Robert T. Ross Lecture
The Robert Ross lecture is the highlight reception of the Biophysics Graduate Program and is attended by an extensive audience consisting of graduate students from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary programs, a large portion of our affiliated faculty from many different colleges of our university, and many other members of the campus community. Previous speakers include Nobel Prize winner Ahmed Zewail and Howard Hughes investigators and National Academy of Science members Carlos Bustamante, Douglas Rees, Eve Marder, David Baker, and Karolin Luger.
2026 Keynote Speaker
Job Dekker, PhD
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Joseph J. Byrne Chair in Biomedical Research
Professor, Department of Systems Biology
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School
Title: RNA-mediated chromosome folding
Date: March 11, 2026, 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Location: BRT 115
Previous Speakers
| Year | Speaker | Talk Title |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Daniel A. Starr | Mechanisms regulating the biophysical properties of the cytoplasm in a multicellular animal |
| 2024 | Arthur Palmer | Protein conformational dynamics in molecular recognition: Lessons old and new from NMR spin relaxation |
| 2023 | Willem Mulder | Regulating innate immunity with nanotherapeutics |
| 2019 | Karolin Luger | Adventures in the chromatin jungle: Nucleosome evolution and interactions |
| 2018 | Wesley Wong | Single Molecule Approaches in Mechanobiology: From DNA Nanoswitches to the Centrifuge Force Microscope |
| 2017 | James Hudspeth | How hearing happens: Mechanical amplification by ion channels and myosin molecules in the inner ear |
| 2016 | Michael Sheetz | Molecular-Level Rigidity Sensing in Metastasis |
| 2015 | David Baker | Post-Evolutionary Biology: Design of novel protein structures, functions and assemblies |
| 2014 | Ron Vale | Mechanisms of biological motility |
| 2013 | Harmit Malik | Rules of engagement: molecular insights from host-virus evolutionary arms-races |
| 2012 | Peter Friedl | Imaging cancer invasion in vivo: mechanisms, resistance niches and therapy |
| 2011 | Dorothee Kern | Choreographing an enzyme's dance - Exploration by NMR, Crystallography, Computation and Single Molecule Fluorescence Transfer |
| 2010 | Eve Marder | Variability, Homeostasis and Compensation in Neuronal Circuits |
| 2009 | Youxing Jiang | Structural Analysis of a Non-selective Cation Channel |
| 2008 | Ahmed Zewail | Physical Biology and Visualization of Complexity |
| 2007 | Robert Hazen | LEFT & RIGHT: Geochemical origins of life's homochirality |