s Logan Science Journalism fellowship program. Formerly, she worked as a journalist and editor for several publications. She began her career in science communications at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1980s. Diana holds a M.A. in the History of Science and Technology from the University of Minnesota. Her master’s thesis analyzed early discussions of human genetic engineering in the scientific community, and how they intersected with the debate about recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s. She has been observing and writing about genetic engineering technologies with great interest since the start of her career.

Abhishek Kumar is a Chan Zuckerberg Imaging Scientist and MBL Investigator at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Formerly, he was an Assistant Research Scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Guest Researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland. Abhishek completed his MS degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, and his PhD at University of Massachusetts, Lowell, in physics. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Yale Medical School and at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Abhishek has been associated with the MBL since 2013 as a Whitman Center scientist, a participant in the Analytical and Quantitative Light Microscopy advanced training course, and a Grass Fellowship recipient in 2015.

Jennifer Morgan is an Associate Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole MA, where she also serves as the Director for The Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering. Jennifer received her Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Duke University, where she worked with Dr. George Augustine on mechanisms of synaptic transmission with a focus on synaptic vesicle recycling. She then carried out her postdoctoral studies on membrane trafficking in the Cell Biology Department at Yale University under the guidance of Dr. Pietro De Camilli. In 2007, Morgan joined the Section of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Texas at Austin as an Assistant Professor where she expanded her research program to include spinal cord injury and regeneration mechanisms. In 2012, Dr. Morgan was recruited to the MBL’s Bell Center to expand her research in regenerative biology. She continues to study the mechanisms of synaptic transmission under both normal conditions and disease states, with a particular interest in how neurotransmission is affected by Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Dr. Morgan was a recipient of the Janett Rosenberg Trubatch Career Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience (2011) and a University of Texas Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award (2012), and she was a Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow in 2014. Dr. Morgan’s research program has been funded during the last 10 years by NIH/NINDS-NIA, Morton Cure Paralysis Fund, Paralyzed Veterans of America, NY State Spinal Cord Injury Research Board, and the Owens Family Foundation.

Nipam Patel, Ph.D., is Director of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) and a Professor at the University of Chicago. He joined the MBL in 2018 from University of California, Berkeley, where he was Professor and Co-chair of the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology. Patel is the 20^th scientist to serve as MBL Director since its founding in 1888.

Patel grew up in El Paso, Texas, and received an A.B. in Biology from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University. Prior to joining UC Berkeley in 2003, he was a professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago (1995 to 2003), a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator (1995 to 2010), and a Staff Associate in the Department of Embryology at the Carnegie Institution in Baltimore, Md. (1991 to 1995).

A longtime member of the MBL community, Patel has taught in the MBL Embryology course since 2001 and served as course co-director from 2007 to 2011. He is a leading scholar in modern evolutionary and developmental biology with specific focus on the evolution of body patterning and segmentation, regeneration of the germline, and structural coloration. His scientific expertise encompasses the development of novel, genetic model organisms for biological study, which can reveal much about human biology; and the application of advanced imaging technologies to probe the fundamental dynamics of living systems.

Patel is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has been awarded numerous honors, including the Schubert Endowed Chair and the William V. Power Endowed Chair at UC Berkeley, the McKnight Scholars Neuroscience Fellowship Award, and an NSF Predoctoral Fellowship. Other past appointments include faculty curator at the Essig Museum of Entomology, UC Berkeley; and adjunct professor at the National Institute of Genetics in Shizuoka, Japan.

As Director of Marine Research Services, David Remsen oversees the marine biological operations at the laboratory including the collection and welfare of a wide range of marine species. For more than two decades Remsen has combined and applied his love of marine biology within the field of biodiversity informatics, the applied use of technology on data and information pertaining to biodiversity. Dave returned to the Cape in 2012 after working in Copenhagen, Denmark, as a senior officer of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, a multi-governmental organization dedicated to providing access to the world’s biodiversity data. He is also a senior member of the board of the Catalogue of Life, an international effort to document all the world's species.

Dr. Roberson holds a BS in Biology from California State University and a PhD in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. In 2003 she became Adjunct and later Assistant Professor at the University of Puerto Rico, directing several research centers there. In 2016 she joined the MBL where she is now Associate Scientist. Her research interests are in environmental protection and sustainable energy.

Joshua Rosenthal is a Senior Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University and completed his postdoctoral training in biophysics and physiology at UCLA. Before coming to the Marine Biological Laboratory, he rose from Assistant to Full Professor at the University of Puerto Rico’s Medical Sciences Campus. Dr. Rosenthal’s research focuses on the process of RNA editing from a variety of angles. His group has shown that mRNA recoding is unusually active in cephalopods. They are interested in how cephalopod RNA editing can respond to environmental cues and how the underlying machinery for RNA editing in this taxon is able to drive such extensive recoding. The Rosenthal lab also pioneered systems to use RNA editing as a therapeutic in order to correct genetic mutations and engineer protein function. Dr. Rosenthal is a founder of Korro Bio, a biotech in Cambridge MA that is developing RNA editing platforms to treat human disease.

Jennifer Walton is Director of Library Services at the Marine Biological Laboratory Library and Co-Director of the MBLWHOI Library. She also serves as the MBL Archivist and Rare Books Librarian. She has held a variety of positions at MBL, focusing on serving the information needs of scientists. She has a B.A. from Colby College and a Masters of Library and Information Science from Simmons College. She joined MBL in 2000 and was named Director of Library Services in 2016.