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Congratulations to Dr. Claude Jean-Guillaume (right) for successfully defending this PhD thesis today! He joins Dr. Haley Brown (left) as the second Kumar lab student to graduate this summer. I was fortunate to have been able to join both of them for their graduation ceremony.

The Kumar lab taking a break from our annual lab cleaning day and having lunch together at the Malibu Grill. Seated around the table are Claude Jean-Guillaume, Brandon Weasner, Mie Kusupholnand, Ren Wilson, Bonnie Weasner, and Jasmine Warren.

The NoA for my R24 grant with Stuart Newfeld is here! We are generating reagents for the Drosophila 4th chromosome including CRISPR mutants, RNAi lines, and over-expression constructs of both fly genes and human orthologs. Below is a 1944 drawing of the 4th by B.M. Slizynski.

Excited that my lab's latest paper on Drosophila eye and head patterning is published in Development today! Congrats to co-first authors Gary Teeters and Bonnie Weasner. Control of fate specification within the dorsal head of Drosophila melanogaster. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/15…

Check out our new preprint!

Delighted to join an amazing group of plenary speakers at the 66th Annual Drosophila Research Conference next year. Many thanks to the meeting organizers for giving me the opportunity to talk about my lab’s research on Drosophila visual system development. Genetics Society of America IU Biology

My family's 2024-25 Indiana Men's Basketball season tickets are finally here. Can't wait for the season to begin. Looking forward to a fun, entertaining, and successful campaign! IU Bloomington Indiana Basketball

The Lacefield Lab, team “mighty mice and yeasty beasts” are ready for the great pumpkin derby Dartmouth MCB Graduate Program. Check out our pumpkin with a Mighty Mouse, a Yeasty Beast, and the five flags of the countries represented in the lab.

Had a wonderful time at the ISER meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I got to see a lot of great science, present my lab's research on fly eye development, and catch up with many friends. I also got to tour a beautiful city. See everyone in Valencia Spain in 2026.

Happy Halloween from the Kumar lab!

From my lab to yours - Happy Thanksgiving! Hope all of you have a fun, calorie, and football filled day!

Wishing you and your labs a peaceful Christmas and New Year. Hope to see all of you in 2025!

NoA for my new NIH grant arrived today! Many thanks to the National Eye Institute for what will be 27 years of continuous and generous funding of my studies into the mechanisms underlying Drosophila eye specification and patterning. NEI IU Bloomington IU Biology

It was finally warm enough here in Bloomington to spend some time in the backyard taking pictures. Look who showed up!

Kumar lab - very lucky to be exploring the world of eye development with these amazing researchers!

Hope your lab had a great Valentine's Day!

Super excited that my superstar friend Soni Lacefield Soni Lacefield is a AAAS fellow! She is creative and her research is amazing so check it out. Soni Lacefield Named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/soni… via Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

Very late in posting...many thanks to my friend and host Markus Friedrich for an awesome visit to the Departments of Biological Sciences and Ophthalmology at Wayne State University. Great catching up with an old friend, talking science, and presenting our newest research!