News

2026

Feb 16, 2026 Karthik is awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship in Neuroscience. See the UC Berkeley press release.
Jan 16, 2026 Karthik gives the National Institute of Theory and Mathematics in Biology (NITMB) seminar in Chicago. His talk is entitled Bioelectrical dynamics at membrane interfaces. You can see the video here.

2025

Dec, 2025 Dr. Sirui Ning (postdoctoral associate) is awarded the Gordon and Betty Moore fellowship. Congrats Sirui!
Dec 8, 2025 Karthik gives an invited talk at the National Institute of Genetics Seminar Series in Mishima (Japan) "Single-cell transcriptomic insights into retinal evolution and degeneration".
Dec 4, 2025 Karthik gives an invited presentation at the Molecular Biology Society of Japan (MBSJ) Annual Meeting in Yokohama (Japan) entitled "Evolutionary and Tinkering in the Vertebrate Retina".
Nov 18, 2025 Karthik gives an invited presentation at the Mini Symposium on Evolutionary Neurogenomics at the 2025 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in San Diego CA entitled "The Evolutionary History of Retinal Cell Types".
Nov, 2025 Dario Tommasini receives the NIH F31 fellowship. Congrats Dario!
Oct 20, 2025 Karthik gives an invited talk at the Chemical Engineering Seminar at the University of California, Irvine entitled "Multiscale dynamics of neuronal bioelectricity".
Oct 2, 2025 Karthik gives an invited talk at the Chemical Engineering Seminar at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign entitled "Neuronal electricity and its emergent dynamics".
Sep 19, 2025 Karthik receives the UC Berkeley Faculty Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring. He shares the award with his colleague [Prof. Kranthi K. Mandadapu](https://vspa.berkeley.edu/news/food-music-and-celebration-postdocfest-wraps-npaw-2025-uc-berkeley).
Sep 1-6, 2025 Karthik attends and gives an invited talk at the Les Treilles Symposium on Developmental and evolutionary insights into retinal cell replacement therapies (organizers: Profs. Seth Blackshaw and Michel Cayouette). He gives two talks entitled "Part 1: Evolutionary Tinkering - Lessons from the Retina", and "Part 2: Two Facets of Selective Vulnerability among Neurons".
Jun 24, 2025 Karthik gives an invited talk at the FASEB 2025 meeting on the Biology and Chemistry of Vision entitled "Single-cell genomic insights into the evolution of cell types in the retina".
May 22, 2025 Karthik delivers an invited webinar hosted by the Glaucoma Research Foundation entitled "Data-driven approaches to Glaucoma".
May 15, 2025 Karthik receives the "CBE Departmental Teaching Award" for the third time.
May 8, 2025 Karthik gives an invited lecture at the Applied Mathematics and Statistics Seminar at Johns Hopkins University. The title of the talk is "Spatiotemporal ionic dynamics at biological membrane interfaces".
Apr 2, 2025 Karthik gives an invited lecture at the Chemical Engineering Colloquium at Princeton University. The title of the talk is "Organization and Dynamics of Neuronal Systems at Cellular and Molecular Scales".
Jan 27, 2025 Karthik gives an invited lecture at the Chemical Engineering Colloquium at Stanford University. The title of the talk is "Organization and Dynamics of Neuronal Systems at Cellular and Molecular Scales".

2024

Nov 14, 2024 Karthik gives an invited lecture at the Physics & QBio Hagoromo Hour at Yale University, New Haven, CT. The title of the talk is ["Nanoscale dynamics of ionic reorganization at biological membrane interfaces"](https://physics.yale.edu/event/physics-qbio-hagoromo-hour-karthik-shekhar-university-california-berkeley).
Nov 2, 2024 Karthik presents at the UC Berkeley Biophysics Retreat. The title of the talk is "Nanoscale dynamics of ionic reorganization near lipid membrane interfaces".
Oct 27-30, 2024 Graduate students Alhad Deshpande and Joshua Fernandes, and postdoc Hyeongjoo Row deliver session talks at the AIChE annual meeting in San Diego, CA.
Oct 19, 2024 Karthik gives a public talk at the UC Berkeley Homecoming. The title of the talk is "Bridging Theory, Computation, and Experiment in Neuroscience".
Oct 3, 2024 Karthik gives an invited lecture at the Visual Sciences Seminar at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX. The title of the talk is "The Evolution of Neural Diversity in the Vertebrate Retina and the Origin of Cell Type Innovations".
Aug 20, 2024 Karthik gives an invited talk at the NSF CRCNS PI Meeting in Minneapolis, MN. The title of the talk is "Deciphering the evolution of cell type in the vertebrate retina".
Jun 20, 2024 Karthik gives an invited talk at the FASEB Retinal Biology and Vision Processing in Southbridge, MA. The title of the talk is "Single-cell genomic insights into the evolution of retinal cell types".
May 15, 2024 The group's first graduate students Salwan Butrus and Joshua Hahn are hooded. Salwan will begin as a Computational Biologist at Curve Biosciences, CA and Josh will be a postdoctoral researcher in the Reh lab at the University of Washington, Seattle.
May 8, 2024 Karthik gives the COMBI seminar at University of Washington Department of Genome Sciences. The title of the talk is "The Evolution of Cell types".
Mar 8, 2024 Karthik receives Young Alumnus Achiever Award from his alma mater, IIT Bombay.
Feb 27, 2024 Karthik gives the Molecular and Human Genetics Seminar at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. The title of the talk is "Evolution of cell types in the vertebrate retina: Lessons from single-cell transcriptomics".

2023

Nov 2023 Karthik gives the Oxyopia seminar in the Vision Science and Optometry department at UC Berkeley. The title of the talk is "Spatial transcriptomic analysis of cell type topographies in retinal whole mounts".
Nov 2023 Karthik gives the Student Invited Seminar at the Department of Opthalmology at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. The title of the talk is "Evolution of cell types in the vertebrate retina: Lessons from single-cell transcriptomics".
Nov 2023 The group is awarded its first NSF grant together with Prof. Herwig Baier's group in Germany, "CRCNS US-German Research Proposal - The diversification of retinal ganglion cells: A combined transcriptomic, genome engineering and imaging approach." Thank you NSF!
Nov 2023 Graduate student Josh Hahn wins the Blavatnik Innovation Fellowship. Congratulations Josh!
Nov 2023 The group welcomes Jafar Farhadi as our newest graduate student. Jafar will be co-advised by Prof. Kranthi Mandadapu. Welcome Jafar!
Nov 2023 Salwan Butrus, Josh Hahn and Kushal Nimkar present posters at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) meeting in Washington DC!
Oct 2023 The group presents several amazing posters at the Berkeley Neuroscience Retreat in Granlibakken Tahoe! Karthik delivers a seminar and Kushal delivers an excellent lightning talk!
Oct 2023 Karthik visits his alma mater MIT to deliver the ChemE seminar! Thrilled to catch up with Berkeley alumni and current MIT graduate students (L-R: Xiaoqi Sun, Arun Johnson, Michael Li, and Matthew Moy). Seated to Karthik's left is Shakul Pathak, who did a brief internship with the group.
Oct 2023 The group celebrates graduate student Joshua Fernandes successfully passing his PhD qualifying exam. Congratulations Josh!!
Sep 2023 Karthik delivers an invited talk at the European Retina Meeting in the beautiful university town of Tubingen, Germany.
Sep 2023 A collaborative preprint describing the truly ancient (>400 million years) origin of the neuronal pathway that processes vision in low light conditions is on bioRxiv. Graduate student Josh Hahn is co-first author!
Sep 2023 The group celebrates graduate student Kushal Nimkar successfully clearing his PhD qualifying exam. Congrats Kushal!
Sep 2023 PhD student Alhad Deshpande is recognized with an Excellence in Teaching Award for Spring 2023. Alhad was a Graduate Student Instructor in CHM ENG 150: Transport Processes. Congratulations Alhad!
Aug 2023 It has been a wonderful 3.5 years at Berkeley! Here's a photo from a recent group party. We were joined by family. PC: Dr. Hyeongjoo Row.
Aug 2023 The group is awarded a collaborative Scialog Grant from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. Thank you!
Jul 2023 PhD student Salwan Butrus wins an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship (F31). Congrats Sal!
May 2023 Karthik is named a 2023 McKnight Foundation Scholar and the group receives support from the McKnight Foundation. Thank you!
May 2023 Karthik receives two awards at the College of Chemistry Commencement, 2023: the CBE Departmental Teaching Award for 2023, and The Donald Sterling Noyce Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.
May 2023 Neuroscience student Dario Tommasini joins the group as a PhD student. Welcome Dario!
Apr 2023 The group receives a grant from the BrightFocus Foundation. In addition, Karthik receives the Dr. Douglas H. Johnson Award from the BrightFocus Foundation!
Mar 2023 PREPRINT ALERT! A study three years in the making: Josh Hahn's paper on the evolution of retinal cell types is now online on bioRxiv. We generate and integrate data across 17 species to trace the evolutionary history of retinal cell types. One of the most exciting findings is that midget retinal ganglion cells, the most abundant RGC type in primates, descend from cell types present in the mammalian common ancestor. Congrats Josh!
Feb 2023 A study on non-neuronal responses to optic nerve injury, to which Karthik made a minor contribution, is now published in Nature Immunology.
Feb 2023 Our paper on vision-dependent maturation of mouse retinal ganglion cells is now published in Neuroscience in an issue dedicated to the late Prof. Friedrich Bonhoeffer. Sal is co-first author!
Feb 2023 Karthik delivers two invited talks: the first at S2C (Synapse to Circuit Seminar) at UCLA, hosted by Prof. Larry Zipursky; the second at the Center for Computational Biology seminar at UC Berkeley.
Jan 2023 Karthik delivers an invited seminar at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.

2022

Dec 2022 Karthik presents at the Allen Institute Showcase Symposium in Seattle, and delivers an online lecture at the Baylor College of Medicine Vision Symposium.
Dec 2022 Karthik is selected as a member of the Allen Institute Next Generation Leaders Council.
Nov 2022 CBE graduate student Matthew Po joins the research group. Welcome Matthew!
Nov 2022 Karthik chairs a session and delivers a contributed lecture at the AIChE annual meeting in Phoenix, AZ.
Nov 2022 The group presents posters at the annual Neuroscience retreat and at the annual Center for Computational Biology retreat!
Nov 2022 Karthik speaks at the Bioengineering Department Seminar at UC Berkeley.
Oct 2022 Karthik shares the group's work at the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience.
Oct 2022 Alhad Deshpande passes his qualifying examination. Congratulations Alhad!
Sep 2022 Karthik delivers the plenary lecture at the UC Berkeley Vision Science Annual Retreat in Tahoe, CA!
Sep 2022 The lab is now affiliated with the School of Vision Science and Optometry.
Aug 2022 Dr. Hyeongjoo Row joins the group as a postdoc. Hyeongjoo will be co-advised by Prof. Kranthi Mandadapu. Welcome Hyeongjoo!
Aug 2022 Karthik delivers invited talks in two back-to-back Gordon Research Conferences on Neural Development (Newport, RI) and Visual System Development (Southbridge, MA). Kushal, Sal and Josh Hahn join for the Visual System Development meeting, with Sal and Josh presenting posters. Josh also gives a last-minute invited talk on evolution.
Jul 2022 Karthik delivers an invited seminar at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies Meeting 2022 in Paris!
Jul 2022 Our paper unifying morphology, physiology and transcriptomics for mouse retinal ganglion cells is now published in Cell Reports!
Jul 2022 The group receives funding from the Glaucoma Research Foundation. Karthik is chosen as one of four investigators in the Catalyst for a Cure 4 cohort!
Jun 2022 PhD student Salwan Butrus is recognized by the NIH as one of 27 Outstanding Scholars in Neuroscience (OSNAP). Congratulations Sal!
Jun 2022 Karthik co-presents an invited workshop on transcriptomics at the FASEB Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing meeting in Southbridge, MA with Prof. Yi-Rong Peng.
Jun 2022 Karthik gives an invited talk virtually at Neuro2022, Japan.
May 2022 Karthik receives a CBE Departmental Teaching Award during the 2022 Commencement!
May 2022 Karthik gives an invited short talk at the Cortical Development conference in Sicily.
May 2022 Karthik is selected as a 2022 Society of Hellman Fellow!
Apr 2022 Karthik gives an invited virtual seminar at the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, India.
Apr 2022 Joshua Fernandes receives the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF). Congratulations Josh!
Apr 2022 Alhad Deshpande receives the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRF). Congratulations Alhad!
Mar 2022 Karthik contributes to a review on common mechanisms of neurodegeneration published in Molecular Neurodegeneration.
Mar 2022 Karthik gives a presentation on single-cell transcriptomics of the retina to clinician scientists at Tata Memorial Center (ACTREC), Mumbai.
Mar 2022 Our paper on postmitotic diversification of mouse retinal ganglion cells is published in eLife.
Mar 2022 Karthik is selected as a finalist for the Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Program and presents his work to the Scientific Advisory Committee.
Jan 2022 Sal's paper on postnatal development of the visual cortex is published in Cell. Fantastic collaboration with the Zipursky lab at UCLA.

2021

Dec 2021 Karthik gives a talk on neural development in the visual cortex at Genentech.
Nov 2021 Sal presents at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) 2021 meeting, and wins the SfN Trainee Professional Development Award. Congratulations Sal!
Nov 2021 Karthik and Josh Hahn give talks at the AIChE 2021 meeting in Boston. Karthik speaks at the session in honor of his PhD advisor Arup Chakraborty's 60th birthday.
Oct 2021 A preprint on diversification of mouse retinal ganglion cells is online on bioRxiv.
Oct 2021 CBE graduate students Joshua Fernandes and Kushal Nimkar join the group. Welcome!
Oct 2021 Karthik gives a talk at the UC Berkeley Neuroscience retreat, and Sal gives a talk at the Center for Computational Biology Retreat.
Oct 2021 Sal Butrus and Josh Hahn pass their PhD qualifying exams and advance to candidacy. Congratulations!