May 2024
Emma and Anne finish teaching their University Prize Lectureship course "Biol82a Seeing Inside Cells: Using Microscopy to Visualize Cellular Dynamics"
April 2024
Senior thesis student Mila shows us what a day in her life looks like!
November 2023
Biljiana's paper describing a new synaptic actin structure involved in mechanosensation is posted on BioRxiv!
September 2023
Monica's paper using Atlastin mutants to investigate ER structure at presynaptic terminals is posted on BioRxiv!
Emily Metcalf joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome, Emily!
May 2023
Biljana moves to a new position as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow. We will miss you, Biljana!
Amy Scalera successfully defends her thesis. Congratulations, Dr. Scalera!
Laura Westhoff (MCB) and Eric Gomez (Neuro) join the lab as Ph.D. students!
Jack Cheng, Alex Zhang, and Mark Rozencwaig defend their senior honors theses and handily defeat their snakes!
Steve shares his approach for quantitative mapping of synaptic periactive zone architecture and organization in the Molecular Biology of the cell Special Issue on Quantitative cell biology, and his "striking image" graces the cover.
Erica's paper using ESCRT mutants to test the functions of extracellular vesicle cargoes is posted on BioRxiv!
January 2023
Angele joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome Angele!
December 2022
Many Rodal lab presentations at this year's finally-in-person ASCB meeting!! Anne (poster), Biljana (subgroup talk), Erica (microsymposium talk) and Monica (minisymposium talk) will be sharing their latest!
November 2022
Eric joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome Eric!
October 2022
Lab celebrates Halloween with some pumpkin carving!
September 2022
Avi is a guest speaker at the Iowa Synapse Workshop.
Welcome to our newest undergraduate researchers Dina and Dhruv!
Laura Westhoff joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome Laura!
June 2022
Steve's paper describing a new method for analyzing periactive zone architecture is posted on BioRxiv!
Avi and Erica attend the Cell Biology of the Neuron GRS; Biljana and Erica stay on to enjoy the GRC!
Anne, Amy, and Avi attend The Lysosomes and Endocytosis GRC!
May 2022
Anne and Emma pass their qualifying exams and officially become PhD candidates!
Congratulations to our graduating seniors, Kareem and Elizabeth!
Matt and Avi are on the NINDS podcast "Building up the Nerve" to discuss mentorship, you can listen here!
Mónica is selected as a 2022 Leading Edge fellow!
Matt is awarded an NINDS F32 fellowship to investigate CaMKII's regulation of extracellular vesicle trafficking to promote synaptic plasticity.
March 2022
Excited to share our new JCB paper showing an unexpected role for endocytic machinery in protecting extracellular vesicle cargoes from synaptic depletion.
Mónica and Avi's Preview of the latest paper from the Colón-Ramos' lab comes out in Neuron.
Nate Zaccardi joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome Nate!
January 2022
Welcome to our newest undergraduate researchers, Alex, Kareem, and Mila!
December 2021
Biljana presents her work at the Cell Bio Virtual ASCB|EMBO meeting.
November 2021
Jamie Stonemetz joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome Jamie!
October 2021
Erica presents her work at the CSHL Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting.
Mónica presents her work at the Endoplasmic Reticulum meeting in Paris, France.
September 2021
Steve attends the Deep Learning for Microscopy Image Analysis course at MBL.
Jasmin Kwak joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome Jasmin!
August 2021
Avi welcomes new puppy Sadie to her family!
Steve’s paper on regulation of synaptic actin assembly comes out at elife.
Excited to share our new preprint describing a new role for clathrin-mediated endocytic machinery in regulating extracellular vesicle cargo traffic at synapses!
Summer undergraduates Jack, Elizabeth, Katie, Mark, and Spencer present their work at SciFest 2021!
The Rodal lab celebrates its 11th anniversary on August 1st!
July 2021
Join our lab! We are looking for a Lab Manager/Research Technician. Apply here!
June 2021
Spencer Parsons joins the Rodal lab for the summer as part of the MRSEC REU program. Welcome Spencer!
May 2021
Ilias passes his PhD qualifying exam! Congratulations Ilias!
Really excited to share our new JCB paper led by Rylie Walsh.. Lots to learn about how cargoes are loaded into EVs at synapses!
Julia Apiki and Margalit Mitzner graduate from Brandeis as members of the undergraduate Class of 2021. Congrats Julia and Margalit!
Anne Silveira joins the lab as a PhD student. Welcome Anne!
Julia defends her undergraduate thesis.
April 2021
Erica is awarded an NINDS F32 fellowship to study mechanisms of presynaptic multivesicular body traffic underlying exosome release
March 2021
Emma McGuirk joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome Emma!
January 2021
Anne Silveira joins the lab as a rotation student. Welcome Anne!
November 2020
Emily Stadnicki and Hannah Germaine join the lab as rotation students. Welcome Emily and Hannah!
September 2020
Kelsey Clements joins the Rodal lab as a rotation student. Welcome Kelsey!
August 2020
Ilias Vamvakas joins the lab permanently as a PhD student!
Our undergrads used their experience this summer with our lab's remote learning model to write a post for the Focal Plane Biology Education Forum on How to Train an Undergraduate Researcher in the Age of COVID-19.
Avi and Steve share a tag-team lecture at the virtual Physical Biology of the Cell Seminar Series at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory.
The Rodal lab turns 10 years old on August 1st!!
July 2020
Current and former members from various labs on campus come together virtually to celebrate Rachel's retirement. As her going away gift she received a custom painting by Amy Michelle Nyman of Van Gogh's 'Cafe Terrace at Night' with fruit flies!
Video from some of our ALS-related research: mitochondria move along a larval motor axon.
June 2020
Steve gives virtual talks at the Boston Area Drosophila Meeting and at an imaging workshop at the University of Toronto.
The Rodal Lab welcomes our newest post-doc Matthew Pescosolido from the Morrow Lab at Brown University. Welcome Matthew!
Welcome to our new Fly Kitchen Manager Valeriy Znakharchuk!
The Rodal Lab welcomes our newest post-doc Mónica Cristina Quiñones-Frías from the Littleton lab at MIT. Welcome Mónica!
May 2020
So Min graduated with highest honors! Congratulations, So Min!!
Our amazing Fly Kitchen manager Rachel retired this month! While we will miss having her as part of the lab, we wish her all the very best in retirement. Congratulations, Rachel!
Ilias Vamvakis joins the lab as a rotation student!
Cassie’s review 'Mechanisms for biogenesis and release of neuronal extracellular vesicles' is out!
So Min defends her senior honors thesis! Great work So Min!!
The lab has a virtual celebration on Tania's last day at Brandeis before leaving to be a Senior Research Associate at eGenesis.
April 2020
Huge thanks to NINDS for funding our new R01 “Organization and function of the periactive zone”. Looking forward enormously to diving into these exciting projects!
Excited to share Steve's preprint “Autoregulation clamps the synaptic membrane-remodeling machinery and promotes productive actin-dependent endocytosis”
March 2020
Welcome to our new lab admin Erin!
Come run our Brandeis Fly Kitchen! We're looking for a special person to make, dispense, and organize food for thousands upon thousands of fruit flies. This person will also maintain the facility, train undergrads to help with the food prep, generate bills for labs, etc. Find out more!
February 2020
Amy successfully gives her first pizza talk - well done!
Join our lab! We are looking for a lab manager skilled in organization, communication, smarts, and kindness to support us and the Goode lab next door.
January 2020
Lisandro joins the lab as a rotation student.
December 2019
Avi and Biljana go to the 2019 ASCB EMBO meeting where Biljana presents a poster.
Jack joins the lab as a new undergraduate researcher.
October 2019
Cassie gives a talk "Presynaptic periactive zone proteins protect extracellular vesicle cargoes from degradation" at the 2019 Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting at Cold Spring Harbor.
September 2019
Erica joins the lab as our newest postdoc! Welcome!
August 2019
Rylie successfully defends her thesis! Congrats, Dr. Walsh - we will miss you SO MUCH!
Our undergrads made great posters for Scifest and did an excellent job communicating their summer research! Check out their hard work in this slideshow (and BIG thanks to the mentors!):
July 2019
In the middle of a busy summer of research, we found time for a lab pool party! Meet our special guest Fountainasia Rainbow Mane IV!
June 2019
Congrats to ShiYu for her Snx16 paper and to Steve for his spotlight, both in the Journal of Cell Biology!
Excited to share Rylie's preprint, "Opposing functions for retromer and Rab11 in extracellular vesicle cargo traffic at synapses"!
Amy passes her inside exam! Congrats!
Sara returns to us for her second summer as a MRSEC REU student. Welcome back!
May 2019
Frankie graduates with high honors!
We say goodbye and good luck to Troy as he gets ready for grad school at Weill Cornell.
Amy is chosen as a POSSE mentor. Congrats!
January 2019
Happy new year and welcome to our two new undergrads So Min and Margalit!
December 2018
The Rodal lab heads to ASCB 2018 to tell the world about our science! Rylie and Avi gave presentations, while Cassie, Amy, Biljana, and Frankie presented posters. Here's a slideshow of all the fun!
November 2018
ShiYu defends her thesis with aplomb and eloquence. Congratulations, Dr. Wang! We are so proud of you and all your hard work.
Avi presents her talk "Trafficking mechanisms for extracellular vesicle cargoes" at SfN 2018 in the "Extracellular vesicles: Insights into cell-to-cell communication in the nervous system" symposium.
Welcome to Andrea and Alexis our new rotation students!
October 2018
Cassie is one of the recipients of the NINDS Postdoctoral NRSA Fellowship!
September 2018
Avi is one of the recipients of the inaugural NINDS Landis Mentoring Award! [BrandeisNOW article here.]
Welcome to Suhaily and Raegan our new rotation students!
July 2018
Frankie is selected for the Computational Neuroscience Traineeship for 2018-2019! Congrats!
June 2018
Troy rejoins the lab as a research technician and Sara joins us for the summer as an REU!
We have our annual Group Meeting in the Pool!
Avi shares our science at the 2018 FASEB Molecular Biophysics of Membranes meeting and at the 2018 Cell Biology of the Neuron Gordon Research Conference.
May 2018
Amy joins our lab as a graduate student! Welcome!
Ben, Amanda, and Troy successfully defend their honors theses and graduate - we're so proud of you!
April 2018
Steve presents at the 59th Annual Drosophila Research Conference!
March 2018
Rebecca and Tyler join the lab as rotation students. Welcome!
February 2018
We pack up the lab to visit Waltham High School students for a morning of fly science! Photos here.
The PLOS Community Blog publishes Steve's guest post, "Understanding Images: Traffic jam causes immune cell road rage".
Undergraduates Jonah, Julia, and Sultana join our lab!
January 2018
Biljana joins the our lab as the newest post doc and Jasmine begins her rotation - welcome!
December 2017
Rylie presents a poster and Avi gives a talk at ASCB 2017!
Stephanie (BS) successfully defends her Thesis! Congrats!
November 2017
Our collaborative paper with the Paradis lab describing the effects of the ALS-associated gene TDP-43 on dendrite branching comes out at Science Reports. Great job Josiah and Mugdha and thank you again to the Blazeman Foundation for supporting Mugdha's work!
We are awarded a new R01 grant from NINDS to study how neuronal cargoes are packaged into extracellular vesicles!
Melda and Amy join the lab as rotation students.
October 2017
Avi, Steve and Cassie revel in the fruit flies at Cold Spring Harbor Neurobiology of Drosophila.
Our paper describing a role for the Lowe Syndrome gene OCRL in innate immune cells comes out at PLoS Genetics and gets the cover shot! Science blog article here!
September 2017
Cassie joins our lab as a post doctoral researcher after recently obtaining her PhD at UMASS medical school.
Inna joins our lab as an undergraduate researcher.
Welcome!
August 2017
Meghan joins our lab as a rotation student!
Avi journeyed to Taiwan to speak at the Neuroscience Program
of Academia Sinica symposium on Drosophila Neurobiology,
and also found some really huge dendritic spines at Yehliu Geopark.
July 2017
Anna leaves us to start grad school at MIT!
Rabia finishes her master's degree in the Rodal lab and starts in the neuroscience PhD program!
Good luck, friends!
June 2017
Nicole Ramos Solis joins the lab from the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao, as a Brandeis Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) student.
Avi is interviewed by NPR's Marketplace to discuss how federal funding cuts can affect science researchers.
May 2017
Avi is promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure!
Mugdha wins a Brandeis Provost's Research Award to take her Blazeman Foundation for ALS-supported research into human induced pluripotent stem cells. Brandeis Now article here.
Rylie and Steve represent the lab at the Janelia Farm Junior Scientist Workshop on Neuronal Cell Biology and at the Cellular Dynamics: Membrane-Cytoskeleton Interface meeting, respectively.
April 2017
Tania has her fly art featured by one of our vendors!
March 2017
Travis and Siobhan start their rotations in our lab!
January 2017
Our microscope gets interviewed; Jabberwocky is famous!
December 2016
Mugdha presents at CSHL for Neurodegenerative Diseases: Biology & Therapeutics.
Avi, Steve, ShiYu, and Rylie attend the 2016 ASCB meeting with an exciting array of talks and posters.
Steve hones his message and wins the ASCB elevator pitch contest!
See the video here and read Steve's thoughts on how to get your message across here.
November 2016
Charlotte defends her Ph.D. thesis and gets ready to move to Munich for her post-doc!
Tatevik Sarkissian begins her rotation in our lab.
Amanda is recognized in BrandeisNow for her hard work as a junior neuroscience major!
October 2016
Loki joins our lab as Assisssssssstant Research Reptile. (It's a snake joke. She's a snake.)
September 2016
Our paper on mechanisms of FBAR regulation is published in PNAS! (And written up in the ASCB post!)
Rabia joins our lab as a Neuro master's student.
August 2016
Our paper describing the role of membrane traffic in growth factor signaling in ALS (supported by the Blazeman Foundation) is published in MBOC! (BrandeisNOW article here.)
Rodal lab turns six years old! Happy Birthday to us!
Amanda and Amber present posters at Scifest VI.
July 2016
Avi is profiled in the NIH Common Fund Face to Face Feature!
Amanda wins the Professor Chandler Fulton Prize for Undergraduate Research!
Avi talks about our OCRL work at the Gordon Research Conference on Protein Processing, Trafficking, and Secretion.
Corny the cornsnake joins us in lab for a few weeks. (He helps us when we can't make heads or tails of our data!)
June 2016
Our lab family grows again - Mugdha and Areen welcome baby Mihika
on June 18!
Avi presents a poster at the Gordon Research Conference
Amber joins us as a summer REU student.
May 2016
Zach officially becomes Dr. Feiger, while Anna and Katy graduate with highest honors!
Peng Yin @wyssinsitute publishes an exciting new paper describing a new method for quantitative super-resolution imaging. Zach's Drosophila NMJs make a cameo in Figure 3!
Rylie passes her inside exam!
March 2016
Zach crushes his thesis defense! Congratulations, Dr. Feiger! Best of luck at ICF International - we will miss you so much.
January 2016
Karina Herlambang joins our lab as a rotation student.
Kate and Anna's paper describing an efficient and powerful method for tissue-specific tagging of endogenous loci in Drosophila melanogaster comes out in Biol Open.
December 2015
Avi, Steve, Mugdha, Charlotte, ShiYu, Rylie and Steven present a smorgasbord of posters and talks at the 2015 ASCB meeting.
Rylie gives a lightning talk at the Fall Symposium of the New England Society for Microscopy.
Our paper describing how a "sweet spot" of membrane charge directs membrane remodeling comes out in Cell Reports.
Our review on synaptic signaling and endosomal membrane traffic comes out at Traffic.
September 2015
Avi and Kate present at the Cold Spring Harbor Lab Neurobiology of Drosophila meeting.
August 2015
Derek Wise joins the lab as a rotation student.
July 2015
Our paper on post-synaptic membrane remodeling comes out in MBoC.
Summer students Amanda Shilton, Ariel Morley, Katy Lehmann, Anna Yeh, Steven Wasserman present posters at the Brandeis Division of Science Summer Scifest V.
Group meeting 7/21/15 is wetter than usual.
June 2015
Steve sets the land speed record for publication in the lab - two weeks! We publish a review on Drosophila as a model system for cytoskeletal discovery.
Steve Del Signore joins the lab as a postdoctoral fellow.
Avi gives a talk at “The Long and Winding Road: Neuronal Trafficking in Physiology and Disease” at Janelia Farm.
Charlotte attends the physiology course at MBL.
Emily leaves the lab to start in the graduate program at Harvard BBS.
May 2015
Rylie Walsh joins the lab as a graduate student.
April 2015
The lab family grows again - clocking in at 9 lbs. 8 oz. Katja joins the Lemos bunch!
March 2015
Patrick Finneran joins the lab as a rotation student.
February 2015
Lily Ayoun joins the lab as BS/MS Student in Biotechnology.
Avi gave a talk at the Winter Conference on Brain Research in Big Sky, MT.
Rylie ousts Galen as youngest puppy in our lab!
January 2015
Brenda Lemos joins the lab as a rotation student.
December 2014
Charlotte and Zach present posters at ASCB 2014 in Philadelphia.
Mugdha presents a poster at the Neurodegenerative Diseases meeting at Cold Spring Harbor.
Galen joins our lab as our resident puppy!
November 2014
Chloe Greppi joins the lab as a rotation student.
September 2014
Rylie Walsh and Tyler Esposito join the lab as rotation students.
August 2014
ALS Ice bucket challenge: We are really excited to see how the whole world has come together to join in the fight against ALS. We are investigating how membrane traffic might underlie growth factor signaling defects in ALS, with the support of the Blazeman Foundation for ALS. Mugdha, Zach, Charlotte, and Jordan took the ALS ice bucket challenge to raise awareness for ALS and ALS research.
Check out these related articles:
WBUR's Commonhealth
Brandeis NOW
Boston Globe
Brandeis Hoot
July 2014
ShiYu Wang passes her Inside Qualifying Exam!
June 2014
Agata, Crystal, and Matt leave the lab to take the next step forward in their careers. Agata has accepted a position with MacEwan University as an assistant professor. Crystal is pursuing her MD at Albany College of Medicine. Matt is pursuing his MD/PhD at Tufts University. Congratulations, and best of luck!
Sarah defends her thesis to become the first PhD recipient from our lab! Congratulations, Sarah!
Rachel joins the lab as fly kitchen manager.
Emily and Avi presented at the Lysosomes and Endocytosis Gordon Conference. Emily gave a talk at the pre-meeting Gordon Research Seminar and a poster at the conference, and Avi gave a talk at the conference.
February 2014
ShiYu Wang passes her Outside Qualifying Exam!
December 2013
Charlotte gives a talk about our work on regulation of the Nwk F-BAR domain in the "Mechanisms of Vesicular Trafficking" minisymposium at the 2013 ASCB meeting.
November 2013
ShiYu Wang officially joins the lab as a graduate student!
July 2013
Mugdha Deshpande and the Blazeman Foundation for ALS are featured in Brandeis Now. Brandeis Science blog story here.
June 2013
Avi is named a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. Brandeis Now story here. Brandeis Science blog story here.
Mugdha Deshpande Ph.D. joins the lab as the Blazeman Postdoctoral Fellow for ALS Research.
Charlotte Kelley passes her Qualifying Exam!
Emily Messelaar and Matt Zunitch join the lab as lab technicians.
Our paper describing a novel mode of higher order assembly for F-BAR domains comes out in Molecular Biology of the Cell. We also made the cover!
May 2013
Matt is featured in the Brandeis National Committee Imprint describing our research for the Sustaining the Mind campaign.
Lab picnic and croquet to celebrate graduation!
Emily Messelaar (BS) and Matt Zunitch (BS/MS) defend their theses (both with highest honors!).
Mohsin Ali and ShiYu Wang complete their Master's degrees.
January 2013
Kate Koles Ph.D. joins our lab as a Drosophilosophist.
The lab family grows - clocking in at 9 lbs. 15 oz. Milo is born to Tania!
September 2012
Avi wins the NIH Director's New Innovator Award. Brandeis Now story here. Brandeis Science blog story here.