Brooke Flammang Seminar

SPEAKER:
Brooke Flammang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biology
New Jersey Institute of Technology

TITLE:
Fishes did it first: Morphological Mechanisms and Bioinspiration

ABSTRACT:
Since the Devonian, fishes have evolved a broad spectrum of morphologies allowing them tremendous performance variation in ecological niches. The diversity observed in the 35,000 species of fishes known today is the product of selection for performance, fitness, and opportunity. And while many things have changed since the Devonian, the physics underlying the morphology and mechanics of vertebrate life have not. Ergo, by studying the functional morphology and biomechanics of fishes, we can learn from over 400 million years of prototype development and quality control and produce novel technologies inspired by the physics of biological systems. New findings on stiffness modulation for thrust generation, proprioceptive feedback, amphibious walking, and underwater adhesion under extreme conditions are all opportunities born out of basic questions about fish functional morphology with exceptional opportunity to expose fundamental concepts of vertebrate life and for bioinspired applications in ecological monitoring, medicine, and defense.  

BIO:
Dr. Brooke Flammang received her PhD from Harvard University in 2010 for her work on fish locomotor biomechanics and fluid dynamics. She continued at Harvard for her postdoctoral research building a bioinspired, autonomous fish robotic vehicle, funded by the Office of Naval Research. Dr. Flammang was recognized as an Early Career Researcher of note by the Journal of Experimental Biology in 2018 and the recipient of the 2017 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Carl Gans award, which is given to an outstanding young investigator for distinguished contributions to the field of comparative biomechanics. Dr. Flammang is currently an assistant professor in Biology at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, with a dual appointment at Rutgers University. She also holds appointments as a Faculty Seminar Associate at Columbia University and an Associate of Ichthyology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.