Our lab investigates how animals interact with the physical world. We focus on specific physical variables that living systems must detect, respond to, and survive: mechanical forces, magnetic fields, gravity, and temperature. We ask how animals sense these parameters, how they generate and withstand forces, and what happens when these systems fail in disease.
Understanding these interactions requires developing new approaches to measure and manipulate them. Our lab builds behavioral assays, measurement systems, and molecular tools that enable quantitative analysis of organism-environment interactions. This approach bridges basic discovery with translational applications to neuromuscular disease and extreme environments.
Lab performance dramatically exceeds national averages: 216 students mentored vs. 35-50 national average. Students learn quantitative approaches to biological questions, develop technical skills across multiple systems, and gain research independence.
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