Patrick McGrath's research group is interested in understanding the genetic basis of heritable behavioral variation. In the current age, it has become cheap and easy to catalog the set of genetic differences between two individuals. But which genetic differences are responsible for generating differences in innate behaviors, including liability to neurological diseases such as autism, bipolar disease, and schizophrenia? How do these causative genetic variants modify a nervous system? Besides their role in disease, genetic variation is the substrate for natural selection. To understand how behavior evolves, we must understand how it varies.

Brian Hammer's lab studies molecular mechanisms important for microbial interactions. Bacteria are genetically encoded with regulatory networks to integrate external information that tailors gene expression to particular niches. Bacteria use chemical signals to orchestrate behaviors that facilitate both cooperation and conflict with members of the communities they inhabit. The group uses genetics and genomics, biochemistry, bioinformatics, and ecological approaches with a focus on the waterborne pathogen Vibrio cholerae.

Streelman grew up in Chestertown Md, where he developed a keen interest in the outdoors. He graduated with a BS in Biology from Bucknell University. While there, he attended a semester (plus one cold winter-mester) at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole Massachusetts — where a chance encounter with Les Kaufman, Karel Liem, a few jars of pickled fish and a dental X-ray technician led to his lifelong love of cichlids. Streelman won the Pangburn Scholar-Athlete award (lacrosse) at BU. As a PhD student with Stephen Karl, Streelman developed approaches to identify, clone and sequence multiple, independent single-copy nuclear loci to reconstruct accurate phylogenies for cichlid fishes and their relatives. These phylogenies changed perspective about how these species groups evolved, and allowed new and improved inference about the evolutionary history of key ecological traits. Multi-locus phylogenies are now the standard in the field. 

As a postdoc in Tom Kocher’s lab and then a young investigator at Georgia Tech, Streelman worked on the first unbiased quantitative genetic (QTL) studies in Malawi cichlids, some of the first such studies in evolutionary systems. In particular, work showed that adaptive features of the cichlid jaw and the striking orange-blotch color polymorphism had a simple genetic basis.  

Streelman was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Faculty Research Fellow and a NSF CAREER Awardee.  

Over the past two decades as an independent investigator, with support from the NSF, NIH and the Human Frontier Science Program, Streelman’s group has pioneered genomic and molecular biology approaches in the Malawi cichlid system to solve problems difficult to address in traditional model organisms. Major projects include (i) tooth and taste bud patterning and regeneration; (ii) the underpinnings of complex behavior; and (iii) developmental diversification of the face and brain.  

Generally, we are captivated by context-dependent traits like development and behavior because they must be executed in space and time with exquisite control. We analyze and manipulate genomes and development in multiple species of Malawi cichlids, spanning divergence in embryonic/adult traits and behavior – and collaborate with folks studying these same traits in zebrafish, mouse and human. In 2014, Streelman helped to coordinate a large effort to sequence the genomes of five East African cichlids, including one from Lake Malawi. This was a landmark for our research community and has recast attention to genome-wide approaches. We are motivated by the prospect to dissect evolutionary change with genetic and cellular precision.  

In his free time, Streelman likes mountaineering, skipping rocks and pickling.

Young-Hui Chang is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences, Associate Dean of Faculty for College of Sciences, and director of research in the Georgia Tech Comparative Neuromechanics Lab where he studies the neuromechanics of movement in humans and other animals. Chang’s aim is to understand fundamental principles by which we control our movements as we move through our physical environment. This requires knowledge of the neural control of movement, the biomechanics of our musculoskeletal system, and the physics of our environmental interactions. The team also studies how our body adapts to acute and chronic changes. This involves processes of motor learning that are involved in everything from clinical rehabilitation to elite sports performance.

Greg Gibson is Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Integrative Genomics at Georgia Tech. He received his BSc majoring in Genetics from the University of Sydney (Australia) and PhD in Developmental Genetics from the University of Basel. After transitioning to quantitative genetic research as a Helen Hay Whitney post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University, he initiated a program of genomic research as a David and Lucille Packard Foundation Fellow at the University of Michigan. He joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in Fall of 2009, after ten years at North Carolina State University where he developed tools for quantitative gene expression profiling and genetic dissection of development in the fruitfly Drosophila. He is now collaborating with the Center for Health Discovery and Well Being on integrative genomic analyses of the cohort. Dr Gibson is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and serves as Section Editor for Natural Variation for PLoS Genetics. He has authored a prominent text-book, a "Primer of Genome Science" as well as a popular book about genetics and human health, "It Takes a Genome".

Julia Kubanek serves as Georgia Tech’s Vice President for Interdisciplinary Research and is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In this role, she oversees and supports interdisciplinary activities at Georgia Tech including the Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRIs); the Pediatric Technology Center (PTC), the Novelis Innovation Hub; the Center for Advanced Brain Imaging (CABI); and the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI). She also partners across the institute on developing and advancing new research initiatives based on student and faculty interests, expertise, and societal need.

Kubanek has held several previous leadership roles at Georgia Tech, including Associate Dean for Research in the College of Sciences and Associate Chair in the School of Biological Sciences. She joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2001. Her areas of research interest include chemical signaling among organisms (especially in aquatic systems), natural products chemistry, metabolomics, chemical biology, and drug discovery. She has authored approximately 100 research articles on marine plankton and coral reef chemical ecology, and on the discovery, mechanism of action, and biosynthesis of marine natural products. She was awarded the NSF CAREER Award in 2002, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2004, and was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2012. In 2016, she served as chair of the Gordon Research Conference in Marine Natural Products; since 2016, she has chaired the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. Kubanek received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from Queen’s University, Canada, in 1991 and her Ph.D. in at the University of British Columbia in 1998, and performed postdoctoral research at the University of California – San Diego and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Dr. Nie received her B.S. degree in Biology from Peking University in China in 2002. In 2007, she received her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she worked on elucidating signaling pathways in vertebrate gastrulation movements. Thereafter, she conducted postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Marianne Bronner at California Institute of Technology. She joined Georgia Tech in Fall 2014.

Francesca Storici was born in Trieste, Italy. She graduated in Biology from the University of Trieste. Her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics was conferred by the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), in Trieste in 1998, and she conducted research at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) in Trieste. From 1999 to 2007 she was an NIH postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics under the guidance of Dr. Michael A. Resnick at the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences (NIEHS, NIH) in the Research Triangle Park of North Carolina, USA. In 2007 she was a Research Assistant Professor at the Gene Therapy Center of the University on North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Dr. R. Jude Samulski. Francesca joined the faculty of the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech in 2007 and received the title of Distinguished Cancer Scientist of the Georgia Research Alliance. She is currently a professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech. Her research is on genome stability, DNA repair and gene targeting.

I am an environmental microbiologist interested in the dynamics of microbial systems.  My research is motivated by the beliefs that microbes are a frontier for natural history and scientific discovery, and that exploring this frontier is necessary and important for understanding biological diversity and its changing role in ecosystem processes. The first major research theme in my lab explores how aquatic microbes respond to environmental change, notably declines in ocean oxygen content.  The second major theme explores how life in symbiosis drives microbial evolution and ecology.  My research targets diverse systems, from the marine water column to the intestinal microbiomes of fishes.  This research aims to identify metabolic properties that underlie the ecology of microbes and microbe-host systems, the evolutionary context under which these functions arose, and the role of these functions in ecosystem-scale processes in a changing environment.  

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Montana State University and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech.  I received a B.A. in Biology from Middlebury College and a Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University.  I worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT for two years before moving to Georgia Tech in January 2011.  In February 2020, I moved my lab to the mountains of Montana.  My work has been recognized through an NSF CAREER award, a Sloan Research Fellowship, and a Simons Foundation Early Career investigator award.