Outreach
Real Science Workshop for Middle School Teachers
As part of our NSF CAREER grant, we are collaborating with the Harvard Museum of Natural History to train middle school teachers to use modern molecular biology methods for the study of evolution. The teachers will be here for a 3-day workshop called “Real Science: Untangling Evolutionary Trees”. We will then help teachers run this curriculum in their classrooms, and provide all the equipment and reagents. This program will run for three years (2019, 2020, 2021). We seek for teachers and students to have hands-on experiences to see that evolutionary biology is a modern, thriving field that utilizes molecular techniques for collecting data and analyzing it. Check out the handbook we created for the first workshop, which was held July 9 - July 11, 2019:
As part of our NSF CAREER grant, we are collaborating with the Harvard Museum of Natural History to train middle school teachers to use modern molecular biology methods for the study of evolution. The teachers will be here for a 3-day workshop called “Real Science: Untangling Evolutionary Trees”. We will then help teachers run this curriculum in their classrooms, and provide all the equipment and reagents. This program will run for three years (2019, 2020, 2021). We seek for teachers and students to have hands-on experiences to see that evolutionary biology is a modern, thriving field that utilizes molecular techniques for collecting data and analyzing it. Check out the handbook we created for the first workshop, which was held July 9 - July 11, 2019:
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News
August 2025:
Ashkay Kane joins the lab as a graduate student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.
Mansi gives a talk as a guest speaker at the International Society for Regenerative Biology (ISBR) conference in Madison, WI (August 11-14).
July 2025:
Mansi is appointed as a OEB co-chair with Ben de Bivort.
Vikram becomes a Postdoctoral Pioneers Grant Program awardee with the project “A New Neuroscience Model for Distributed Computation, Brain Regeneration and Evolution.”
June 2025:
Rachel Busby joins the lab as a graduate student in the MCZ department.
Allison presents research at the Gordon Research Conference on cell Contact and Adhesion in Les Diablerets, Vaud, Switzerland (June 8-13).
Mansi presents a talk as a guest speaker at the International Congress of Developmental Biology, in Puerto Rico (June 18-22)
May 2025:
Paul receives an award for his poster presentation at the Northeast Regional Society for Developmental Biology meeting in Woods Hole, MA.
Mansi, Catie, Paul, Eliza and Ananya attend and present research at the Northeast Regional Society for Developmental Biology meeting in Woods Hole, MA.
Carlos presents research at the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratories) in Heidelberg, Germany (May 12-17).
Eliza Hirsch successfully completes of her senior thesis under Dr Paul Bump mentoring.
Ananya Salem successfully completes her senior thesis under Dr. Vikram Chandra mentoring.
April 2025:
Amber successfully defends her PhD dissertation on the embryology of the three-banded acoel worm Hofstenia miamia (April 30).
Mansi is awarded a new grant from NIH/NIDA on “Quantifying organism-environment interactions in a new model system for neuroscience.”
March 2025:
Paul attends the Jackson Laboratory workshop (March11-14) and the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) in Development, in Southern California.
January 2025:
Paul is awarded the F32 fellowship from NIH on “The developmental origin of adult pluripotent stem cells.”
December 2024:
Mansi gives a research talk as a special speaker at Institute Pasteur, in Paris, France (December 5).
November 2024:
Amber attends a workshop and conference with The Company of Biologists on “Physics of Early Embryonic Cell Divisions” in Buxted Park, East Sussex, UK.
October 2024
Catie presents a talk at the EMBO meeting on tissue repair and regeneration at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France.
September 2024:
Mansi is awarded an NSF grant in collaboration with MCZ on “Rehousing and Digitization of the Museum of Comparative Zoology recent invertebrates microscope slide collections.”
Mansi presents a talk as a guest speaker at the “Allele Seminar Series,” at the University of Alabama! (September 19).
August 2024:
Mansi is awarded an NSF grant on “Mechanisms for the establishment of polarity during whole-body regeneration."
July 2024:
Carlos presents a research talk at the Gordon Research Conference, Bryan University, in Rhode Island.
June 2024:
Paul presents, with co-authors Katy and Mansi, their research project at the EuroEvoDevo in Helsinki, Finland on “Specification and maintenance: pluripotency and beyond in the acoel worm Hofstenia miamia” (June 25-28).
May 2024:
Katy Loubet-Senear successfully defends her PhD dissertation.
Mansi presents a talk as a guest speaker at the Development, Regeneration and Stem Cell Biology (DRSB) Department at the University of Chicago (May 20-22).
Mansi presents a talk as a guest speaker at the Department of Molecular Biology Seminar, Princeton University (May 1st).
April 2024:
Mansi is awarded an NIH R35 MIRA grant on “Stem cell regulation during development and whole-body regeneration”
September 2023:
Gaurav Bhardwaj joins the lab as a graduate student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.
August 2023:
Katy, Catie, Oscar, and Allison helped teach in the Harvard Museum of Natural History's Tools of a Scientist summer program.
July 2023:
Giuliana Fillion joins the lab as our newest research assistant.
June 2023:
Mansi is appointed to the position of Full Professor with tenure in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.
Allison receives the Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship.
May 2023:
Mansi receives the Rosyln Abramson Award for excellence in teaching undergraduates.
November 2022:
Mansi gives keynote speech at the European Planarian Meeting in Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain.
Oscar Duan joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher.
September 2022:
Mansi presents at the European Molecular Biology Organization's Regeneration Workshop in Barcelona, Spain.
August 2022:
Paul Alexander Kai Bump joins the lab as our newest postdoc. Mansi gives talks in the Paul Illg Distinguished Lecture Series at Friday Harbor Laboratories in Seattle. Vikram, Catriona, Katy, and Allison participate in the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture's Summer Science Week: Tools of a Scientist.
July 2022:
Postdoctoral researcher, Allison Kann, joins the lab. Ryan Hulett completes his PhD. Members of the lab present posters and give a talk at the Society of Developmental Biology - Pan-American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology Joint Meeting in Vancouver, BC. Julian Kimura's paper, "Embryonic development in the acoel Hofstenia miamia" is published in Development.
June 2022:
Katy and Mansi teach Embryology at the Marine Biological Laboratories.
March 2022:
Julian Kimura successfully defends and receives his PhD.
January 2022:
Members of the lab present research at the Society of Integrative Biology Annual Meeting.
June 2021:
Sarah Arnold joins the lab as our new Research Assistant. Justin Duffy arrives on campus for in-person research.
May 2021:
Carlos Rivera-Lopez joins the lab as a graduate student. Vikram Chandra is awarded the Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship.
January 2021:
The Srivastava Lab welcomes our newest postdoc, Vikram Chandra. Mansi receives the Elizabeth D. Hay New Investigator Award.
September 2020:
The Srivastava Lab is awarded the Smith Family Odyssey Award. Alyson Ramirez's paper, "A regulatory program for initiation of wnt signaling during posterior regeneration," is published in Cell Reports.
August 2020:
Alyson Ramirez graduates with her PhD.
June 2020:
Ryan Hulett's paper, "Neural architecture and regeneration in the acoel Hofstenia miamia," is published in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
May 2020:
Elizabeth D'Haiti and Deirdre Potter receive their bachelor's degrees.
July 2019:
In collaboration with the HMNH, Mansi, Alyson, Julian, and Ryan launch the first Real Science: Untangling Evolutionary Trees workshop for middle school teachers.
June 2019:
Srivastava Lab makes its third appearance at the Embryology course! Students make successful grafts, image flow around Hofstenia, and try some embryo injections.
May 2019:
Katy Loubet-Senear formally joins the lab as our fourth graduate student.
March 2019:
Our paper on the acoel genome and the regulatory landscape of regeneration is published in Science.Rotation student Megan He beings a project, working with Yi-Jyun.
January 2019:
Rotation students Katy Loubet-Senear and Abby Knecht work with Alyson, Yi-Jyun, and Julian to study Hofstenia.
August 2018:
Mansi, Ryan, and Julian pilot NSF Outreach Program.
July 2018:
Mansi receives an NIH award.
June 2018:
Julian and Mansi teach Embryology for the second time.
May 2018:
Annika Gompers graduates with Hoopes Prize for her honors thesis.
March 2018:
Ryan Hulett passes the qualifying exam.
February 2018:
Julian Kimura passes the qualifying exam.
December 2017:
Holiday party!
October 2017:
Lab attends the North American Planarian Meeting in Woods Hole, MA.
September 2017:
Welcome to Postdoctoral Fellow, Yi-Jyun Luo!
Mansi launches her new course “How to Build an Animal” with Stephanie Pierce.
August 2017:
Welcome to Research Assistant, Vanessa Poirier!
Lab kayaking trip and farewell BBQ for departing Research Assistant, Emily Neverett.
June 2017:
Hofstenia joins the the Embryology Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory.
May 2017:
Mansi receives the NSF CAREER Award.
March 2017:
Incoming postdoc, Yi-Jyun Luo, wins a Human Frontier Science Program Fellowship.
December 2016:
Mansi receives the Smith Family Award for Excellence in Biomedical Research.
October 2016:
Harvard College undergraduate, Juliet Kim, joins the lab.
September 2016:
Harvard College undergraduate, Annika Gompers, joins the lab.
August 2016:
Welcome to OEB graduate students Ryan Hulett and Julian Kimura!
Srivastava Lab goes tide pooling in New Hampshire
July 2016:
Welcome to Visiting Researcher, Marcela Bolanos!
Marcela is awarded a fellowship through the American Association for University Women
June 2016:
Srivastava Lab receives a grant from the Milton Fund at Harvard University.
May 2016:
Welcome to Postdoctoral Fellow, Lorenzo Ricci!
April 2016:
Welcome to Andrew Gehrke, first postdoc to join the lab!
Mansi receives an award through the Searle Scholar Program.
December 2015:
Incoming postdoc Andrew Gehrke wins a Helen Hay Whitney Fellowship
November 2015:
Harvard College undergraduates Kieran Austin, Silvia Golumbeanu, and Andree Franco-Vasquez join the lab!
July 2015:
Srivastava Lab opens its doors, welcoming research assistant Emily Neverett.
Ashkay Kane joins the lab as a graduate student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.
Mansi gives a talk as a guest speaker at the International Society for Regenerative Biology (ISBR) conference in Madison, WI (August 11-14).
July 2025:
Mansi is appointed as a OEB co-chair with Ben de Bivort.
Vikram becomes a Postdoctoral Pioneers Grant Program awardee with the project “A New Neuroscience Model for Distributed Computation, Brain Regeneration and Evolution.”
June 2025:
Rachel Busby joins the lab as a graduate student in the MCZ department.
Allison presents research at the Gordon Research Conference on cell Contact and Adhesion in Les Diablerets, Vaud, Switzerland (June 8-13).
Mansi presents a talk as a guest speaker at the International Congress of Developmental Biology, in Puerto Rico (June 18-22)
May 2025:
Paul receives an award for his poster presentation at the Northeast Regional Society for Developmental Biology meeting in Woods Hole, MA.
Mansi, Catie, Paul, Eliza and Ananya attend and present research at the Northeast Regional Society for Developmental Biology meeting in Woods Hole, MA.
Carlos presents research at the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratories) in Heidelberg, Germany (May 12-17).
Eliza Hirsch successfully completes of her senior thesis under Dr Paul Bump mentoring.
Ananya Salem successfully completes her senior thesis under Dr. Vikram Chandra mentoring.
April 2025:
Amber successfully defends her PhD dissertation on the embryology of the three-banded acoel worm Hofstenia miamia (April 30).
Mansi is awarded a new grant from NIH/NIDA on “Quantifying organism-environment interactions in a new model system for neuroscience.”
March 2025:
Paul attends the Jackson Laboratory workshop (March11-14) and the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) in Development, in Southern California.
January 2025:
Paul is awarded the F32 fellowship from NIH on “The developmental origin of adult pluripotent stem cells.”
December 2024:
Mansi gives a research talk as a special speaker at Institute Pasteur, in Paris, France (December 5).
November 2024:
Amber attends a workshop and conference with The Company of Biologists on “Physics of Early Embryonic Cell Divisions” in Buxted Park, East Sussex, UK.
October 2024
Catie presents a talk at the EMBO meeting on tissue repair and regeneration at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France.
September 2024:
Mansi is awarded an NSF grant in collaboration with MCZ on “Rehousing and Digitization of the Museum of Comparative Zoology recent invertebrates microscope slide collections.”
Mansi presents a talk as a guest speaker at the “Allele Seminar Series,” at the University of Alabama! (September 19).
August 2024:
Mansi is awarded an NSF grant on “Mechanisms for the establishment of polarity during whole-body regeneration."
July 2024:
Carlos presents a research talk at the Gordon Research Conference, Bryan University, in Rhode Island.
June 2024:
Paul presents, with co-authors Katy and Mansi, their research project at the EuroEvoDevo in Helsinki, Finland on “Specification and maintenance: pluripotency and beyond in the acoel worm Hofstenia miamia” (June 25-28).
May 2024:
Katy Loubet-Senear successfully defends her PhD dissertation.
Mansi presents a talk as a guest speaker at the Development, Regeneration and Stem Cell Biology (DRSB) Department at the University of Chicago (May 20-22).
Mansi presents a talk as a guest speaker at the Department of Molecular Biology Seminar, Princeton University (May 1st).
April 2024:
Mansi is awarded an NIH R35 MIRA grant on “Stem cell regulation during development and whole-body regeneration”
September 2023:
Gaurav Bhardwaj joins the lab as a graduate student in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.
August 2023:
Katy, Catie, Oscar, and Allison helped teach in the Harvard Museum of Natural History's Tools of a Scientist summer program.
July 2023:
Giuliana Fillion joins the lab as our newest research assistant.
June 2023:
Mansi is appointed to the position of Full Professor with tenure in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.
Allison receives the Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship.
May 2023:
Mansi receives the Rosyln Abramson Award for excellence in teaching undergraduates.
November 2022:
Mansi gives keynote speech at the European Planarian Meeting in Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain.
Oscar Duan joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher.
September 2022:
Mansi presents at the European Molecular Biology Organization's Regeneration Workshop in Barcelona, Spain.
August 2022:
Paul Alexander Kai Bump joins the lab as our newest postdoc. Mansi gives talks in the Paul Illg Distinguished Lecture Series at Friday Harbor Laboratories in Seattle. Vikram, Catriona, Katy, and Allison participate in the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture's Summer Science Week: Tools of a Scientist.
July 2022:
Postdoctoral researcher, Allison Kann, joins the lab. Ryan Hulett completes his PhD. Members of the lab present posters and give a talk at the Society of Developmental Biology - Pan-American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology Joint Meeting in Vancouver, BC. Julian Kimura's paper, "Embryonic development in the acoel Hofstenia miamia" is published in Development.
June 2022:
Katy and Mansi teach Embryology at the Marine Biological Laboratories.
March 2022:
Julian Kimura successfully defends and receives his PhD.
January 2022:
Members of the lab present research at the Society of Integrative Biology Annual Meeting.
June 2021:
Sarah Arnold joins the lab as our new Research Assistant. Justin Duffy arrives on campus for in-person research.
May 2021:
Carlos Rivera-Lopez joins the lab as a graduate student. Vikram Chandra is awarded the Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship.
January 2021:
The Srivastava Lab welcomes our newest postdoc, Vikram Chandra. Mansi receives the Elizabeth D. Hay New Investigator Award.
September 2020:
The Srivastava Lab is awarded the Smith Family Odyssey Award. Alyson Ramirez's paper, "A regulatory program for initiation of wnt signaling during posterior regeneration," is published in Cell Reports.
August 2020:
Alyson Ramirez graduates with her PhD.
June 2020:
Ryan Hulett's paper, "Neural architecture and regeneration in the acoel Hofstenia miamia," is published in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
May 2020:
Elizabeth D'Haiti and Deirdre Potter receive their bachelor's degrees.
July 2019:
In collaboration with the HMNH, Mansi, Alyson, Julian, and Ryan launch the first Real Science: Untangling Evolutionary Trees workshop for middle school teachers.
June 2019:
Srivastava Lab makes its third appearance at the Embryology course! Students make successful grafts, image flow around Hofstenia, and try some embryo injections.
May 2019:
Katy Loubet-Senear formally joins the lab as our fourth graduate student.
March 2019:
Our paper on the acoel genome and the regulatory landscape of regeneration is published in Science.Rotation student Megan He beings a project, working with Yi-Jyun.
January 2019:
Rotation students Katy Loubet-Senear and Abby Knecht work with Alyson, Yi-Jyun, and Julian to study Hofstenia.
August 2018:
Mansi, Ryan, and Julian pilot NSF Outreach Program.
July 2018:
Mansi receives an NIH award.
June 2018:
Julian and Mansi teach Embryology for the second time.
May 2018:
Annika Gompers graduates with Hoopes Prize for her honors thesis.
March 2018:
Ryan Hulett passes the qualifying exam.
February 2018:
Julian Kimura passes the qualifying exam.
December 2017:
Holiday party!
October 2017:
Lab attends the North American Planarian Meeting in Woods Hole, MA.
September 2017:
Welcome to Postdoctoral Fellow, Yi-Jyun Luo!
Mansi launches her new course “How to Build an Animal” with Stephanie Pierce.
August 2017:
Welcome to Research Assistant, Vanessa Poirier!
Lab kayaking trip and farewell BBQ for departing Research Assistant, Emily Neverett.
June 2017:
Hofstenia joins the the Embryology Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory.
May 2017:
Mansi receives the NSF CAREER Award.
March 2017:
Incoming postdoc, Yi-Jyun Luo, wins a Human Frontier Science Program Fellowship.
December 2016:
Mansi receives the Smith Family Award for Excellence in Biomedical Research.
October 2016:
Harvard College undergraduate, Juliet Kim, joins the lab.
September 2016:
Harvard College undergraduate, Annika Gompers, joins the lab.
August 2016:
Welcome to OEB graduate students Ryan Hulett and Julian Kimura!
Srivastava Lab goes tide pooling in New Hampshire
July 2016:
Welcome to Visiting Researcher, Marcela Bolanos!
Marcela is awarded a fellowship through the American Association for University Women
June 2016:
Srivastava Lab receives a grant from the Milton Fund at Harvard University.
May 2016:
Welcome to Postdoctoral Fellow, Lorenzo Ricci!
April 2016:
Welcome to Andrew Gehrke, first postdoc to join the lab!
Mansi receives an award through the Searle Scholar Program.
December 2015:
Incoming postdoc Andrew Gehrke wins a Helen Hay Whitney Fellowship
November 2015:
Harvard College undergraduates Kieran Austin, Silvia Golumbeanu, and Andree Franco-Vasquez join the lab!
July 2015:
Srivastava Lab opens its doors, welcoming research assistant Emily Neverett.