| Scientific expertise(*): Ivan Fernando Gonzalez got a BS in Physics from Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia) working on both experimental High Energy Physics and theoretical Biophysics. He volunteered for four years at the Atmospheric-Muons Telescope, and pioneered in the Biophysics group with his dissertation on a Computational Model of Electroreceptor Cells.
After graduation, he started doing electrophysiology with Carlos Sevcik during a short stay in Venezuela, measuring the effects of toxins from scorpion and venomous fish on the electric function of nerves and muscles.
Later he moved to California to become an expert on the electric sense of sharks and rays with Adrianus J. Kalmijn, and got his PhD in Oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD. As a graduate student in oceanography--while training sharks and studying the ampullae of Lorenzini-- he also had the chance to learn about our changing ocean and our warming planet.
As a postdoc with Sharona Gordon at University of Washington- Seattle, he learned how to measure the electric currents of neurons and cultured cells, while simultaneously recording movies of fluorescent molecules inside the cell. He spent three years at Gordon's lab doing basic-research experiments that wanted to unveil the early stages of chronic pain by using pharmacology, electrophysiology, imaging, and optogenetics.
Member of AAAS. Former member of the Biophysical Society, AGU, SOBLA, and Sociedad Colombiana de Biofísica.
Click here to download a copy of a final draft from my dissertation: "The Electric Sense of the Thornback Ray, Platyrhinoidis triseriata: Linear Dynamic Range in Single-Unit Electrophysiological Recordings in vivo from the Afferent Nerve Fibers of the Ampullae of Lorenzini." |
