Awarded in 2013
Home Department: Biology
Faculty Advisors: Hunter Fraser (Biology) and Russell Fernald (Biology)

Research Title: Castles made of sand: gene expression evolution and behavior in cichlid fish

Research Description: Why do some animals get to have sex when others don’t? Why do some starve while others feast? Understanding how behaviors vary and evolve is one of the grand challenges in biology. In order to address aspects of these questions, Ryan is studying the mating behaviors of African cichlid fish. He is combining his background in neuroscience with the fields of genomics and ethology in order to unveil the complex interplay between genome and the brain in animal behavior. If successful, this project could, for the first time, identify specific genes controlling complex social behavior in a vertebrate.

WHERE IS HE NOW?

Ryan is a scientist at Arcadia.