Gio was born in the tiny fishing town of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy.  Gio and his family immigrated to the US when he was 4-years old and he grew up in New York.  Gio received his BA in Biology from Boston University.  While at BU Gio was greatly inspired by the late evolutionary biologist, Lynn Margulis, where he worked in Lynn's lab for about three years. Gio also studied history and theology at the Università Pontificia Gregoriana, Rome, Italy.  After Boston, Rome and three years of working as a tech he joined the biology graduate program at Brandeis University. As a grad student Gio trained with James E. Haber at Brandeis, and then he went on to be a Damon Runyon Cancer Foundation post-doctoral fellow at MIT with Terry L. Orr-Weaver. Gio was appointed to his first faculty position at the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 2002, and promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2008. He moved his lab to the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in 2012. Gio was promoted to full professor with tenure in 2016, where he is currently the Oscar M. Cohn Professor in the Department of Molecular and Systems Biology. In 2015 Gio received a 5-year NIH Director's Pioneer Award for high-risk, high-reward research in "Trans-generational inheritance of social behavior." Work in the lab has also been or is currently funded by the American Federation of Aging Research, National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the US Department of Defense.

Gio's other passion is homesteading.  Check back soon for a link to the Bosco family Orchard at Blackberry Hill in Thetford, Vermont.

Julianna (Lita) Bozler Lita joined the Dartmouth MCB graduate program in 2012 and the Bosco lab in 2013.  Lita received her BS in Biology from Arizona State University in Tempe, and she earned her Masters of Public Health from Emory University in Atlanta, GA.  Lita's first project in the lab was to test how mechanical forces generated by condensin II proteins exert pulling forces on the nuclear envelope.  This work was just accepted for publication in G3 (12/2014). Lita then became interested in trans-generational effects.  Her current project seeks to understand molecular mechanisms of inherited behavior/memory and neural programming of germline cells in Drosophila. Lita was recently honored by earning a spot on the NIH funded training grant in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Dartmouth.

Lita's other passions are horses and horseback riding.

Sassan Hodge Sassan is a research associate who joined the Bosco lab in 2014.  Sassan received his PhD from the University of Southampton, UK. Sassan did his post-doc training in cytogenetics and histology of lymphoma at Harvard Medical School.  Sassan is currently working on a new project in the Bosco lab that seeks to understand the genetic basis of age impaired memory.  Sassan works on Drosophila and mouse models (in collaboration with Dr. Bryan Luikart at Dartmouth) and he uses genetics, behavioral and cytological approaches to understand why memory declines as we get older.

Sassan's other passions are eating chocolate, cooking and singing while he cooks.

Balint Z Kacsoh Balint joined the Dartmouth MCB graduate program in 2013 and the Bosco lab in 2014.  Balint received his undergraduate and MS degrees in biology from Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Balint acquired excellent training at Emory, while working with Todd Schlenke on the biology of fly-wasp interactions; he has brought this expertise to the Bosco lab, where he has further developed this predatory wasp induced fly behavior as a new paradigm for social learning, long term memory and age impaired memory.  Balint is also interested in computational biology and is actively collaborating with the laboratory of Casey Greene at Dartmouth. He is exploring computational models that predict novel genes which may function in memory maintenance and aging.  Check out our RESEARCH page for more details on these projects.

Balint's other passions are Godsmack music, Skylanders, grilled Georgia peaches with vanilla ice cream and Chick-fil-A.

Vibhuti Rana Vibhuti joined the Dartmouth MCB grad program in 2014 and joined the lab in the spring of 2015.  Vibhuti received her B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Texas at Austin.  Her current project is focused on condensin II activities and their ability to reshape interphase chromatin structure and nuclear architecture in human cells.

Vibhuti's other passion in life is art, watching cute animal videos and sleeping.

Vicki Marlar Vicki joined the lab in 2012.  Vicki is our lab tech, manages the lab, and takes very good care of all our precious fly stocks.  Vicki was born and raised in New Hampshire; aside from running away from the cold Northeast and living in Puerto Rico in years past, she now lives in NH and is a true New Englander.

Vicki loves to cook and listen to music.

Katie Edwards Katie joined the Dartmouth MCB grad program in 2015 and joined the lab in the summer of 2016.  Katie received her B.S. in Chemistry and Medical Biology from the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine. Her current project is focused on identifying neural circuits of the Drosophila brain that control predator perception and predator-induced behaviors.  Katie is also interested in social learning and is developing a Cornelia de Lange Syndrome Drosophila model that will focus on aspects of social learning and behavior.

Katie's other passion in life is running, hiking and playing video games.

Madhumala Sadanandappa Madhu joined the lab in 2017 as post-doctoral research fellow. After completing her PhD and NCBS in Bangalore, India, she received a prestigious 3-year research fellowship from the Human Frontiers Research Foundation. Madhu is elucidating neuronal circuitry of the Drosophila brain that controls egglaying and reproductive behavior.  Madhu is from Kereyagalahalli (it’s a small village in the district of Chitradurga, Karnataka), and did her Bacholers and Masters studies (in Genetics) at the University of Mysore, Karnataka.

When not in the lab, Madhu likes cooking, gardening, DIY, hiking and love reading KANNADA books.

Shivaprasad Sathyanarayana Shiva is a post-doctoral research fellow. He joined the lab in 2017 and is working on mouse models of autism and age dependent decline of memory in collaboration with Dr. Bryan Luikart. Shiva seeks to understand how different genetic factors interact to accelerate or mitigate the effects of aging on learning, memory and social behavior.

Shiva received his Bachelors in Biotechnology, Master's and PhD in Genetics from University of Mysore, Karnataka, India.

When not in the lab Shiva likes to play with his daughter, cooking, listening to TED talks/music and working out at the gym.

Stephen Barton Stephen joined the lab in 2016 as a lab research assistant.  Stephen comes to the lab with expertise in mouse neurobiology, and he is working on a mouse and fly neurobiology projects.  With Shiva and Dr, Bryan Luikart, Stephen is using mouse models to understand autism, learning and memory. With Balint, Stephen is using flies to screen for new memory genes.

When not in lab, Stephen is a master baker and loves making delicious French dishes.

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