Lab News
W. M. Kier presents at 1st International Congress on Invertebrate Morphology, Copenhagen, Denmark
Summer 2008 - W. M. Kier attended the 1st International Congress on Invertebrate Morphology, Copenhagen, Denmark where he presented a talk entitled Invertebrate Muscle Specialization: Morphological Modulation in Squid.
Newly renovated laboratory completed
Spring and Summer 2007 - W. M. Kier moves into newly renovated laboratory space in room 313 Wilson Hall. The laboratory was renovated as part of the overall renovations of Old Wilson Hall and is beautiful!
Jennifer Taylor receives two prestigious postdoctoral fellowships
Spring 2007 - Ph.D. student Jennifer Taylor was awarded both a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship and National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. She has accepted the NSF fellowship and will be conducting her postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Prof. Sheila Patek, Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley.
Ted Uyeno invited to join laboratory of Prof Kiisa Nishakawa
Spring 2007 - Ph.D. student Ted Uyeno has been invited to join the laboratory of Prof Kiisa Nishikawa as a postdoctoral researcher. Prof Nishikawa is in the Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff.
W. M. Kier presents at World Congress of Biomechanics, Munich, Germany
Summer 2006 - W.M. Kier presented an invited paper entitled Muscle Specialization in the Squid Motor System at the Swimming and Flying symposium organized by Prof Johan van Leeuwen and Prof Charlie Ellington during the World Congress of Biomechanics in Munich Germany, July 29-August 4 2007.
Jennifer Taylor's research featured in Nature
Spring 2006 - Congratulations to Ph.D. student Jennifer Taylor for her recent publication in Nature describing her research on the hydrostatic skeleton of the blackback land crab. Articles and stories describing her work appeared in a number of newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, National Geographic, and on radio by The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Ted Uyeno inducted to the Frank Porter Graham Graduate and Professional Student Honor Society
Spring 2006 - Ph.D. student Ted Uyeno was inducted to the Frank Porter Graham Graduate and Professional Student Honor Society. The society recognizes outstanding service provided to the university and community by graduate students enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Prof. Joe Thompson's research featured in Inside JEB
Spring 2006 - A paper describing the results of a collaborative project with former Ph.D. student Joe Thompson, now an Assistant Professor at Franklin and Marshall University is featured in an article in the Inside JEB section of the Journal of Experimental Biology. The research suggests that developing squid modulate the shortening velocity of their mantle muscle by adjusting the thick myofilament length.
Jennifer Taylor receives prestigious UNC fellowship
Spring 2005 - Ph.D. student Jennifer Taylor was awarded The Sequoyah Dissertation Fellowship for the academic year 2005-2006 from the Graduate School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to receiving the Fellowship, Jennifer was invited for membership in the Royster Society of Fellows of the UNC Graduate School. Students in the Royster Society of Fellows act as ambassadors for graduate education within and beyond the University. Membership in the society is the highest honor awarded by the Graduate School to graduate students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jennifer Taylor receives Ford Foundation fellowship
Spring 2005 - Ph.D. student Jennifer Taylor was awarded a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship for 2005-2006. The competition for these fellowships is intense as only 35 are awarded nationally each year.
Ted Uyeno receives Best Student Paper Award
Spring 2005 - Ph.D. student Ted Uyeno was awarded the Best Student Paper Award for the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. His poster was entitled The Function of Cephalopod Buccal Mass Musculature.
Prof Sönke Johnsen receives NSF funding
January 2005 – We have learned that a collaborative project with former Ph.D. student Sönke Johnsen, now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, Duke University, was funded by the National Science Foundation. The project is led by Dr. Johnsen and is focused on an analysis of the mechanisms used by a variety of animals to achieve transparency. Transparency is used as a form of camouflage in the open ocean and in many freshwater habitats as well. Dr. Johnsen has developed the optical theory to explain how the ultrastructural characteristics of cells might be altered in order to achieve transparency. We will be testing the predictions of this theory by examining with transmission electron microscopy the muscle of closely related transparent and opaque fish species.
Kier Lab granted funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
December 2004 – We have been notified that we will be granted the next phase of funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for a collaborative project that is developing a novel class of robotic arms based on inspiration from the structure, function, and neural control of the arms of octopuses. For additional information on the project, including videos of the early versions of the robotic arm visit the Octor website.