Prof.PhD. Carmen Rossini
Carmen Rossini received a PhD in Chemical Ecology (Cornell University, USA). Upon her return to Uruguay, she co-founded the Chemical Ecology Laboratory (LEQ) of the Department of Organic Chemistry of the Faculty of Chemistry (UdelaR), and she is currently full Professor of the LEQ. She has been president of the Latin American Association of Chemical Ecology (2018-2021). Her research focuses on the chemical characterization and ecological function of bioactive natural products (BNP) and their effect on arthropods and plant induced behaviors. Her recent work focuses on metabolomic studies of BNPs that mediate plant/insect interactions and that mediate chemical communication in bees. Regarding herbivore-host plant interactions, her work has focused on systems of interest in national agricultural production (cucurbitaceas, tomatoes, citrus fruits and eucalyptus), with the aim of generating potential tools in organic agriculture and Integrated Pest Management. Regarding the work with bees, she studies the effect of phyto- and api-sanitary products over pheromone communication systems, as well as on the detection of floral stimuli, associative learning and memory.
Prof. PhD. Conxita Avila
Conxita Avila is full professor at the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and researcher member of the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), at the University of Barcelona (UB). Previously she was a scientist at the National Council of Research (CSIC-CEAB) for 15 years. Her research interests are broad, including areas such as marine chemical ecology, natural products, bioactivity, systematics and biology of marine invertebrates, biodiversity and chemodiversity. She has led the ECOQUIM, ACTIQUIM, DISTANTCOM, BLUEBIO, and CHALLENGE projects on the chemical ecology, biodiversity, bioactivity, and trophic ecology of marine invertebrate communities in the Antarctic continent. She has participated in several Antarctic expeditions, as well as in tropical and temperate seas, to search and identify molecules that mediated benthic organisms interactions, as well as to evaluate their biological activity and possible pharmacological use for the development of future drugs. Her work led her to collaborate with researchers and institutions around the world such as the Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry of the National Research Council (Italy), the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (USA), and the Marine Laboratory of the University of Guam (USA), among others. Moreover, as other academic achievements we can highlight that Dra. Avila was Rector‘s deputy for Research at the Vicerectorate of Research (2009-2016), vicerector of Research, Transfer, and Innovation (Oct.-Dec. 2016), and Senior Officer of the UB at the League of European Research Universities (LERU) (2010-2016). She has been a member of the Executive Committee of the ’State of the Antarctic Ecosystems’ (AntEco) Program of the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) since 2013. Now she is member of the new SCAR Scientific Research Programmes Planning Group for Integrated Science to Support Antarctic and Southern Ocean Conservation (Ant-ICON) and also of the new Plastics in Polar Environment Programme of SCAR (Polar-AG).
Assoc. Prof. PhD Etya Amsalem
Etya Amsalem is an Associate Professor in the Department of Entomology at Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests and expertise are in social insect behavior and pollinator health and lie at the intersection of insect chemical ecology, physiology, genetics, and evolution. Dr. Amsalem received her MS and PhD at Tel Aviv University, Israel, where she studied the chemical regulation underlying worker reproduction in bumble bees. As a BARD fellow at Penn State University and a postdoctoral scholar at Haifa University, she studied bumble bee and fire ant social behavior and genomics. Her lab at Penn State University focuses on regulators of reproduction and social behavior in insects, the genetic and molecular mechanisms regulating pheromone production and perception, the evolution of reproductive signals in bees, and in management of annual pollinators, particularly in stressors affecting diapause survival and performance in bees
Assoc. Prof. PhD Josefina del Mármol
Josefina del Mármol received a Licenciatura degree in Biology from the University of Buenos Aires and then joined the laboratory of Roderick MacKinnon at the Rockefeller University for her graduate studies. There, she received a PhD in Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics with a predoctoral fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute studying the molecular basis of the sense of touch. After a short postdoctoral stay at UC Berkeley, she joined the laboratory of Vanessa Ruta at the Rockefeller University to study the structural basis of odor recognition. In 2022, Dr. del Mármol joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School as Assistant Professor. Dr. del Mármol is the recipient of a NIH MOSAIC K99/R00 Pathway to Independence award, the AChems Polak Young Investigator Award and the Tri-I Breakout Prize for Junior Investigators.
Assoc. Prof. PhD Susan Whitehead
Susan Whitehead is an evolutionary ecologist interested in the mechanisms and consequences of interactions involving plants and other organisms. My research is generally grounded in field-based studies, but I take an integrative approach that includes phytochemical analysis, laboratory bioassays, and a diversity of quantitative methods. I began as an assistant professor at Virginia Tech in January 2017. Previously I was a postdoctoral researcher with Katja Poveda at Cornell University and a Ph.D. student with Deane Bowers at the University of Colorado.
Prof.PhD. Jan Bergmann
Jan Bergmann received a PhD in Natural Science from Universität Hamburg (Germany). After a postdoctoral stay in the Institute of Chemistry of GKSS Research Center Geesthacht (Germany), Dr. Bergmann migrated to Chile to work as professor and researcher in the Institute of Chemistry of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV) in Valparaíso. At present, he is full Professor of PUCV and manager of his own chemical ecology laboratory. He has been founder and president of the Latin American Association of Chemical Ecology (2009-2012). His main research interest is the identification and synthesis of volatile semiochemicals. Currently his research projects focus on two lines: identification of insect pheromones and their use as a tool in pest control; and study of volatile plant compounds and their role in the evolution of different pollination syndromes.
Prof.PhD. Robert Raguso
Robert Raguso is Professor and recent Chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University, USA. His training includes an undergraduate degree from Yale, a research associate position at Stanford, a PhD from the University of Michigan, postdoctoral positions at the University of Arizona and an assistant professorship at the University of South Carolina. He was hired mid-career at Cornell to reinforce its global leadership in chemical ecology and has won awards for his teaching, mentoring, research and service. Raguso began his career studying butterfly population genetics and local diversity in tropical forests, before shifting his focus to the chemical mediation of plant-pollinator mutualisms. His research has pioneered the integration of floral scent into many levels of biological organization (cells to communities), and he has devoted nearly 3 decades to promoting this field, having founded and chaired the first Gordon Research Conference (1999) on this subject and published numerous invited reviews. His research has expanded to address multi-modal pollinator behavior and the full spectrum of chemically-mediated floral ecology (mutualists, antagonists and commensalists), from microbes to vertebrates, with a special focus on moth-pollinated, night-blooming plants. His collaborative efforts have focused on building more widespread capacity for chemical ecological research, through National Geographic, US-Fulbright and US-NSF funded initiatives in Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Mexico, Panama, Greece and remote field stations in the USA. He has published c. 170 journal articles, essays, reviews and book chapters in diverse venues and is widely cited on his subject of expertise (H-index of 61 Google scholar). He has served on the editorial boards of international journals in his field (American Journal of Botany, Ecology, Journal of Chemical Ecology, Fragrance and Flavour Journal) and as a scientific advisor to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Ecology, Germany.
Prof. PhD. Jon Clardy
Jon Clardy obtained a BS degree from Yale University, and a PhD from Harvard University – both in chemistry. He has held academic positions at Iowa State University, Cornell University, and most recently at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology where he is the Hsien Wu & Daisy Yen Wu Professor. His research has focused on naturally occurring biologically active small molecules, their macromolecular targets, and their roles in biology and medicine. His current interests involve the molecular underpinnings of complex symbiotic systems involving both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, with a special focus on the gut microbiome; and chemical communications, with a current focus on chemotactic communications between octopus and its prey. He currently lectures in several graduate courses and a Freshman Seminar entitled Psychoactive Molecules from Babylon to Breaking Bad to Harvard undergraduates.
Prof.PhD. Carmen Rossini
Carmen Rossini received a PhD in Chemical Ecology (Cornell University, USA). Upon her return to Uruguay, she co-founded the Chemical Ecology Laboratory (LEQ) of the Department of Organic Chemistry of the Faculty of Chemistry (UdelaR), and she is currently full Professor of the LEQ. She has been president of the Latin American Association of Chemical Ecology (2018-2021). Her research focuses on the chemical characterization and ecological function of bioactive natural products (BNP) and their effect on arthropods and plant induced behaviors. Her recent work focuses on metabolomic studies of BNPs that mediate plant/insect interactions and that mediate chemical communication in bees. Regarding herbivore-host plant interactions, her work has focused on systems of interest in national agricultural production (cucurbitaceas, tomatoes, citrus fruits and eucalyptus), with the aim of generating potential tools in organic agriculture and Integrated Pest Management. Regarding the work with bees, she studies the effect of phyto- and api-sanitary products over pheromone communication systems, as well as on the detection of floral stimuli, associative learning and memory.
Prof. PhD. Conxita Avila
Conxita Avila is full professor at the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and researcher member of the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio), at the University of Barcelona (UB). Previously she was a scientist at the National Council of Research (CSIC-CEAB) for 15 years. Her research interests are broad, including areas such as marine chemical ecology, natural products, bioactivity, systematics and biology of marine invertebrates, biodiversity and chemodiversity. She has led the ECOQUIM, ACTIQUIM, DISTANTCOM, BLUEBIO, and CHALLENGE projects on the chemical ecology, biodiversity, bioactivity, and trophic ecology of marine invertebrate communities in the Antarctic continent. She has participated in several Antarctic expeditions, as well as in tropical and temperate seas, to search and identify molecules that mediated benthic organisms interactions, as well as to evaluate their biological activity and possible pharmacological use for the development of future drugs. Her work led her to collaborate with researchers and institutions around the world such as the Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry of the National Research Council (Italy), the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (USA), and the Marine Laboratory of the University of Guam (USA), among others. Moreover, as other academic achievements we can highlight that Dra. Avila was Rector‘s deputy for Research at the Vicerectorate of Research (2009-2016), vicerector of Research, Transfer, and Innovation (Oct.-Dec. 2016), and Senior Officer of the UB at the League of European Research Universities (LERU) (2010-2016). She has been a member of the Executive Committee of the ’State of the Antarctic Ecosystems’ (AntEco) Program of the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) since 2013. Now she is member of the new SCAR Scientific Research Programmes Planning Group for Integrated Science to Support Antarctic and Southern Ocean Conservation (Ant-ICON) and also of the new Plastics in Polar Environment Programme of SCAR (Polar-AG).
Assoc. Prof. PhD Etya Amsalem
Etya Amsalem is an Associate Professor in the Department of Entomology at Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests and expertise are in social insect behavior and pollinator health and lie at the intersection of insect chemical ecology, physiology, genetics, and evolution. Dr. Amsalem received her MS and PhD at Tel Aviv University, Israel, where she studied the chemical regulation underlying worker reproduction in bumble bees. As a BARD fellow at Penn State University and a postdoctoral scholar at Haifa University, she studied bumble bee and fire ant social behavior and genomics. Her lab at Penn State University focuses on regulators of reproduction and social behavior in insects, the genetic and molecular mechanisms regulating pheromone production and perception, the evolution of reproductive signals in bees, and in management of annual pollinators, particularly in stressors affecting diapause survival and performance in bees
Assoc. Prof. PhD Josefina del Mármol
Josefina del Mármol received a Licenciatura degree in Biology from the University of Buenos Aires and then joined the laboratory of Roderick MacKinnon at the Rockefeller University for her graduate studies. There, she received a PhD in Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics with a predoctoral fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute studying the molecular basis of the sense of touch. After a short postdoctoral stay at UC Berkeley, she joined the laboratory of Vanessa Ruta at the Rockefeller University to study the structural basis of odor recognition. In 2022, Dr. del Mármol joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School as Assistant Professor. Dr. del Mármol is the recipient of a NIH MOSAIC K99/R00 Pathway to Independence award, the AChems Polak Young Investigator Award and the Tri-I Breakout Prize for Junior Investigators.
Assoc. Prof. PhD Susan Whitehead
Susan Whitehead is an evolutionary ecologist interested in the mechanisms and consequences of interactions involving plants and other organisms. My research is generally grounded in field-based studies, but I take an integrative approach that includes phytochemical analysis, laboratory bioassays, and a diversity of quantitative methods. I began as an assistant professor at Virginia Tech in January 2017. Previously I was a postdoctoral researcher with Katja Poveda at Cornell University and a Ph.D. student with Deane Bowers at the University of Colorado.
Prof.PhD. Jan Bergmann
Jan Bergmann received a PhD in Natural Science from Universität Hamburg (Germany). After a postdoctoral stay in the Institute of Chemistry of GKSS Research Center Geesthacht (Germany), Dr. Bergmann migrated to Chile to work as professor and researcher in the Institute of Chemistry of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV) in Valparaíso. At present, he is full Professor of PUCV and manager of his own chemical ecology laboratory. He has been founder and president of the Latin American Association of Chemical Ecology (2009-2012). His main research interest is the identification and synthesis of volatile semiochemicals. Currently his research projects focus on two lines: identification of insect pheromones and their use as a tool in pest control; and study of volatile plant compounds and their role in the evolution of different pollination syndromes.
Prof.PhD. Robert Raguso
Robert Raguso is Professor and recent Chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University, USA. His training includes an undergraduate degree from Yale, a research associate position at Stanford, a PhD from the University of Michigan, postdoctoral positions at the University of Arizona and an assistant professorship at the University of South Carolina. He was hired mid-career at Cornell to reinforce its global leadership in chemical ecology and has won awards for his teaching, mentoring, research and service. Raguso began his career studying butterfly population genetics and local diversity in tropical forests, before shifting his focus to the chemical mediation of plant-pollinator mutualisms. His research has pioneered the integration of floral scent into many levels of biological organization (cells to communities), and he has devoted nearly 3 decades to promoting this field, having founded and chaired the first Gordon Research Conference (1999) on this subject and published numerous invited reviews. His research has expanded to address multi-modal pollinator behavior and the full spectrum of chemically-mediated floral ecology (mutualists, antagonists and commensalists), from microbes to vertebrates, with a special focus on moth-pollinated, night-blooming plants. His collaborative efforts have focused on building more widespread capacity for chemical ecological research, through National Geographic, US-Fulbright and US-NSF funded initiatives in Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Mexico, Panama, Greece and remote field stations in the USA. He has published c. 170 journal articles, essays, reviews and book chapters in diverse venues and is widely cited on his subject of expertise (H-index of 61 Google scholar). He has served on the editorial boards of international journals in his field (American Journal of Botany, Ecology, Journal of Chemical Ecology, Fragrance and Flavour Journal) and as a scientific advisor to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Ecology, Germany.
Prof. PhD. Jon Clardy
Jon Clardy is currently the Hsien Wu and Daisy Yen Wu professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on the isolation and structural characterization of natural products, and currently investigates the role of biologically active small molecules in mediating symbiotic interactions and disease. He performed undergraduate research in organic synthesis, directed by R. Stephen Berry, with an emphasis on benzyne. After graduating from Yale, he moved to Harvard University, where he received a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1969. He then accepted a faculty position in the Chemistry Department at Iowa State University, where he was affiliated with the Ames Laboratory. In 1978, he moved to the Chemistry Department at Cornell University where he stayed until 2002, when he moved to the Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology Department at Harvard Medical School. In 2004, he started the Ph.D. Program in Chemical Biology with Stuart Schreiber and Greg Verdine. He also created, and continues to teach, a popular class entitled “Molecules of Life” for Harvard undergraduates who are not majoring in sciences. He has received many awards for his research including fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He has also received the Ernest Guenther Award and an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, and the Research Achievement Award from the American Society of Pharmacognosy. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and won Cornell’s highest award for teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences.