2013 PhD in biology, Sorbonne Université Paris France
2010 Master in physiology, Sorbonne Université Paris France
2009 Master in ecology, Sorbonne Université Paris France

I am a biologist specializing in chemical ecology and sensory neurobiology. During my 3 years of PhD, I conducted research on moth olfaction and investigated the role of a general plant odor background on the behavioral orientation to the sex pheromone and how a specific signal (sex pheromone) presented within a general background (plant odors) is integrated by the neuron system.

My first postdoctoral position in a pharmaceutic company gave me the opportunity to extend my neurobiology research to the vertebrate model and to explore the impact of the inflammatory diseases on the olfactory system.

Currently, as a postdoctoral researcher, I am studying the sensory mechanisms involved in mosquito attraction to flower and nectar sources. Indeed sugar feeding  is important for adult life and is an excellent system to probe the neural basis of behavior, that should help to enhance knowledge of mosquito olfaction and behavior and contribute to improve the management of this disease vector.

My different research approaches are based on imaging, behavior, neuroanatomy and electrophysiology.

PhD, December, 2020, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC

Master of Science, Ecology September, 2010 Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta

Bachelor of Science in Environmental and Conservation Sciences April, 2006 University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta

I’m interested in insect sensory systems (especially the visual system), how these sensory systems affect the behavioral choices of insects, and how these choices structure the distribution of these insects in space and time.

My earlier research at the University of Alberta during my MSc focused on the Western Canadian Canola agro-ecosystem and its pests. During my PhD at Simon Fraser University, I investigated how herbivorous insects, in this case the Cabbage White Butterfly, use the polarization of light as plant host cue. Following my PhD, I stayed on at Simon Fraser as a postdoc, where I continued my work with polarized light, examining its role in vertebrate host seeking.

In my current role as a postdoc in the Riffell Lab, my project investigates how olfactory cues can influence the attractiveness of visual cues (polarization, color, intensity, contrast) to mosquitos such as Aedes aegypti.

Personal Website

2010: BSc (Agricultural Biotechnology), MGM’s college of Biotechnology, Aurangabad, MH, INDIA

2012: MSc (Biotechnology), Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, TN, INDIA

2017: PhD (Agricultural Science), Kyushu University, Fukuoka, JAPAN

I am an Insect Molecular Biologist, and my current research work focuses on to tag and modify insect odorant receptor neurons, which are important for insect-host interactions. I mainly work on two insect species: Manduca sexta, a crop pest and Aedes aegypti, a human disease vector. I am also interested on developing and applying genetic tools to these non-model insect species to understand the functions of critical proteins involved in the signal transduction, neuro-chemical communications, development, and reproduction.

Google Scholar Profile

MSc in Biological Sciences, Insect taxonomy and systematics.
PhD in Biological Sciences, Insect neurobiology and behavior.

I am a passionate entomologist with a focus on sensory perception and behavior in dipterans. During my Ph.D., Iworked on visually-driven steering behavior in various species of fruit flies. My research involved finding out how parameters in optic flow convey structural information about the environment and how different species of flies use that information to modulate their behavior according to their natural history.

I am currently a postdoctoral scholar at Riffell Lab, where I am delving into the processing of olfactory information in the antennal lobes of mosquitoes. Using cutting-edge techniques such as calcium imaging in transgenic lines of Aedes aegypti, I am exploring how mosquitoes perceive and process olfactory cues, and how this information modulates their behavior. At the moment, most of my work focuses on chemical repellents, but I am also investigating attractants, particularly those present in fruits, which play a critical role in mosquito behavior.

Beyond the laboratory, I enjoy spending time outdoors and practicing macro photography on small flies. My goal is to capture some of their behavior in every shot, but I’m still an amateur. I believe that insects can be appreciated from different angles, and understanding the intricacies of insect behavior and sensory perception is not only scientifically fascinating but also has practical applications in addressing important issues such as disease vector control and ecological conservation.

I graduated from the University of Northwestern – St. Paul in 2013 with a B.S. in Biology. During my undergraduate career I participated in two NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates at the Whitney Laboratories studying the genomics of the ctenophore nervous system, specifically the vast expansion of glutamate receptors present in the genome. I also participated in the Marine Genomics course at Friday Harbor Laboratories which led me to my graduate career at the University of Washington.

As a graduate student, I studied the nervous system of the freshwater cnidarian hydra vulgaris. I used a variety of techniques like calcium imaging, bioinformatics and dual whole cell patch clamp to better understand how gap junctions coordinate the behavior of hydra. We identified five functionally expressed gap junctions in the nervous system and two distinct physiological characteristics that correlate with neural circuit expression.

As a postdoctoral scholar in the Riffell lab here at the University of Washington I continue to be interested in nervous systems but have expanded to the field of olfaction. Insects have an incredible ability to sense and distinguish low concentrations of odors present in their environment. We are using the neural and molecular machinery of manduca sexta to detect a variety of volatile organic compounds (VOC). Conducting electroantennagramms (EAG) we measure the voltage response to numerous compounds and use the data to train machine learning algorithms in an effort to identify an odor based on the EAG profile. By classifying EAGs based on VOCs we are developing a fast and specific method to distinguish between odors which can then be scaled to disease diagnostics, chemical leaks, and beyond.

Melanie Anderson received her doctorate in Mechanical Engineering in 2021 at the University of Washington. She also has a Masters in Mechanical Engineering and a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington.

Her graduate research focused on combining live biological sensors, the moth antenna, with a robotic platform, a palm-sized quadrotor drone, to create a robot which can detect and autonomously navigate towards a chemical source using a bio-inspired algorithm. She has received the National Defence Science and Engineering Fellowship and the UW Mechanical Engineering Distinguished Dissertation Award. Following her graduate work, she founded a startup, Anderson Biohybrid Systems LLC, which spins off her research.

Funding through the UW CoMotion Postdoctoral Entrepreneurship Program and through the Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship has allowed her to continue furthering her research in the Riffell Lab at the University of Washington. Currently, she is researching improvements to the lifespan, selectivity, and sensitivity of the biohybrid chemical sensor, and investigating chemical search algorithms which are robust to changes in wind or obstacles.

I grew up in Nepal and received my Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from Kathmandu University, Nepal. After working in the pharmaceutical company for 2 years, I got an opportunity to study neuroscience at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway for my master’s degree. My enthusiasm about the neural system in insects has greatly escalated ever since I did my master thesis at the chemosensory lab, NTNU.

I did my PhD at the same lab where I utilized adult cotton bollworm Helicoverpa armigera as the model organism to unravel the neural principles typifying the CO₂ pathway from the periphery to higher brain centers using various experimental techniques such as sharp electrode for intracellular recordings of individual neuron, mass staining, and the calcium imaging. Having investigated the morphological characteristics of an individual neuron and neuronal assemblies in moths, I am fascinated how different neurons tuned to the sensory modalities are circuited together to initiate the behavior. Here I am at the Riffell lab as the newly recruited postdoctoral fellow exploring the multi-sensory integration, particularly visual and olfactory, in the brain of sphinx moth, Manduca sexta.

In my spare time, I enjoy playing with my two kids and watching soccer.

ResearchGate Profile

I am a sensory biologist broadly interested in understanding how animals perform biologically important functions in complex sensory environments. During my PhD, I used treefrogs as a model system to investigate how animals extract meaningful information about potential mates from vocal signals in acoustically cluttered environments. Currently as a postdoctoral researcher, I am investigating how Anopheles mosquitoes navigate their dense mating swarms to find and select mates. My research approach involves using a combination of behavioral, neuroanatomical, and neurophysiological tools to unravel the sensory cues that guide mate recognition in mosquitoes, and to uncover the mechanisms through which they process and integrate this sensory information in their nervous system.