Colquitt Lab at UCSC development and evolution of complex motor skills
Brad selected for the 2026 McKnight Scholars Award

Brad won the McKnight Scholars Award for his project titled “Birdsong Takes Flight: neural evolution and the emergence of complex motor control”. He’s thrilled to join this community!

Congrats to Frankie for passing his QE!

Frank Rand, a PhD student in the lab, successfully passed his QE! Frankie is doing excellent work on defining the clonal relationships between birdsong-dedicated neurons and neurons supporting other motor skills.

New preprint on vocal circuit evolution

Our latest work examining the gene regulatory networks underlying vocal circuit formation in songbirds is now preprinted in bioRxiv.

Congrats to Keerthi Varadharaj for winning the Dean's Undergraduate Research Award!

Keerthi, an undergrad volunteer in the lab, just won the Dean’s Undergraduate Research Award, given to undergrads with stellar research projects.

Congrats to Chinweike Asogwa for being selected for 2026 HSRU Postdoctoral Fellowship Program!

Postdoctoral researcher Chinweike Asogwa was selected to join the 2026 Hispanic Serving Research University Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.