Electric Fishes with Dr Kassandra Ford

In this episode, we sit down with the one and only Dr Kassandra Ford, aka @kassthefish, to dive into the shocking world of electric fishes. We cover the origins of electric fish, how a living creature generates electricity, the shocking (or not so shocking) truth about touching electric fish, the legendary electric eels, communication and interference, and stunning secrets!

Dr. Kassandra Ford in field clothes (grey field pants, a blue fishing shirt, a purple athletic tank, and a large brimmed hat. She's also wearing binoculars, a camera, and a handkerchief and carrying a yard stick and a long pole for field work. She's smiling and on a beach near green marshland. This picture was taken on a Louisiana barrier island.
Dr. Kassandra Ford in field clothes (grey field pants, a blue fishing shirt, a purple athletic tank, and a large-brimmed hat. She’s also wearing binoculars, a camera, and a handkerchief and carrying a yard stick and a long pole for field work. She’s smiling and on a beach near green marshland. This picture was taken on a Louisiana barrier island.

Now DR Kassandra Ford, aka @kassthefish on social media, is front and center on this weeks Behind the SCiENcES! Kassandra did her undergraduate research focused on neurobiology and development in zebrafishes under Dr. Mary Halloran. She then worked for a year at TAMU-Corpus Christi under Dr. Frank Pezold. He showed her lab management skills, curatorial skills, and the nuts and bolts of taxonomy and systematics. 

Kassandra’s path towards a doctorate in Biology, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology took her to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She completed her PhD work under Dr. James Albert, studying the evolution of electric fishes from South America and Africa, and successfully defended her dissertation in summer 2021: Mosaic evolution of craniofacial morphologies in apteronotid and mormyrid electric fishes.

Now Kassandra will be completing a short-term postdoctoral position with Dr. Ole Seehausen at the University of Bern from 2021-2022, prior to starting an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology at George Washington University with Dr. L. Patricia Hernandez!

Back when I first spoke with Kassandra, it was right after rescheduling due to a major hurricane making landfall in Lousiana. Here we are almost an exact year to the day later and Lousiana and other coastal states are reeling from the devastation left in the wake of Hurrican Ida

The New York Times has put together a thoroughly researched list of organizations that are reputable, credible, and working hard to provide relief to Ida’s victims. Please consider supporting these efforts. Learn more at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/us/hurricane-ida-how-to-help.html

Learn more about Kassandra at https://www.kassandraford.com/

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