Biology Seminar Series: Andrés Bendesky - "Evolution of social behaviors in nature and under domestication"

Andrés Bendesky, M.D., Ph.D, grew up in Mexico City, where he attended medical school at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Dr. Bendesky pursued his Ph.D at The Rockefeller University, where he studied the mechanisms by which nematode worms vary in how they decide whether to exploit resources or explore to find new sources. He proceeded to do postdoctoral work at Harvard University as a Helen Hay Whitney–Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow. There, he focused on studying the genetic basis of why monogamous rodents are more dedicated fathers than fathers from promiscuous species. In 2017 Dr. Bendesky joined the faculty of Columbia, where he continues to focus on discovering genetic and neuronal mechanisms leading to diversity of social behaviors within species and across species—the study of how behavior evolves. Dr. Bendesky has been awarded a Searle Scholarship, a Klingenstein-Simons Neuroscience Fellowship, and a Sloan Research Fellowship in Neuroscience.