Organizers

Andrea Calixto, Ph.D.
Centro Interdisciplinario de Neurociencia de Valparaíso (CINV), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso (Chile). She completed her Ph.D. at Columbia University (USA). Her research uses the nematode, C. elegans, to investigate how dietary inputs modify survival, neurodegeneration, and behavior.
Website: cinv.uv.cl/acalixto

John Ewer, Ph.D.
Scientific Organizer
Full professor at the Centro Interdisciplinario de Neurociencia de Valparaíso (CINV), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso (Chile). He completed his Ph.D at Brandeis University (USA) and was an Associate Professor at Cornell University. His research focuses on the regulation of Drosophila behavior by neuropeptides and the circadian clock.
Website: ewerlab.org

Jimena Sierralta, Ph.D.
Scientific Organizer
Associate Professor at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile. She completed her Ph.D in Biological Sciences at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Chile). Her research uses Drosophila to understand how synapses are formed, maintained, and modified during the life of an organism. She is also a Principal Investigator of the Milenium Biomedical Neuroscience Institute.
Website: sierraltalab.cl

Yuly Fuentes-Medel, Ph.D.
Founding member
The “Small Brains, Big Ideas” course owes its creation in great part thanks to the enthusiasm and perseverance of Yuly Fuentes-Medel while she was working on her Ph.D. thesis with Dr. Vivian Budnik and Dr. Marc Freeman at UMass Medical School (USA). Her research focused on how glial cells contribute to the formation and growth of synapses at the Drosophila NMJ. She did postdoctoral training at the MIT Sloan School of Management (USA) and is currently involved with the Chile-Massachusetts Alliance, Descience-Research on the Runway, and Aji Challenge.

Carlos Oliva, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile. He completed his Ph.D. at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile, Santiago (Chile). His research focuses on Drosophila neurogenesis.
Website: http://biologia.uc.cl/es/cuerpo-academico/profesor/117