This month’s Postdoc Spotlight is honoring Dr. M. Desmond Ramirez. Des has been a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Katz Lab, but will be heading to the Pacific Northwest to join Cris Neill’s lab studying the octopus visual system. Des has a passion for vision; he completed his PhD at the University of California Santa Barbara studying octopus “skin sight” and he earned his MS at Michigan State where he studied the role of vision in the honeybee dance language. During his time in the Katz Lab, Des created a single cell transcriptomic atlas of neurons in the nudibranch Berghia stephanieae. His work is available in BioRxiv and awaiting review elsewhere.

Des has been an outstanding mentor to many undergraduates and the grad students in the Katz Lab. He was a member of the Northampton Community Rowing team where he served as the coxswain, competing in many regattas. He singlehandedly kept the Katz Lab fashion forward, and his dry sarcastic wit was a welcome respite from the serious matter of sea slug brains. We all wish him the best out west and continued success in his future academic and career endeavors.