Keynote Speakers

Yoko Iwata (Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo)

Dr. Yoko Iwata is an Associate professor at Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute (AORI, same as Japanese name of Sepioteuthis Aori-ika!), the University of Tokyo. She obtained her Ph.D. in Fisheries Science at Hokkaido University under the supervision of Prof. Sakurai, and enjoyed ika-dance at the summer festival in Hakodate (of course!). She started her career studying alternative reproductive tactics in loliginid squids as a model system to understand the evolution and maintenance mechanisms of polymorphism. She is fascinated by the beauty of cephalopods, especially their flexible behaviors and life histories, and studying reproductive strategies in several cephalopod species, focusing on communication, reproductive behaviors, fertilization process, and the influence of environmental and social conditions on life history traits.

Michele Nishiguchi (Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, UC Merced)

Dr. Michele “Nish” Nishiguchi is presently a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Director of the recently established NSF Biological Integration Institute INSITE: Institute for Symbiotic Interactions, Training and Education in the Face of a Changing Climate, MPI for the undergraduate training program URISE@UC Merced, and is President and one of the co-PIs for the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology BIO-LEAPs IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Access) program. She was a Regents professor, the Sundt Honors College Endowed Chair, and the Academic Department Head (2016-20), in the Department of Biology at New Mexico State University from 1999-2020. She obtained her B.S. in Biochemistry/Theatre Arts at the University of California, Davis, M.S. in Marine Biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, and Ph.D. in Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

She has focused her work on the evolutionary ecology between marine organisms and their symbiotic bacteria. Despite being a marine biologist in the middle of the Central Valley, Nish manages to chase after squid and their bioluminescent bacteria in places such as the Indo-West Pacific, Australia, and the Mediterranean Sea, and manages to eat some calamari along the way. Her work spans the bridge between microbial ecology and evolution, and is best known for deciphering the mechanisms for environmental transmission of beneficial bacteria that occur in animal hosts. She has been passionate about reaching out to students in the US Southwest and now Central California by introducing them to marine biology and microbial ecology. She has trained a number of students from underrepresented groups and continues her commitment to increasing diversity through research, teaching, service, and outreach. Her hobbies include marathons/ultras, ironman triathlons, ballroom dancing, and cooking/eating.

Jan Strugnell (James Cook University)

Professor Jan Strugnell completed her BSc (Hons) at James Cook University before obtaining her DPhil at Oxford University, UK, funded by a Rhodes Scholarship. During her DPhil she used molecular and fossil evidence to investigate phylogenetic relationships and divergence times within cephalopods (octopus, squids, cuttlefish). Jan then worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at Queen’s University, Belfast, the British Antarctic Survey, and Cambridge University UK, where she investigated evolutionary relationships within and between Antarctic and deep-sea octopods. Jan is now based at James Cook University where she investigates the evolution and function of marine organisms using genomic and transcriptomic techniques. Her research encompasses both applied and blue skies questions and includes investigation of population differentiation, adaptation, resilience and susceptibility to temperature stress, range shifts and method development. She also continues to investigate population and species level molecular evolution in marine species in the context of past climatic and geological change.

Gilles Laurent (Max Planck Institute) *Online Lecture

Gilles Laurent grew up in Morocco and France, and holds a doctorate in veterinary medicine and a PhD in Neuroethology (respectively from the Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire and the　Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France) (both in 1986). After a postdoctoral and Locke　Research Fellowship of the Royal Society at the University of Cambridge (UK) he joined the　Biology Division faculty at the California Institute of Technology in 1990, where he spent 20　years. In 2009, he became a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in　 Gilles Laurent’s interests are centered on identifying principles of brain function and circuit　dynamics, using a wide range of techniques including comparative approaches. He has　worked on olfactory computation, motor control, local circuits architecture, and vision (mostly in insects and fish). His research today concerns sleep (using reptiles as model systems), brain evolution (in vertebrates), and visual texture perception and generation (as expressed by camouflaging cephalopods).

Michael Vecchione (University of Miami)

Michael Vecchione is an American zoologist currently at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 2001. His highest-cited paper is Common and scientific names of aquatic invertebrates from the United States and Canada: Mollusksat 661 times. His current interests are marine biodiversity and cephalopods.