Wellesley College Department of Biological Sciences

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Wellesley College Department of Biological Sciences

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The home for current events in the Department of Biological Sciences at Wellesley College.

To learn more about the Department of Biological Sciences at Wellesley, please visit us at http://www.wellesley.edu/biology and follow us on Instagram .

10/20/2026

NEXT UP: Professor Lainie Brice!! Fun fact: she has been to every continent (including antarctica)! 🌱🌳🐻🐺🐈

10/16/2026

Happy Fish Friday! This week’s fish is the peacock flounder (Bothus lunatus). They are found all over the Caribbean and love shallow waters near the coral reef and seagrass. Their eggs are laid in open water to develop and as juveniles learn the ways of life on their own, and go through an amazing physical transition! They start their lives as normal looking fish, but then one eye migrates and they become laterally compressed, disk-shaped, with both eyes located on the same side of the head. This allows them to lie flat on the ocean floor while keeping a wide field of vision. Like other flounders, they can change colors to blend in with the background and it only takes about 8 seconds! They use camouflage and become motionless to hide from predators. They use the same technique to catch small prey! Unlike other fish that swim everywhere, the peacock flounder often uses their fins to crawl along the ocean floor allowing them to be even more stealthy. The peacock flounder is the master of camouflage! See you next week for more fish facts! 🐟🎉

📷: Katie Nickles
📝: Laryssa Pinto

10/15/2026

Our next faculty spotlight is Professor Goss!!! 🦉🦉🦉

10/06/2026

Our next factulty spotlight is our fantastic Professor Yui Suzuki. Fun fact from Prof Yui Suzuki “We recently adopted two mischievous and cute cats named Koya and Tofu. Koya loves to play fetch, and Tofu looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you”🐱🐈🐈‍⬛🐱🪲🪲🪲

10/05/2026

MARK YOUR CALENDARS😋 love to talk about your research? rsvp. want to get invloved in research? rsvp. enjoy matcha roll cakes and chatting with other bisc students??? RSVP. see you all there!

09/28/2026

our next spotlight is the AMAZING Professor Louise Darling!! swipe to read more about her wonderful work at Wellesley!!🫀🫀🧬🔬

09/27/2026

SCI H105😊. TUESDAY📆. 5PM🕰️. VAGINAL HEALTH🥼. REFRESHMENTS🍪. you do NOT want to miss this. refreshments provided!
Here’s Fatima’s bio:
Fatima Aysha Hussain is a microbial ecologist with a background in environmental engineering. She received her Ph.D. from MIT, where she studied bacteriophage-driven evolution of marine Vibrio with Martin Polz. During her Ph.D., she discovered that bacteria in the wild tend to evolve resistance to phages through the rapid transfer of mobile genetic elements rather than the evolution of receptors, as previously thought. She was a 2021 recipient of the Schmidt Science Fellowship, which she used to pivot her work from the ocean to the vaginal microbiome and women’s health. During her postdoctoral work at Massachusetts General Hospital with Douglas Kwon, she worked on both vaginal probiotic development and vaginal microbiota transplantations to treat bacterial vaginosis. Now, in her own lab at Tufts University, she is developing a research program studying phage-bacteria and bacteria-bacteria interactions in the vaginal microbiome, aiming to ultimately design ecologically-informed microbial therapies for global vaginal health.

09/21/2026

Meet our first faculty spotlight: Professor Heather Mattila!!! 🐝🐝🐝

A fun fact about Prof. Mattila:
“When I was a grad student in Canada, one of my many jobs was participating in mosquito repellent trials that were run by a local company. Each night in late summer, several of us entomology grad students would gather in a mosquito-filled field in outfits that exposed our forearms only, and we used insect aspirators to count how many mosquitos tried to bite us. One time we participated in a repellent trial for dogs, which was a total disaster, but we got paid double because it was so hard to aspirate mosquitos off of the dogs, who were mostly excited to be in a field and wouldn’t stand still. I used this money to pay for my first trip to Europe!”

09/19/2026

A little birdie 🐥 told me that the bisc department is getting a mascot?!?!! put your votes in at the welcome party!! mascot revealed at the end👀👀👀🐝🐟🪼🧬🦠🦋🐷🐢🐞

07/30/2026

The Wellesley College Biology Department is hiring a full time tenure track assistant professor specializing in vertebrate biology! Spread the world to all the fabulous scientists you know who study things with a backbone! Application link:

https://wd1.myworkdaysite.com/recruiting/wellesley/wellesley-faculty/job/Wellesley-College/Assistant-Professor-of-Biological-Sciences_R0007818

🦝🐪🪿🦭🫏🦬🦓🦨🦎🐋🦈🐠🦩🐿️

Address

Science Center, 106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA
02481

Website

http://www.wellesley.edu/biology

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