Biomechanics at Harvard University

Donald Aubrecht School of Engineering & Applied Sciences Email: aubrecht [at] fas.harvard.edu

Donald Aubrecht is a 2nd year applied physics doctoral student in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.  He is a member of David Weitz’s research group and is working on droplet-based microfluidic devices.  His research focuses on devices for high-throughput screening applications.

Donald grew up in East Aurora, NY.  He received his B.S. in Engineering Physics from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.  He has worked as an intern with RainDance Technologies, Inc.,  a start-up company working to create a microfluidic-based laboratory system for high-throughput screening.  Outside of lab, Donald can be found somewhere in the outdoors: sailing, mountain biking, and hiking are some of his favorite escapes.

Angela Berg Department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology Email: amberg [at] fas.harvard.edu

Angela Berg is a 4th year doctoral student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Under the advisement of Prof. Biewener at the Concord Field Station, Angela studies the biomechanics of bird flight.  She is particularly interested in how birds control the interaction of their wings with the air to execute maneuvers.  Using high-speed video to obtain kinematic data, her work thus far has examined the differences among ascending, level, and descending flight.  Using fluid visualization and in vivo techniques, she plans to explore the relationships among muscle force, aerodynamic force, and wing shape and motion.

James Bird School of Engineering & Applied Sciences Email: jbird [at] fas.harvard.edu

James Bird is a 4th year doctoral student in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.  His research focuses on fluid dynamics in biological systems.  Prior to arriving at Harvard, James did this by relating coral bleaching with the fluid dynamics around coral reefs.  Now at Harvard, he is interested in experimentally modeling biological systems using microfluidics.  James is a member of both the Weitz and Stone group.

James grew up in Washington, D.C.  He attained a B.S. in Engineering from Brown University and a Masters by Research at James Cook University in Australia

Erin Blevins Department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology Email: eblevins [at] oeb.harvard.edu

Erin Blevins is a 2nd year doctoral student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.  Erin is interested in batoid locomotion—how stingrays and their relatives use an expanded, flexible fin surface to swim and maneuver.  She is currently working with Dr. George Lauder to analyze the swimming of freshwater stingrays, creating a three-dimensional model of the undulating fin.

Erin grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia.  After receiving her B.S. from Duke University she spent several years as an itinerant biologist, hiking the Sierra Nevada to study mustelid population biology, reviewing articles for an environmental health website, wrestling toadfish in Woods Hole, and making the occasional latte.

Carolyn Eng Department of Anthropology Email: cmeng [at] fas.harvard.edu
Carolyn Eng is a 1st year doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology. She is interested in the development, plasticity, and functional relevance of muscle architecture.  She plans to examine the functional consequences of muscle architecture by correlating the in vivo contractile properties of muscles with quantitative architectural measurements.  Carolyn was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota and could not be more proud of her Midwestern roots. She received a B.S. in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy from Duke University. At Duke, Carolyn compared jaw muscle architecture and mechanics in tree-gouging and nongouging callitrichid monkeys. After graduation, she spent two years working in a muscle physiology laboratory at the University of California San Diego.
Brooke Flammang Department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology Email: bflammang [at] oeb.harvard.edu

Brooke Flammang is a 3rd year doctoral student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.  She is studying the evolution of intrinsic tail muscle, tail fin structure, and tail fin shape modulation in swimming and maneuvering of fishes.  Her research combines high-speed video and electromyography to record muscle activity and fin movement.

Brooke grew up in Old Saybrook, CT.  She received her B.S. in Marine Biology from Fairleigh Dickinson University in NJ.  She then worked as a paramedic, rescue diver, and sixth grade Spanish and French teacher.  Brooke eventually succumbed to grad school and earned her M.S. in Marine Science from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and California State University.

Website: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~flammang/

Kristina Marie Fontanez
Department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology
Email: kfontanez [at] oeb.harvard.edu

Kristina Fontanez is a 3rd year doctoral student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary biology in the laboratory of Dr. Colleen Cavanaugh. She is examining the bacterial diversity associated with deep-sea hydrothermal vent invertebrates, specifically with bivalve hosts of the genus Bathymodiolus.

Kristina grew up in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and received her BA in Molecular Biology from Princeton University in 2005. Outside of lab, Kristina can be found playing ultimate frisbee.

Brett Huggett Department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology Email: bhuggett [at] fas.harvard.edu

Brett Huggett is a 2nd year doctoral student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.  He is currently working with Dr. N. Michele Holbrook.

Brett grew up just north of Philadelphia.  He received a B.M. in Jazz Performace from Temple University, Philadelphia.  He went on to complete a M.S. from the University of Vermont studying tree physiology. 

Website: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~bhuggett/Brett_Huggett/HOME.html

Louise Marie Jawerth
School of Engineering & Applied Sciences
Email: ljawerth [at] fas.harvard.edu

Louise Jawerth is a 4th year doctoral student in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.  Louise is a member of the Weitz lab.

Louise's research tries to understand how small changes in biopolymers (~um sized) lead to large (~cm sized) changes in the bulk properties of biopolymer networks. In particular, she is currently investigating collagen and fibrin biopolymer networks. When these networks are sheared they undergo strain stiffening. To understand the individual filament dynamics that gives rise to this bulk property, she imagines the biopolymer networks as they are sheared using confocal microscopy. Louise also studies how small contractions and rearrangements in collagen networks made by embedded cells gives rise to more global network change.

Brian Langerhans Department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology Email: langerhans [at] oeb.harvard.edu
Brian Langerhans is a 5th year doctoral student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.  Brian is in Prof. Jonathan Losos’s lab, and he is interested in the evolution of phenotypic diversity and speciation.  Brian integrates biomechanics and ecology to generate testable predictions for the course of morphological and locomotor evolution in fishes.  His work centers on testing the role of natural selection in speciation and the general predictability of evolution in a group of small, livebearing fish in the genus Gambusia. Brian grew up in Fort Worth, Texas.  He received a B.S. and M.S. from Texas A&M University, and a M.A. from Washington University in St. Louis.
Rachel Pepper School of Engineering & Applied Sciences Email: rpepper [at] fas.harvard.edu
Rachel is a 4th year doctoral student in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in the Physics Department.  She is a member of Prof. Howard Stone's research group and is interested in the intersection of biology and fluid mechanics.  She is currently investigating the impact of liquid drops on solid substrates, and the resulting splash.  Her research focuses on changes in splash threshold due to the compliance of the substrate. Rachel grew up in Denver, Colorado and received an Sc.B in Biophysics from Brown University.  She then spent two years in England where she enjoyed lots of cream teas and sticky toffee pudding with custard, and received a B.A. in Physics from Cambridge University.  Outside of lab, she can be found planning Dudley House outings, baking cookies, or reading a good book.
Christopher Richards Department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology Email: richards [at] fas.harvard.edu

Chris Richards is a 5th year doctoral student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.  Under the joint advising of Andrew Biewener and George Lauder, Chris is using physiological approaches to understand the biomechanics of swimming.  Specifically, how do muscles inside an aquatic creature (such as a fish or a frog) transmit propulsive forces to the water?   To address this question, Chris uses in vivo and in vitro techniques to directly measure forces and motion generated by hindlimb muscles in the S. African clawed frog ( Xenopus laevis).

Chris Richards was born in Poughkeepsie NY.  He gained B.A.'s in Biology and in Violin Performance at Oberlin College-Oberlin Conservatory ( Oberlin, OH) in 1998.

After graduation, Chris worked as a lab technician in muscle physiology and biomedical research labs before entering graduate school in 2003.  Outside of lab, Chris is involved in several musical groups, including the Longwood Symphony Orchestra.

Neil Thomas Roach Department of Anthropology Email: ntroach [at] fas.harvard.edu

Neil Roach is a 3rd year doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology. He is interested in the evolution of human behavior and the environmental and physiological forces that shaped it through time. Particularly, he is interested the morphology of the shoulder in relation to throwing and tool production. As a member of Prof. Daniel Lieberman’s Skeletal Biology lab, Neil abuses his good-natured friends by attaching them to various pieces of scientific equipment and making them do all sorts of silly things. He also actively participates in archeological and paleontological fieldwork in the Kenyan Rift Valley, investigating landscape usage by our pre-human ancestors and paleoenvironmental reconstruction.

Before coming to Harvard, Neil received his BA in Anthropology from the University of Connecticut, a small state of which he has been a lifelong resident and for which he has an unnatural amount of pride.

Website: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~skeleton/roach.html

Tony Rockwell Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Email: rockwel [at] fas.harvard.edu

Tony is a 4th year doctoral student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, studying hydraulic constraints on leaf structure and function from an evolutionary perspective.

Tony's interest in physiology stems from his work on the family farm, where he expended tremendous effort to make certain plants grow in certain places, while in the field margins lots of plants grew without any effort on his part at all. Being naturally averse to unnecessary work, he decided to try to learn why plants grew where they did, and returned to New Haven to study plant science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science, earning an MS in 2004. At Harvard, Tony is a member of Prof. Andrew Knoll's lab, studying paleobotany, and works on the leaf hydraulics of extant plants in Prof. Holbrook's lab. His principle interests include how water flows through living tissues, and the constraints these flows impose on where water evaporates within the leaf, as well as, ultimately, the flux of carbon a particular leaf can support.

When not in Cambridge, Tony may be found trying to keep the cows out of the road in Pine Plains, N.Y.

Frank James Stewart
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Email: fstewart [at] oeb.harvard.edu

Frank Stewart is a 5th year doctoral student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.  He is interested in the physical processes impacting genetic diversification in marine bacterial populations.  Specifically, he works with Prof. Colleen Cavanaugh studying the coevolution of symbiotic bacteria and giant clams (Vesicomyidae) at deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

Frank grew up in Reno, NV.  He received a B.A. in Biology from Middlebury College in Vermont.  He then went on to complete a M.S. at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he studied the microbial ecology of Antarctic sea ice.