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Updates from the Group

The lab heads off to SMBE 2024 in Puerto Vallarta where Esha, Constanza, and Maanasa are presenting talks, Toño, Shreya, Natividad, and Meghana are presenting posters, and Hannah, Shreya, and Maanasa are organizing sessions.

June 2024

Maanasa and Esha joined our collaborators in India (Dr. Niraj Rai, Dr. Ekta Singh, Dr. Norbu, Dr. Tiatoshi Jamir) to discuss results of our demographic studies in Himachal Pradesh and Nagaland with the local communities.

June 2024

Congratulations to Esha and Toño for receiving BSD Steiner Travel Awards and to Toño for also being awarded the COSAS Travel/Small Research Grants.

June 2024

The lab's first paper on genetic and oral histories of Southwest Indian populations is now online in HGG Advances!

May 2024

Congrats Shreya on Latin America Faculty Steering Committee travel grant to work with our Chilean collaborators!

April 2024

Esha and Toño present their research at AABA 2024 & Esha wins the Outstanding Student Podium Presentation Award. Congratulations! 

March 2024

Congrats to Esha on receiving a Biological Sciences Division (BSD) Conference Award!

February 2024

Congrats to Bridget on winning a Google PhD Fellowship!

October 2023

Toño presents a poster at the Midwest Pop Gen meeting.

August 2023

Maanasa is a co-winner of the 2023 Don York Faculty Initiative Award (Office of Civic Engagement) for significant contributions to UChicago students and local K-12 students through academic initiatives!

May 2023

Constanza, Esha, and Bridget give talks at AABA 2023!

April 2023

Congratulations, Esha and Shreya on a COSAS travel grant to support your research projects (return of results to Indian communities and sample processing in India, respectively)!

April 2023

Congratulations Shreya on receiving a CEB Hinds Award to travel to India and process samples in Dr. Niraj Rai's lab!

March 2023

Congrats to Bridget on winning a Biological Sciences Division Diversity, Equity and Inclusion award!

November 2022

Jeffrey Gaillard joins the lab as a research assistant, welcome Jeffrey!

October 2022

Welcome Toño Urban, Human Genetics graduate student!

October 2022

Congrats to Shreya on winning a travel grant from the Microbiome Center!

June 2022

Members of the group are off to Goa, India to co-organize the second workshop on Scientific Applications in South Asian Archaeology, funded by UChicago Global.

June 2022

Constanza and Maanasa travel to Santiago, Chile to co-organize a workshop on Genómica e Identidades en Chile (Genomics & Identities in Chile). Thanks to UChicago Global for funding this meeting.

June 2022

Shreya wins the 2021-22 Francis X. Kinahan Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Advanced Academic Writing. Congrats!

May 2022

We published two articles in the Frontiers in Genetics - ELSI in Science and Genetics special issue. 

March-April 2022

Dr. Meghana Natesh (Fulbright Fellow) joins the group - welcome!

March 2022

Congrats to Esha for being selected both as a workshop leader for the Clubes de Ciencia México STEM program and a 2022-2023 International House Graduate Fellow!

March 2022

Welcome Metcalf awardee and undergraduate, Cy Chittenden!

February 2022

Esha delivers a talk on ancient genomics in Northeast India at the Midwest Pop Gen Meeting.

August 2021

Dr. Hannah Moots joins the lab - welcome!

August 2021

The lab is awarded an R35 MIRA for our work on human and microbial evolution in South Asia!

August 2021

Welcome Patricia Zito, a Metcalf summer student!

June 2021

Congratulations to Bridget for being awarded a travel grant by the Center for Latin American studies to undertake fieldwork in Chile! 

April 2021

We receive funds from the Neubauer Collegium to support the project "Genomes, Migrations, and Culture in the Early Civilizations of the Middle East". This project is in collaboration with John Novembre (Human Genetics), James Osborne (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations), and David Schloen (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations).

March 2021

Shreya wins the Wayne C. Booth Graduate Student Prize in Undergraduate Teaching. Congrats!

June 2020

We have three summer students joining us to work on exciting projects: returning student Jovan Stanisavic, Tabitha Willis, and Emily Koch. Wecome to GenSCAPE lab!

June 2020

Our proposal to host a follow-up to our 2019 workshop on human evolution and reconstruction of the past in India has been funded by UChicago Global and the UChicago Delhi Center. Thank you for the continued support!

March 2020

Congrats to Esha who received a Hinds Fund Award from the Committee on Evolutionary Biology to travel to India and continue data generation!

February 2020

We welcome Amali Shanya Fernando, PhD student at the University of Colombo, who is visiting us for three months. 

January 2020

Jovan wins a competitive Jeff Metcalf Fellowship Grant to support his undergraduate internship in the GenSCAPE Lab! Congratulations Jovan!

November 2019

Suzanne Freilich, a PhD student at the University of Vienna, is visiting us for six months, funded by the Marshall Plan Scholarship.

October 2019

Esha and Shreya gave lightning talks on their proposed projects at the Molecular Biosciences Cluster Retreat! Shreya's talk on the Indian microbiome project was voted Best Lightning Talk!

October 2019

Constanza presented her work at the Meeting of the Argentinean Association of Biological Anthropology in Jujuy, Argentina!

October 2019

We have 2 full-time Human Genetics PhD students! Esha and Shreya passed their preliminary exams and officially joined the lab! 

September 2019

We had a great time co-organizing a workshop on Biological Applications in Archaeology in beautiful Leh, Ladakh with Dr. Niraj Rai (Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow, India) and Dr. Sonam Spalzin (Archaeological Survey of India, Leh, India)!

July 2019

Excited to welcome three new lab members: Nagarjuna Pasupuleti (Research affiliate), Esha Bandyopadhyay (HG rotation student) and Jovan Stanisavic (RIBS Summer student).

June 2019

Happy lab-birthday to us - official opening of our new ancient DNA lab. Plus we debut on Twitter (@GenSCAPE_Lab)! 

May 2019

Shreya Ramachandran (HG grad student) starts her rotation project. Welcome Shreya!

April 2019

Our proposal to host a workshop in India titled “An Integrative Platform for Research on Human Evolution and Reconstruction of the Past in India" has been funded by UChicago Global and the UChicago Delhi Center. Thank you!

March 2019

Dr. Constanza De La Fuente (postdoc) joins the group. Welcome Constanza!

January 2019

Thanks to the Duchossois Family Institute at UChicago for pilot funds to support our new microbiome initiative in India.

December 2018

Maanasa joins the UChicago Human Genetics faculty.

October 2018

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