Lectures are free and open to the public for in-person and virtual attendance. No registration required for in-person attendance. Doors open at 7:30 PM, lectures start at 8 PM in the Cornelia Clapp Auditorium.
In the rainforests of Central and South America, tiny poison frog parents make an extraordinary investment: they return again and again to their young, delivering unfertilized eggs as food. In response, their tadpoles perform a striking “begging dance,” signaling their hunger with precise, stereotyped movements. How does a developing brain generate this behavior—and how do parents recognize and respond to it? The O’Connell lab uses this vivid interaction to explore how internal states like hunger are translated into communication, and how early social experiences shape the brain. By following this dialogue between parent and offspring, her lab’s work uncovers fundamental principles of how brains give rise to social behavior, from the very start of life.
Lauren A. O’Connell received her B.A. from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Texas at Austin. She was a Bauer Fellow at Harvard University, where she established her independent research program. Dr. O’Connell is currently an Associate Professor of Biology at Stanford University. Her research uses comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to understand how brains generate social behavior, with a focus on parental care and communication in poison frogs. She has received numerous honors, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the Pew Biomedical Scholar Award, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Biden.
