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Virginia Tech Life Science Seminars


The Virginia Tech Life Science Seminars (VTLSS) is a university-wide seminar series funded by the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. The seminars take place on Fridays at 12:00pm at the Fralin Auditorium in Fralin Hall. These interdisciplinary seminars are open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff. You are not required to be in life sciences to attend; if a subject matter is of interest to you, we welcome your participation.

Seminars are given by renowned scientists from the US and abroad whose research connects to the life sciences disciplines at Virginia Tech. Some past seminars are available on our Youtube playlist.

Seminars will be in-person, hybrid, or virtual.
Virtual and hybrid seminars will be hosted at this Zoom link:
https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/81458701257

Students and postdocs, if you are interested in having lunch with the speaker, please contact each respective host.

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THIS SEMINAR HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Colette St. Mary, University of Florida

Integrative Evolutionary Biology and the Parallels to Diversity and Inclusion


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Haruka Wada, Auburn University

Consequences of stress during development

January 26 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Kendra Sewall


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Michael McMurray, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

The journey, not the destination: lessons from septin proteins about macromolecular assembly

February 2 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by José Vargas-Muñiz


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George Kantor, Carnegie Mellon University

A path to dexterous robotic manipulation in agriculture

February 9 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Song Li


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Sebastian Kadener, Brandeis University

Physiological and Molecular functions of circular RNAs (circRNAs)

February 16 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Carla Finkelstein


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Loren Rieseberg, University of British Columbia

Recombination and Speciation in the Annual Sunflowers

February 23 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by John Jelesko


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Angeles Salles, University of Illinois at Chicago

A Bat's Tale of Auditory Processing and Social Communication

March 1 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Silvio Herrera


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Shanta Hinton, College of William & Mary

Pseudophosphatase MK-STYX: the de-stressor

March 15 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Birgit Scharf


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Timothy Jarome, Virginia Tech

Talk Title TBD

March 22 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Silke Hauf


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Diego Fernandez, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Investigating Time Perception and Anticipatory Behaviors in Mice

March 29 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Shihoko Kojima


Miyeko Mana, Arizona State University

Talk Title TBD

April 5 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Bas Bargmann


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Francesca Bartolini, Columbia University

Novel Microtubule Pathways in Neurological Disease and Microglia Activation

April 12 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Daniela Cimini


Jason Londo, Cornell University

Talk Title TBD

April 19 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Courtney Leisner


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Natalia Dudareva, Purdue University

Emission and perception – two steps of plant communication

April 26 - 12:00p - Fralin Hall Auditorium
Hosted by Dorothea Tholl

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VTLSS_instructions_2023-24.pdf Information and Instructions for VTLSS hosts

In order to nominate a speaker please fill out the form found here. Please note that only VT faculty are allowed to nominate and host VTLSS speakers. The VTLSS faculty committee will review the nomination and email the faculty member with permission to extend a formal invitation to the nominated speaker. Faculty are allowed to submit multiple nominations, but each faculty member is only allowed to invite and host one speaker per semester.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Krystal Turner.

The VTLSS faculty committee consists of:

Committee Member Email
Michelle Olsen molsen1@vt.edu
Silke Hauf silke@vt.edu
Clay Caswell caswellc@vt.edu
Tim Jarome tjjarome@vt.edu
Ryan Senger senger@vt.edu
Jim Westwood westwood@vt.edu
Joel McGlothlin joelmcg@vt.edu