Distinguished Speaker Series

PEB supports visiting faculty to present their research in biological, physical and engineering sciences and meet with students, post-docs and faculty at Yale. Such events provide a great opportunity for Yale researchers to be exposed to new ideas or approaches and to network with other scientists. 

Additionally, each academic year, first-year PEB students have the opportunity to invite and host a speaker of their choice. Such PEB graduate student invited visiting faculty are marked by an asterisk (*) next to their name in the list below.

Interested in inviting a faculty member or supporting an event?

If you are interested in inviting a visiting faculty member or supporting an event at Yale, please send us an e-mail: peb@yale.edu

 

Speakers we have hosted:

Date
Speaker
Title
Feb. 26, 2020 Prof. Amy Maddox Contractile oscillations help reveal mechanisms of cytoskeletal remodeling in cytokinesis
Dec. 3, 2019 Prof. Xavier Trepat Mechanobiology of epithelial migration, growth and folding
Nov. 20, 2019 Prof. G.W. Gant Luxton Building bridges across the nuclear envelope
Aug. 9, 2019 Prof. Bruce Goode Actin machines and cytoskeletal intersections
Jun. 24, 2019 Prof. Jack Wei Chen Mechano-regulation of T-cell receptor’s antigen recognition
Mar. 11, 2019 Prof. Francoise Brochard-Wyart Cellular aggregates and microparticles: Spontaneous migration, eating, dancing
Dec. 11, 2018 Prof. Pieter Rein ten Wolde The robust ticking of a circadian clock
Nov. 30, 2018 Prof. Rommie Amaro Multiscale dynamics: Molecules to cells
Apr. 30, 2018 Prof. Kunihiko Kaneko Universal law in adaptation and evolution: Genetic assimilation, fluctuation-response relationship and dimension reduction
Mar. 29, 2018 Prof. Sam Walcott Using molecular mechanics to predict large-scale biological function: Applications to muscle activation and intracellular transport
Mar. 23, 2018 Prof.Gaspar Tkacik Intrinsic limits to gene regulation by global crosstalk
Nov. 9, 2017 Prof. Hernan Garcia How, when and where in pattern formation: Spying on embryonic development one molecule at a time
May 11, 2017 Prof. Debashish Chowdhury Intra Flagellar Transport Trains: Effects of fission and fusion of cargo
April 25, 2017 Dr. Yuhai Tu The energy cost of information processing in living systems
April 4, 2017 Prof. Madhav Mani On the mechanisms of morphogenesis: Two Drosophila case studies
Feb. 22, 2017 Prof. Tiajana Grove Protein engineering for multifunctional materials
Dec. 13, 2016 Prof. Meredith Betterton Physical Determinants of Bipolar Mitotic Spindle Assembly and Stability in Fission Yeast
Nov. 2, 2016 Prof. Roman Jerala Design of Molecular Origami Structures and Folding Pathways
Nov. 1, 2016 Prof. Alipasha Vaziri Optical Tools for Unraveling Whole-brain Neuronal Circuit Dynamics Underlying Behavior
Sept. 19, 2016 Prof. Reiko Kuroda The Genetics of Chirality in Snails
Aug. 31, 2016 Prof. Aitziber Cortajarena Engineering Protein Scaffolds for Hybrid Functional Materials and Sensors
May 3, 2016 Prof. Taeyoon Kim Reconstructing the Mechanical Behaviors of Cells in Silico
Apr. 19, 2016 Prof. Gerard Wong Surface Sensing, Motility, Motility Appendages, and Hydrodynamics in Early Bacterial Biofilms
Apr. 5, 2016 Prof. Alison Sweeney Living Photonic Devices: Protein-Based Self-Assembly of Optical Materials in Mollusks
Mar. 8, 2016 Prof. Martin Lenz Disordered Actomyosin Contracts in Unexpected Ways
Feb. 25, 2016 Dr. Sebastian Fürthauer Flows and Pattern Formation in the Phase Coherent State of Oriented Active Matter
Jan. 19, 2016 Prof. Jun Allard Mechanical modulation of receptor-ligand bonds at cell-cell interfaces
Nov. 19, 2015 Prof. Mary Munson How to speak to donors about your rresearch AND Molecular architecture and function of the exocyst complex in vesicle trafficking (latter, an MB&B informal seminar)
Nov. 17, 2015 Prof. Ken Dill How proteins fold, how they don’t, and how to do it in a computer
Nov. 2, 2015 Prof. Terry Hwa

Quantitative biology: Frontier at the interface of the physical and life sciences

*co-sponsored by the Department of Physics and the Department of Molecular Biology and Biophysics

Oct. 15, 2015 Prof. Oleg Kirchevsky Reaction-Diffusion Kinetics in the System of Immune Cells
May 1, 2015 Prof. Nicolas Buchler Redox Rythms Couple to the Plant Circadian Clock and the Yeast Cell Cycle
Apr. 24, 2015 Prof. Ewa Paluch Actin, Cell Surface Mechanics and Cellular Morphogenesis
Apr. 15, 2015 Prof. Dan Bolon Investigating Molecular and Evolutionary Mechanisms Through Protein Fitness Landscapes
Apr. 9, 2015 Prof. Jané Kondev Chromosome Folding: From Shape to Function
Apr. 7, 2015 Prof. Arne Gennerich Control of Cytoplasmic Dynein Force Production and Processivity by its C-Terminal Domain
Mar. 24, 2015 Prof. Suckjoon Jun Cell Size Control and Homeostasis of Individual Cells
Jan. 16, 2015 Prof. Simon Scheuring High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy: Watching Dynamic Processes at the Membrane at High Spatio-Temporal Resolution *co-sponsored by Cell Biology
Dec. 12, 2014 Prof. Jun Zhang Motion Sensors, Orientation Sensors, and Object Segregation
Dec. 11, 2014 Prof. Michael Poirier Functions of Nucleosome Dynamics
Nov. 13, 2014 Prof. Zev Bryant Measurement and Control of Biomolecular Motors
Nov. 7, 2014 Prof. Ralf Jungmann Approaching the Limit: Multiplexed Super-Resolution Microscopy with DNA-PAINT and Exchange-PAINT
Oct. 10, 2014 Physical Concepts in Biology Symposium Co-sponsored by the center, the Provost’s Office and the Department of Physics. Click here to find out more.
Oct. 9, 2014 Prof. Arpita Upadhyaya Forcing it on: The Dynamics of Signaling Activation in Immune Cells
Aug. 1, 2014 Dr. Fiona Whelan Biophysical and Single-Molecule Analysis of Rod-Like Repeat E-G5 from S. aureus Sas G
Jul. 31, 2014 Prof. Jennifer Potts Repetitive and Disordered Proteins in Gram-Positive Infections
Jul. 9, 2014 Prof. Bodhana Discher Designs and Engineering of Transmembrane Redox-Active Proteins
Apr. 24, 2014 Prof. Robert Jernigan Extracting Dynamics from Multiple Protein Structures
Apr. 22, 2014 Prof. David Smith Sculpting Functional DNA Scaffolds for Nanoscale Molecular Templating
Apr. 18, 2014 Prof. Johan Elf Probing Transcription Regulation at the Level of Individual Molecules
Apr. 15, 2014 Dr. Graham Johnson, PhD, CMI cellPACK: A Virtual Mesoscope to Model and Visualize Structural Systems Biology
Apr. 3, 2014 Prof. Yann Chemla Direct Observation of Structure-Function Relationship in DNA Repair Helicases
Mar. 4, 2014 Prof. David Hu Self-Healing of Fire Ant Rafts: A Novel Ant-Elastic Material
Feb. 24, 2014 Dr. Timothy Craggs Single-Molecule FRET for Dynamic Structural Biology: Structure and Mechanism of DNA Polymeras I
Jan. 30, 2014 Prof. Anne Gershenson Achieving a Metastable Native State: Serpin Folding In Vitro and in Cells
Jan. 14, 2014 Prof. Thomas Baldwin Whose Responsibility Is It? The Need for Scientists to Talk About Science with Non-Scientists 
*co-sponsored by the Genomics and Proteomics training grant and the Scientific Teaching Center
Nov. 19, 2013 Prof. Jennifer Ross Condensed Matter States of Biology: Building a Cell
Nov. 5, 2013 Prof. Francoise Brochard-Wyart Spreading and Motility of Cellular Aggregates - “Wetting of Living Drops
Apr. 30, 2013 Profs. Jane and David Richardson Admiring, Analyzing, and Healing the PDB’s Macromolecules
Apr. 3, 2013 Prof. Xiaowei Zhuang* Bioimaging at the Nanoscale: Single-Molecule and Super-Resolution Fluorescence Microscopy
Jan. 17, 2013 Prof. Dennis Discher A Nuclear Mechanostat that Couples Microenvironment Rigidity to Cell Lineage
Nov. 30, 2012 Prof. Tim Liedl Tailoring Light with DNA Origami
Oct. 9, 2012 Prof. Jennifer Lewis Printing Biomimetic Materials
Jul. 10, 2012 PEB Symposium Click here to see speakers
May 2, 2012 Prof. Michael Levitt Solving the Recalcitrant Crystal Structure of Group II Chaperonin TRiC/CCT by Mass Spectrometry and Sentinel Correlation Analysis
Feb. 28, 2012 Dr. Leila Deriva Biophysical Properties of Self Assembling Protein Networks
Nov. 30, 2011 Prof. Roland Dunbrack Statistical Analysis of Protein Structures: Backbone conformations, side-chain rotamers and protein-protein interfaces
May 12, 2011 Dr. Jeff Forbes Intrinsic Disorder & Protein Nanomechanics
Apr. 28, 2011 Prof. Julie Theriot* Mechanics and Dynamics of Cell Motility
Nov. 19, 2010 PEB Retreat Click here to see the schedule
Jan. 20, 2010 Prof. Rohit Pappu Effects of Sequence Context and Chain Length on Aggregation of Polyglutamine
Oct. 19, 2009 Inaugural Symposium Click here to see the speakers