Congratulations to Chelsea, who presented her senior thesis work at the (ZooM) Neuroscience and Behavior Symposium today! 

 Congratulations to Olivia Eliopoulos who was awarded an Undergraduate Travel Award by the Genetics Society of America to attend the 2021 Drosophila Research Conference! 

Olivia Anastasio, Pischedda Lab technician extraordinaire, was interviewed for Barnard Biology's Research Corner as part of a feature on the lab technicians that help keep our labs afloat during the pandemic. Check out her interview here!

Congratulations to Pischedda Lab Alum Abigail Gutierrez, who has been hired as a Laboratory Specialist by the Barnard Biology Department! Abby will be part of our Introductory Biology team, teaching intro bio labs, discussions, and helping with the BIOL 1500-level lecture series. We're so happy to have her back!

Today is a big day for the lab! After 9 months of fly care in my garage lab, all of our flies are finally being cared for on campus where they belong! Thanks to our lab tech, Olivia, for making this happen. To mark the occasion, please enjoy this artwork provided by lab alum Karolina Szenkiel!

Chelsea Sinclair has been featured in a series of promotional videos put out by the Barnard Annual Fund! Watch closely to see a cameo appearance by members of the Pischedda Lab (from a lab meeting)!

This was a big week for the lab as we welcome our new Lab Tech, Olivia Anastasio to the lab! Olivia comes to us from Clark University, where she earned her Bachelor's and then completed her Master's working in Kate Mathis's lab. Olivia will take over caring for the flies (which means I can gradually move them out of my garage lab!) and will help us restart our experiments in 2021. We're so excited to have her join the team!

Well, here's another milestone in a year of strange milestones. Today is the 200th day that I've been maintaining the flies at home. The garage lab has come a long way in 200 days, and the flies (and I) are doing as well as can be expected. Hoping it won't be too much longer before the flies can move back to the lab!

Well, this past week has been another *interesting* one for our flies! We got hit hard by Tropical Storm Isaias last Tuesday and lost power for 6 full days. Bench work was done by headlamp, and microscope work was done by opening the garage door and using battery operated book lights. When the heat advisory hit this week, the temperature in our house got dangerous for the flies, so I had to evacuate them to a friend's apartment with air conditioning to keep them cool. Fortunately, the power came back on (eventually) and now the flies are happy and safe back in my house (very much looking forward to when they can be happy and safe back in the lab!)

I've now moved into the next "phase" of maintaining the flies at home to get ready for what will hopefully be a less disruptive Fall. The past month I've started cooking fly food in my garage, and this week I set up behavioral observations in my living room. Even baby steps are a win right now!

Congratulations to Chelsea Sinclair for receiving the Charles H. Turner Award from the Animal Behavior Society! This award typically provides travel and accommodation to the ABS conference for undergraduate students, along with mentorship workshops and lunches. Because the ABS 2020 Meeting is being held virtually this year, Chelsea will attend the meeting remotely and participate in mentorship and professional development actives. Yay Chelsea!! (Update 7/29: Click here to see the ABS's profile of Chelsea on Twitter)

Today marks the 100th day that I've been maintaining our fruit fly populations at home. The garage lab has been upgraded with a new table, and I now cook fly food at home, so the flies and I are in a pretty good groove!