Melina Hale facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Melina Hale
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Hale speaks to the National Science Foundation in 2014
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Melina Elisabeth Hale is an American neuroscientist and biomechanist. A neuroscientist studies the brain and nerves. A biomechanist studies how living things move. She is a top leader at the University of Chicago. She is also a professor there, teaching about how organisms work.
She studies animals like zebrafish. Her goal is to understand how touch and feeling (mechanosensation) help animals move their limbs. She also learns how the brain and spinal cord control and coordinate movement.
Her Journey in Science
Melina Hale studied Zoology at Duke University. She earned her first degree in 1992. Later, she got her Ph.D. in Organismal Biology from the University of Chicago in 1998.
She became a professor at the University of Chicago in 2002. She teaches about how living things work and how the brain controls them. She has also held important leadership roles at the university. From 2017 to 2018, she was a leader at the Marine Biological Laboratory.
In 2023, Melina Hale was chosen for a very important job. She became the new dean of the University of Chicago College. This means she helps lead the entire college.
She also helps lead a big science group called the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB). She was the president of this group from 2021 to 2023.
What Her Research Explores
Dr. Hale's research looks at how sensing and movement work together. This helps us understand how biological systems move. Her work also helps design underwater robots.
Her projects have received money from the U.S. National Science Foundation. They have also been funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research.
In 2015, her team showed something cool about fish. They found that fish use their fins to feel their surroundings. This helps them swim better. Her team has continued to learn more about how fins sense things.
Awards and Honors
Melina Hale has received many awards for her work:
- Wayne C. Booth Graduate Student Prize for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Chicago
- Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring at the University of Chicago
- National Science Foundation CAREER Award
- National Academies/Howard Hughes Medical Institute Education Fellow
- Defense Science Study Group Fellow, Institute for Defense Analysis
- Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
