Biomechanics of how organisms interact with their physical environments: How how protozoan predators and prey swim and interact, turbulent water flow and waves in the ocean affect marine organisms, and more...
Mimi Koehl, Professor
Integrative Biology
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2023 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2024.
We are studying the biomechanics and biofluiddynamics of how organisms interact with their physical environments. Our interdisciplinary work is at the interface between biology and engineering, so students majoring in biology, engineering, physics, or math have all participated in research in our lab.
There are a variety of projects that involve URAP students, so we try to match URAP students with the project that is the best fit to each student's interests and skills. We currently have openings for URAP students to participate in a project studying the hydrodynamics of choanoflagellates, protozoans that are related to the ancestors of multicellular animals. We are using choanoflagellates that can be unicellular or form multicellular colonies as a model system to discover the functional consequences of being muliticellular vs. unicellular, and of forming colonies with the flagella pointing outwards versus pointing inwards. We are studying the hydrodynamics of swimming and of capturing bacterial prey by these protozoans.
Role: Students will learn to use image and motion analysis software to analyze videos of choanoflagellates to quantify performance differences in swimming and feeding performance between unicellular and multicellular forms, and will track microbead motion to calculate velocities of the water propelled by the flagella. Students who want to work remotely will be trained via zoom. Students who also want to participate in in-person lab work will learn to make their own high-speed videos through a microscope to record choanoflagellate behavior. The whole research team (remote and in-lab URAP students, a postdoc, and the professor) will meet together every week by zoom.
Qualifications: The student should have completed introductory biology and/or introductory physics. Experience using Excel, Matlab, Python, and R would be helpful, but not essential. Coursework in engineering or biology would be helpful, but not essential.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Tom Hata, Post-Doc
Hours: to be negotiated
Off-Campus Research Site: Computer analysis work will be remote, and hands-on lab work will be conducted in VLSB on the UC Berkeley campus.
Related website: http://ib.berkeley.edu/labs/koehl/
Biological & Health Sciences Engineering, Design & Technologies