Events
Past Event
WED@NICO WEBINAR: Katherine Amato, Northwestern U "Using anthropology to integrate evolutionary perspectives into microbiome research"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
Details
Speaker:
Katherine Amato, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University
Title:
Using anthropology to integrate evolutionary perspectives into microbiome research
Abstract:
Because of their myriad influences on host phenotypes, gut microbes likely play an important role in shaping host ecology and evolution. However, much of microbiome research to date has been primarily either biomedical or focused on microbial ecology and evolution. Anthropology provides a robust framework from which to examine potential influences of the gut microbiome on host ecology and evolution. Here I use an anthropological perspective to outline a general framework for exploring the relationship between gut microbes and host ecology and evolution, focusing specifically on bioenergetics and life history theory. I use examples from my work with primates to highlight advances and remaining gaps in our knowledge in this area. While we have preliminary evidence that the gut microbiome may be influencing host survival and reproduction in different environmental contexts, there remains a paucity of data that should be built upon moving forward. Data linking host inter-specific differences in the gut microbiome to host physiology and ecology also provide promising new angles from which to examine host-microbe interactions from an evolutionary perspective. As more studies targeting these questions accumulate, the microbiome has the potential to transform the fields of host physiology, ecology, and evolution, and vice versa.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Amato is a biological anthropologist at Northwestern University studying the influence of gut microbes on host ecology and evolution. Her research examines how changes in the gut microbiota impact host nutrition, energetics, and health. She uses non-human primates as models for studying host-gut microbe interactions in selective environments and for providing comparative insight into the evolution of the human gut microbiota. Her main foci are understanding how the gut microbiome may buffer hosts during periods of nutritional stress and how the gut microbiome programs normal inter-specific differences in host metabolism. In this realm, she is also interested in global variation in the human gut microbiome and its implications for local human adaptation. Dr. Amato obtained her A.B. in Biology from Dartmouth College and her Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed a postdoc at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University. She is also affiliated with the Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program and sits on the Executive Committee of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. Dr. Amato is the President of the Midwest Primate Interest Group, an Associate Editor at Microbiome, an Editorial Board member at Folia Primatologica, and a Fellow for the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research’s ‘Humans and the Microbiome’ Program.
Webinar:
https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/96195982317
Passcode: nico
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems and data science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, November 3, 2021 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Lightning Talks w/ Northwestern Scholars!
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speakers:
Yessica Herrera, Visiting Scholar, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems
Talk Title: The Body Speaks: Visual Patterns of Psychological Stress
Aakriti Kumar, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems
Talk Title: Evaluating Elements of Empathic Communication with Experts, Crowds, and Large Language Models
Tingyu "Mark" Zhao, PhD Student, Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences
Talk Title: Noise Filtering in Complex Networks
Sign Up:
Sign up to present at a future Lightning Talk session. NICO Lightning Talks are open to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting scholars.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/95387714084
Passcode: NICO25
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
WED@NICO SEMINAR: Rosemary Braun, Northwestern University "The Scale of Life"
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)
12:00 PM
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Lower Level, Chambers Hall
Details
Speaker:
Rosemary Braun, Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Biosciences, Northwestern University
Title:
The Scale of Life
Abstract:
Living systems exhibit surprising and beautiful self-organization at all scales. At the atomic level, proteins self-assemble into macromolecular complexes. The function of these machines is orchestrated within the cell by regulatory networks, whose activity is in turn dictated by, and coordinated with, the cells environment. This coordination takes place across large spans of space and time: the size and lifetime of organisms as large as the blue whale. Populations and ecosystems of many organisms in turn exhibit remarkable emergent dynamics. Today, advances in single-cell assays enable us to probe the molecular state of every cell in a sample in high-dimensional detail. But is this the correct scale at which to probe living systems? What can we learn from this data, and how can we abstract from the microscopic details to macroscopic phenotypes? In this talk, I will discuss some of our recent work bridging the cell and tissue/organism scales, and discuss some challenges and opportunities for the future.
Speaker Bio:
Rosemary Braun is an Associate Professor of Molecular Biosciences, Applied Mathematics [ESAM], and Physics at Northwestern University. A theoretical physicist by training, she earned her PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois, followed by a Masters in Biostatistics from Johns Hopkins University. She completed her postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute (NIH) before joining Northwestern as a faculty member. Today, she works at the intersection of statistics, mathematics, and biology to develop computational tools for analyzing high-dimensional data. In addition to her Northwestern affiliations, she is also Associate Director of the National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology, as well as external faculty of the Santa Fe Institute.
Location:
In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/97015976754
Passcode: NICO25
About the Speaker Series:
Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.
Time
Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
Lower Level, Chambers Hall Map
Contact
Calendar
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)