Research: 

I’m interested in the evolution and development of sensory systems and their relationship to the evolutionary morphology of vertebrates- specifically, the cranial mechanosensory lateral line. I’m currently working on understanding this system by combining developmental inferences obtained using zebrafish and non-model embryos with information on its evolutionary history gleaned from the fossil record of early vertebrates.

Training:

I did my undergraduate training in Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, studying with Brent Mishler and Seth Finnegan. I worked on the development of leaf structure in desert mosses for my senior thesis, and dabbled in arthropod evo-devo (specifically tadpole shrimp) afterward. I got my MSc in Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol, working on the evolution of the dermal skeleton of lobe-finned fishes using synchrotron tomography with Phil Donoghue, before joining the Integrative Biology programme at UChicago.

Lab Super Powers:

Gross anatomy, CT scanning and image segmentation, phylogenetics, antibody staining and confocal microscopy

When I’m not in lab: 

I’m cooking Indian food, reading Indian philosophy, Tamil or the history of science and society, curling up with a good Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams volume, or scheming about getting back into my former alternate life as a theater kid.

Contact: 

Twitter: @vish_venkat

Instagram: venkatvishruth

Email: vishruthv@uchicago.edu