march 2023
Ira Black Memorial Lecture, “Probing Neural Development Then and Now” given by Carol at Rutgers University.
Dr. Chiara Manzini tweets “@drcarolmason was invited to give a lecture in honor of Ira Black at @RWJMS last week and we took a picture with the "grandkids". We called this The Descendants. There are many many more in the labs of her trainees, but my lab was beyond excited.”
march 2023
Carol presents “Wiring eye to brain for binocular vision: Lessons from the albino” in the 16th Annual Jay and Rebekah Enoch Lectureship in Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Washington University in St Louis.
January 2023
CONGRATULATIONS to Nefeli Slavi for her appointment as Scientist at Genentech in the Biomarker Division to work on retinal disease.
January 2023
Nefeli Slavi published her work in Neuron. It was highlighted in Sticking to your side: A niche for the development of ipsilateral retinal projections.
november 2022
Carol presents at International Scientific Conference on Albinism (ISCA), to scientists, clinicians, and patients suffering from Albinism (virtual).
October 2022
Carol gave a virtual lecture at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital - “Wiring eye to brain for binocular vision: Lessons from the albino”
september 2022
Carol attended the Cold Spring Harbor “Molecular Mechanisms of Neuronal Connectivity” meeting and participated in mentoring tables.
JULY 2022
Carol participated in a meeting of women leaders in ALBA, World Women in Neuroscience, SfN, and Dana. Foundation.
May 2022
Carol gives keynote talk at the International Precision Neuroscience Conference, Fralin Institute, Virginia Tech, Roanoke, VA
May 2022
Carol spoke about her life and career in the CUIMC Women in Science Symposium
April 2022
Melissa Lee becomes Program Officer at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, in the Diagnostics Accelerator. Congratulations and we wish her the very best!
march 2022
Nefeli Slavi was invited to be a guest speaker at UCSF for Neuroscience seminar. She spoke about our work interrogates cellular and molecular events that control retinal ganglion cell fate specification and projection path to the brain, establishing the binocular circuit. She talked about her latest results showing that CyclinD2 is a critical component of a molecular machinery that coordinates cell cycle progression with ipsilateral retinal ganglion cell fate determination, and is necessary for proper retinogeniculate targeting and stereopsis.
march 2022
Welcome, Mitali Sharma! Mitali is our new Executive Assistant for Interschool Projects, Mason Lab and to Dr. Carol Mason.
February 2022
Dr. Mason and Dr. Slavi receive a grant from the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation, "Cell and molecular defects in the developing albino eye leading to an impaired binocular circuit: What does the RPE do?"
January 2022
Congratulations to Natalie Trotta for being appointed as Senior Manager at Columbia Climate School- The Office of Research.
September 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Felix Fiederling for his recent paper in Cell Reports Methods, “Tools for efficient analysis of neurons in a 3D reference atlas of whole mouse spinal cord.”
June 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Nefeli Slavi for receiving the Fight for Sight Postdoctoral Fellowship! We are so proud of you and all the work you’ve done in the lab. Your future is so bright!
June 2021
Carol was interviewed for Scientist on the Subway! Check out the feature here. The experience was made even more special since it was written by a former lab member, Maia Weisenhaus.
April 2021
The Mason-Dodd Lab, in partnership with Dr. Mimi Shirasu-Hiza and Dr. Vilas Menon, was awarded an NINDS Exploratory Neuroscience Research Grant (1R21NS122366-01 ): Molecular mechanisms of glial-mediated synapse alterations in Fragile X syndrome
December 2020
The Mason-Dodd Lab was awarded an NINDS Exploratory Neuroscience Research Grant (1R21NS120665-01): Linking the molecular logic of sensory neuron diversity and somatosensory circuitry in mouse spinal cord: development of novel tools for viral tracing and 3D analysis
December 2020
Congratulations to Dr. Melissa Lee! Melissa defended and submitted her thesis in December 2020. She will continue her work on glial pruning in the retinogeniculate system as a postdoc in the lab.
APRIL 2020
The Mason Lab’s R01 NIH 2R01EY015290 Early retinal development in pigmented and albino mice: Factors in the CMZ and RPE controlling RGC specification was successfully renewed!
June 2019
Farewell, Sania! Sania is moving to Puerto Rico to start optometry school. We wish her the best of luck in all of her future endeavors!
October 2018
Welcome, Nefeli! Nefeli is joining the Mason Lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Nefeli completed her PhD at SUNY Optometry, where she studied the role of gap junction channels in the process of retinal angiogenesis.
July 2018
Hooray! We have been awarded a Simons Foundation Explorer Grant to fund our work on glial engulfment and Fragile X Syndrome, in collaboration with Mimi Shirasu-Hiza.
June 2018
Welcome to our summer undergraduates! We are joined this summer by Columbia undergraduates, Amy Vo, Elizabeth Ayton, and QiYue Peng, as well as Samani Upadhyay from Brown University and Gabriella Fricklas from the University of Southern California.
May 2018
Congratulations, Carol! Carol was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of her "distinguished and continuing achievements in original research." Read more about Carol's election here.
February 2018
Farewell, Mika! Sadly, Mika Melikyan will not join us at the Zuckerman Institute but instead will continue to work at CUMC in the labs of Hynek Wichterle and Serge Przedborski on ALS research.
January 2018
Hello, Manhattanville! Our lab has moved to the Zuckerman Mind Brain and Behavior Institute on Columbia's new Manhattanville campus. We are sharing a quad with the Bendesky Lab and have many plants.
November 2017
Congratulations, Carol! Carol was awarded the prestigious Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society for Neuroscience in recognition of her lifetime of scientific work and mentorship.
September 2017
Welcome, Crystal! Crystal Colon Ortiz is rotating in the Mason Lab for the fall semester.
Adios, Austen! Austen Sitko is off to Harvard Medical School for a postdoc with Lisa Goodrich. Best of luck!
August 2017
Goodbye, Rich! Rich Blazeski retired at the end of the month, after thirty hard-working years in the Mason Lab. He will be missed!
May 2017
Congratulations, Sania! Sania Khalid graduated from Barnard College! Sania has worked in the Mason Lab every year of her undergraduate career.
March 2017
Congratulations, Taka! Taka Kuwajima's SoxC paper was published in early 2017!
February 2017
Welcome, Felix! Felix Fiederling joined the lab after completing his PhD at the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie in Germany. He will work with Jane to examine spinal circuits after trans-synaptic labeling.
December 2016
Congratulations, Florencia! Our study of Cyclin D2 and retinal neurogenesis, initiated by Qing Wang and developed by Florenica Marcucci, was published in Cell Reports in late 2016.
Congratulations, Austen, on a successful defense! Austen Sitko, graduate student in the Doctoral Program in Neurobiology and Behavior, defended her dissertation on December 12, 2016.
Congratulations, Qing! Qing Wang's microarray study was published in eNeuro in late 2016.
September 2016
Congratulations, Carol! Carol shared the prestigious António Champalimaud Vision Award with John Flanagan, Christine Holt, and Carla Shatz, in a ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal in October, 2016 and at the annual ARVO meeting, May, 2017.