Symposium on feather microanatomy at Anatomy Connected 2026

L to R: myself, Vinod, Rosalyn, and Marco.

I recently attended the Anatomy Connected 2026 conference, where I co-organized the symposium "Microanatomy of Color: Novel Discoveries from Hierarchical Scales of Color Production in Feathers" and presented a research poster.

The symposium brought together researchers studying one of nature's most fascinating traits: structural color. Although feather colors are often explained by nanostructures that interact with light, emerging research demonstrates that larger-scale feather anatomy—including the geometry and arrangement of feather branches—also plays a critical role in shaping color. By highlighting discoveries across multiple anatomical scales, the symposium showcased how integrating microscopy, physics, evolutionary biology, and materials science is transforming our understanding of how color evolves.

It was a privilege to organize the session alongside outstanding colleagues and to welcome presentations from Dr. Vinodkumar Saranathan (Université de Tours, France), Dr. Rosalyn Price-Waldman (Princeton University), and Dr. Marco Antonio Giraldo (University of Antioquia, Colombia). Together, the talks illustrated how studying color from the nanoscale to the whole feather is revealing unexpected links between development, evolution, and function.

In addition to co-organizing the symposium, I presented a poster highlighting my current NSF-funded research on the evolution of structural white feathers. The conference provided a fantastic opportunity to discuss new ideas, connect with collaborators across disciplines, and explore how advances in anatomical imaging are opening new avenues for understanding the evolution of complex traits.