Rate My Professor Tamily Weisman

Tamily Weissman-Unni serves as Professor of Biology and Chair of the Biology Department at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She received her PhD in Neurobiology and Behavior from Columbia University in 2004, where, in Arnold Kriegstein's lab, she studied neuronal proliferation and calcium dynamics in the embryonic rodent cerebral cortex. She earned her BA from Pomona College in 1992 and an MA from Harvard University Extension School and Boston University in 1998. As a postdoctoral fellow in Jeff Lichtman's laboratory at Harvard University, she helped develop the Brainbow strategy for multicolor genetic labeling to map neural circuits in the mouse brain.

Since joining Lewis & Clark College around 2011, Weissman-Unni has led a research program applying Brainbow and fluorescence techniques to the zebrafish model to examine neural circuit development, connectivity, and degeneration in vivo. Her publications include "Transgenic strategies for combinatorial expression of fluorescent proteins in the nervous system" (Nature, 2007), "Brainbow: New resources & emerging biological applications for multicolor genetic labeling & analysis" (Genetics, 2015), "Combining near-infrared fluorescence with Brainbow to visualize expression of specific genes within a multicolor context" (Molecular Biology of the Cell, 2019), and "Multicolor lineage tracing using in vivo time-lapse imaging reveals coordinated death of clonally related cells in the developing vertebrate brain" (Developmental Biology, 2019). She has obtained grants from the National Science Foundation, such as for acquiring a laser scanning confocal microscope system (DBI-1338188), and from the National Institutes of Health. Honors include the Lynwood W. Murdock Trust Regional Faculty Excellence Award with $7,500 (2017), Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience Educator Prize (2022), and first place in the IBRO Neuroscapes NeuroArt Exhibition (2006). She teaches Biology 202: Biology Core Concepts; Mechanisms, Biology/Psychology 252: Introduction to Neuroscience, and Biology 422: Neurobiology with laboratory. Her research images have appeared in prominent scientific venues.