2026 Whitman Fellows | Marine Biological Laboratory

Smiling female-presenting person in dive gear.

Bennice, Chelsea

Florida Atlantic University
“Determining reliable health and stress biomarkers for Octopus bimaculoides in a laboratory setting”
cbennice@fau.edu
Marine Resource Center 203 / Hanlon Lab
4/1/2026-4/22/2026

Male-presenting person with dark hair and short beard.

Cortes, Daniel

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
“Phylogenetic Survey of the Stentors of Cape Cod”
bmcdbdao2042000@gmail.com
Lillie Building 106
6/7/2026-8/16/2026

Forli, Angelo

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
“Establishing in vivo neural recordings in the axolotl to study nervous system reorganization during regeneration”
angelo89frl@gmail.com
Rowe Laboratory 205
7/18/2026-8/22/2026

Female-presenting person with long brown hair.

Frank, Margaret

Cornell University
“Mechanisms of Vascular Regeneration in Plants: Cellular Coordination and Cross-Kingdom Insights from Graft Healing”
mhf47@cornell.edu
9/12/2026-10/24/2026

Male presenting person with short dark hair standing in front of a red blooming tree.

Gainett Cardoso M C Florez, Guilherme (Gui)

“Genetic networks patterning the multiple eyes of the Atlantic horseshoe crab”
guilherme.gainett@childrens.harvard.edu
Rowe Laboratory 208
6/1/2026-8/10/2026

Harris, Matthew

Harvard University: Harvard Medical School
“Investigation of bivalve genetics and genomics towards understanding the regulation of longevity”
harris@genetics.med.harvard.edu
Marine Resource Center 306
6/15/2026-8/24/2026

Honda, Takato

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Investigations of Evolutionary Principles of State Transitions”
takatoh@mit.edu

Male-presenting person with dark hair standing in front of a flowering bush.

Jarvis, George

University of Chicago
“Energetic Costs of Reproduction: Quantifying Lifetime Metabolic Loads in Rotifers”
gjarvis@uchicago.edu
Lillie Building 319 / Gribble Lab
8/12/2026-10/21/2026

Male-presenting person with dark hair and short beard standing in front of an ivy covered brick wall.

Kennard, Andrew

University of Massachusetts Amherst
“Harnessing label-free microscopy to accelerate discovery of eukaryotic diversity and evolution”
akennard@umass.edu
Lillie Building 110 / Oldenbourg Lab
6/8/2026-7/19/2026 & 8/3/2026-8/29/2026

Male presenting person with short blond hair.

Knytl, Martin

Charles University Faculty of Science
“Dissecting developmental systems drift of secondary sexual differentiation using genome editing in Xenopus”
martin.knytl@natur.cuni.cz
Rowe Laboratory 423/NXR
6/21/2026-8/30/2026

Kult Perry, Shiri

University of Chicago
“Lung Development and Function in Xenopus: A Model for Respiratory Disease”
skultperry@uchicago.edu
Rowe Laboratory 423/NXR
8/7/2026-8/23/2026

Lippmann, Kristina

Leipzig University
“Structural correlates of short-term facilitation at a cortical synapse”
kristina.lippmann@gmail.com
Lillie Building 225/226
6/1/2026-8/1/2026

Smiling, female presenting person in a lab.

Marlin, Bianca

Columbia University
“Influence of Ancestral Stress on the Inheritance of Olfactory Experience”
bjm2174@columbia.edu
Lillie Building 219/220
7/17/2026-9/6/2026

Male presenting person with short gray hair, wearing glasses and sitting in front of a bookshelf.

Martens, Koenraad (Koen)

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
“Ostracods in a changing world”
darwinula@gmail.com
Lillie Building 341/ Arkhipova Lab
8/15/2026-9/15/2026

Male presenting person with short dark hair standing in front of a microscope.

Nozaki, Tadasu

University of Massachusetts Amherst
“Mitotic and Meiotic Chromosome Imaging in Diverse Eukaryotes”
tnozaki@umass.edu
Lillie Building 112
5/26/2026-7/24/2026

Male presenting person wearing a dark shirt.

Pruszak, Jan

Paracelsus Medical University
“Deciphering surface molecule signatures in lamprey spinal cord regeneration”
jan.pruszak@pmu.ac.at
Rowe Laboratory 408 / Morgan Lab
8/23/2026-8/28/2026

Female presenting person with shoulder length dark hair.

Senevirathne, Gayani

Harvard University
“Comparative Evo-Devo of the Hyoid: From Early Vertebrates to Human vocalization”
msenevirathne@fas.harvard.edu
Rowe Laboratory 305/308 / Patel Lab
4/26/2026-7/5/2026

Male presenting person with short dark hair standing in front of trees.

Silva-García, Carlos (Gio)

Brown University
“Biology of Aging of Euprymna berryi”
gio@brown.edu
Rowe Laboratory 319/321 / Rosenthal Lab
5/1/2026-7/31/2026

Male presenting person with short brown hair and beard.

Syed, Mubarak Hussain

University of New Mexico
“Diversity In Neurogenesis Evolution: Exploring the Evolution of Indirect Neurogenesis”
syedm@unm.edu
Rowe Laboratory 305/308 / Patel Lab
7/1/2026-8/15/2026

Female presenting person with curly brown hair and blue glasses.

Traylor-Knowles, Nikki

University of Miami, Rosenstiel School
“Imaging Cnidarian Chimeras Using Light Sheet Microscopy”
ntk1717@gmail.com
Marine Resource Center 207 / Roberson Lab
11/1/2026-11/14/2026

Male presenting person with dark curly hair and beard wearing sunglasses.

Varma, Aalok

University of California: San Diego
“Investigating the function and transduction potential of an AAV-like endogenous viral element in cephalopods”
varmaalok22@gmail.com
Rowe Laboratory 207
6/8/2026-8/17/2026

Male presenting person with short dark hair wearing a gray hoodie.

Ward, Daniel

Ward Aquafarms
“Heterotrophic microalgae optimization strategies to improve shellfish hatchery yield”
dan@wardaquafarms.com
Rowe Laboratory 109
5/1/2026-7/10/2026

Warner, Jake

University of North Carolina Wilmington
“Developing the GRNs of cell type specification in the temperate coral Astrangia poculata”
warnerj@uncw.edu
Lillie Building 114
7/26/2026-8/12/2026