Our new paper, authored by lab alums Chelsea Sinclair ('21) and Suriya Lisa ('19), has been published in Ecology and Evolution. In this paper, we show that sexually inexperienced males prefer to court larger females over smaller females, and that the strength of this preference was unaffected by previous experience mating with, or being rejected by, small or large females. Also check out Barnard's news piece on our paper! 
Congratulations to Mariel Correa-Maynard for being awarded a Con Edison Summer Grant to conduct her SRI research in the lab this summer!
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!  |
Research Lab of Alison Pischedda
Barnard College, Columbia University
Barnard College, Columbia University