Marine Biological Laboratory

The Edward A. Kravitz Lectureship

June 26, 2008 - 8:00 PM, Speck Auditorium

"Dissecting Neural Circuits for Vocal Communication" - Darcy B. Kelley, Columbia University

Darcy B. Kelley is Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. She received her A.B. from Barnard College and her Ph.D. from the Rockefeller University where she was Assistant Professor before joining the faculty of Princeton University. In 1982, she moved to Columbia University where she co-founded the interdepartmental graduate program in Neurobiology and Behavior. Professor Kelley directed the Neural Systems and Behavior course at the Marine Biological Laboratory from 1985 to 1989. She has also served the MBL as Trustee in the Classes of 1999, 2004, and 2007. Professor Kelley has been a scientific advisor to the Sloan and Fairchild Foundations and is currently a Trustee of the Wenner Gren and the Grass Foundations and Editor of Developmental Neurobiology.

The work of her research group focuses on three questions: How does the brain produce and perceive vocal communication signals? How does this vocal system become sexually differentiated? How do vocal communication systems evolve? Her research focuses on South African clawed frogs and uses approaches ranging from field studies in Africa to molecular genetics and neurophysiology in the laboratory at Columbia. In 2002, Professor Kelley was named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, an award that acknowledges an effort of Columbia’s Science faculty to establish a new core course for all entering College students, Frontiers of Science. This award was renewed in 2006 and supports an online resource for science educators based on Frontiers (www.fos-online.org).
Among her awards are the Jacob Javits Award for Neuroscience Research from the National Institutes of Health (twice) and the Forbes Lectureship at the MBL. Dr. Kelley has a long-standing interest in the public perception of science through portrayal in plays, movies and television. She serves as scientific consultant for the Ensemble Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project which commissions, develops, and presents new works that delve into how we view and are affected by the scientific world.

Dr. Edward A. Kravitz is the George Packer Berry Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. He is a graduate of the City College of New York (B.S. in biology and chemistry) and The University of Michigan (Ph.D. in biological chemistry). His post-doctoral studies were at NIH with Drs. Earl Stadtman and P. Roy Vagelos. He went to Harvard Medical School in 1961, becoming a professor in 1969. Dr Kravitz’s research interests have centered on neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, and now focus on explorations of the role of such substances in aggression using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model organism. In earlier studies, Kravitz and his colleagues (Kuffler, Potter, Otsuka, Iversen, and Hall) were the first to demonstrate that GABA was a neurotransmitter, and with Tony Stretton was the first to demonstrate that an intracellular fluorescent dye could be successfully used to determine neuronal geometry. The Kravitz laboratory has published over 100 papers in first rank journals. Presently Kravitz is supported by grants from NIGMS for his research on aggression.
In addition to being a member of many professional societies including the International Society for Neuroethology where he became president in August 2004, Dr. Kravitz is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, is a fellow of the AAAS, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among his awards and honors, Dr. Kravitz is most proud of his Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring award from Harvard Medical School, and the Education Award from the Association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs.

Dr Kravitz has long-standing interests in education. He has served as the director of the MBL’s Neurobiology course, was the co-founder of the Neurobiology of Disease Teaching Workshops at the Society for Neuroscience, and the first director of the graduate program in neuroscience at Harvard University. He is committed to the education of minorities in the sciences and medicine.