Recently I made the move from Chicago to Sioux Falls, SD where I am working as an Assistant Professor teaching developmental biology at Augustana College. On hearing that I am from Florida, the consensus seems to be that I should be in shock now that winter has (finally) arrived. But having five Chicago winters under my belt, I think I am alright. One of the best parts of moving north has been that I have gained a real appreciation for the “seasons”.  People asked me for years in Florida “Don’t you miss not having seasons?” and until fairly recently I didn’t even know that I had no idea what they were talking about. But, I will say that, in my limited experience, winter generally lasts too long. This year I got myself a new pair of fleece-lined boots, and just for fun they are chili-pepper red!

I was in Chicago on a postdoctoral fellowship at The University of Chicago where I was privileged to work with Marty Kreitman and  all my good buddies in the “Kreitnitz Lab”. I am continuing my research into the genetics of egg size in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster (and some of its close relatives) here at Augustana (Go Vikings!).   I have recently been using antibodies to visualize the expression patterns of some of the terminal genes that I hypothesized might be behind some unusual shifts in expression domains in strains of flies selected for large eggs. The results are intriguing but too preliminary to share here. I have also generated lines of D. mel with large egg sizes by raising cages in cold temperature incubators for the same type of analysis.  My good buddy Reece DeHaan is analyzing some of those data right now so tune in again soon for the latest results.