Lester Newman Seminar Series

Welcome to the PSU Biology Department Lester Newman Seminar Series. Seminars are Fridays from 1:30-2:35 PM in VSC 105 starting September 2026.

Please see this spreadsheet for past and future seminar topics.

Fall 2026

DateSpeakerInstitutionTitleHost
10/2/2026Luis RuedasPortland State UniversityEvolution of Diversity in Rabbits, LeporidaeRuedas
10/9/2026J. Jeffrey MorrisUniversity of Alabama at BirminghamHelpers and Haters: Exploring the Social Networks of Marine CyanobacteriaThompson
10/16/2026Arun SethuramanSan Diego State UniversityForbidden Sex and Sex Forbidden - On Strategies that Shaped SpeciesRuedas
10/23/2026Judit PénzesTexas A&M UniversityCryo-EM as a Sequencing-Free Tool to Virus Discovery and DiagnosticsStedman
10/30/2026    
11/6/2026Tony De TomasoUniversity of California Santa BarbaraTransplantation, Regeneration and Parasitic Stem Cells- the Interesting lLife of an Invertebrate ChordateBuckley
11/13/2026Link OlsonUniversity of Alaska—FairbanksTBA—Alaska poxvirusesRuedas
11/20/2026Melissa HawkinsSmithsonian InstitutionFrom Museum Drawers to Genomes: Integrating Museomics, Taxonomy, and Field Sampling to Advance Mammal Biodiversity and ConservationRuedas
11/27/2026THANKSGIVING NO SEMINAR No Seminar 
12/4/2026Oscar SosaUniversity of Puget SoundMicrobial Networks of Phosphonate Metabolism to Explore the Ecological Role and Cycling of Dissolved Organic Matter in the OceanThompson