The Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience
Please welcome Dr. James Townsend to Whitney Laboratory! He recently joined Dr. Mark Martindale's lab as a Postdoctoral Research Associate.
Dr. Townsend was born in Dallas, Texas where his loves of long-distance cycling, tinkering, and underrated critters first took hold. He completed a BA in Biology at the University of Chicago where his honors thesis focused on the complex folding behavior of a computationally designed protein, igniting a lifelong fascination with biophysics. He went on to complete a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where his early work on the molecular structure of proteins in squid eye lenses grew into a general interest in the physiology of funky marine animals, with a particular focus on ctenophores, or comb jellies. James went on to spend a year working as a K-12 community science educator in New York City before taking on a postdoctoral position at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts to study the ecology of ctenophores in the open ocean. In December 2020 he completed a three-month deployment in the Antarctic ocean aboard the R/V Hugh R. Sharp to collect benthic invertebrates in the Weddell Sea. He joins the Martindale Lab as a postdoctoral research associate to develop novel whole-body imaging techniques in ctenophores and other gelatinous invertebrates, and to work towards reverse-engineering the molecular mechanisms of biomineralization in cnidarians. In his free time, James enjoys playing tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons. He is also an avid cook and enjoys experimenting with home fermentation and food preservation.