Dr. Adam Summers, professor of biology at the University of Washington, will present the University of Southern Indiana’s seventh annual Marlene V. Shaw Biology Lecture at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 21 in Mitchell Auditorium located in the Health Professions Building on the USI campus. The presentation, titled “From Finding Nemo to Finding Patents,†is free and open to the public.
Dr. Summers runs the comparative biomechanics and biomaterials lab at Friday Harbor Lab. He visualizes 3D fish anatomy with CT scans and holds a goal to CT scan all 33,000 fish species in the world. He is a keynote speaker at zoological events and conferences in the United States and Europe, and was a science advisor for Pixar Animation Studios for the movies Finding Nemo and Finding Dory. He is also an exhibitor of large format prints of fish CT scans in U.S. and Asian art galleries and museums. His work has led to more than 100 publications, two patents, and more than $1.8 million in grants for which he was principal investigator.
Summers received his doctoral degree in biology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he worked on new tissues from cartilaginous fishes. He previously served as assistant and associate professor in ecology, evolutionary biology and bioengineering at the University of California–Irvine. He also completed post-doctoral work on the functional morphology of amphibians at the University of California.
The Marlene V. Shaw Biology Lecture Series is funded through an endowment established by the USI Foundation.
