Hosted by the National Postdoc Association. Register for this event here.
Are you a postdoc considering a faculty position outside the United States? Join the NPA International Committee for an engaging panel discussion featuring panelists who completed a postdoc in biology in the United States and have transitioned to faculty roles in various countries, whether that be returning to their home country or embarking on a new adventure. All postdocs, domestic and international, are encouraged to attend this panel to ask questions, gain valuable advice, and consider their options in the next step in their academic career! Our panelists, Anusha Shankar, Ph.D. (India), Robert Peuß, Ph.D., (Germany) and Naima Starkloff, Ph.D. (Netherlands), will share their experiences and participate in breakout rooms to network with current interested postdocs.
Speakers:
Anusha Shankar, Ph.D., assistant professor, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Hyderabad, India
Shankar is an assistant professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Hyderabad, India. She is especially fascinated by how some animals, like hummingbirds, can enter a low-energy state similar to hibernation, called torpor, at night to save energy. Her new lab will be helping fulfill her long-term dream of living in the tropics and studying how tropical animals manage their energetic needs in the context of their changing environments. In her previous position, as a Rose postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, she explored how hummingbirds can give us new insights into whether sleep and torpor are in a continuum in birds. During her doctorate, she used infrared video to capture the secret nightlife of hummingbirds as they “snored,” peed, and preened in their sleep. Her first National Geographic Society grant funded fieldwork in Ecuador, and the second grant funded work in Oregon. Shankar is passionate about teaching and mentoring and has mentored 22 students on her projects in the past few years. She also loves salsa and swing dancing, photography, and reading fiction. Shankar is a 2014 National Geographic Young Explorer grantee, a 2021 Early Career grantee, and was part of the 2017 Young Explorer Leadership and Development Program.
Robert Peuß, Ph.D., akademischer rat (tenured scientist), Institute for Integrative Cell Biology and Physiology, University of Münster, Germany
Peuß is an evolutionary physiologist and immunologist. He and his group investigate how parasite diversity shapes the evolution of the host with a particular focus on the evolutionary trajectory of cellular immune phenotypes, their underlying genetics and the subsequent consequences for host reproductive fitness using the Mexican cavefish. He did his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Münster, Germany. After four years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, where he started to establish cavefish as model for evolutionary immunology in the Rohner lab, he is back at the University of Münster to continue his study on host-parasite interaction and evolutionary immunometabolism with this fascinating model system.
Naima Starkloff, Ph.D., assistant professor, Evolutionary & Population Biology (EPB) Department, Institute of Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (University of Amsterdam)
Starkloff is an assistant professor in the Evolutionary & Population Biology (EPB) Department of the Institute of Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (University of Amsterdam). Her research aims to unearth the factors that determine the diversity of and interactions within biological communities, with a special interest in host-parasite interactions and human-environmental interfaces. Her primary system looks at seasonality and spatial variation in transmission risk of a neglected tropical disease, schistosomiasis (caused by Schistosoma haemotobium) in Tanzania. She is also interested in anthropogenic and other drivers of biodiversity variation across space and time. She spent the last three years as a postdoctoral fellow in the Civitello Lab at Emory University (2021-2024). Previous to that, she spent a year as a visiting assistant professor of biology at Davidson College teaching courses in ecology and biostatistics (2020-2021). She completed her doctoral degree in ecology & evolutionary biology at the State University of New York, Albany in the Turner Lab in 2020. She was concurrently an ornithology research fellow at the New York State Museum, co-advised by Jeremy Kirchman, Ph.D. Her undergraduate research focused on avian biodiversity and human-elephant conflict in Sri Lankan agricultural landscapes (2015).