Sam Whitehead

Sam received his bachelor's degree from Pomona College and his PhD from Cornell University. His primary graduate work focused on flight stabilization in fruit flies, using a combination of behavioral quantification, control theoretic modeling, and targeted neural manipulation. In his postdoc at Caltech, Sam began work on both the fly wing hinge--the complex but poorly understood joint where neural commands are transformed into intricate 3D wing motion--and on a comparative analysis of the mosquito and fruit fly wing motors. In his current role, he is working to support ongoing projects in the Short Lab while continuing independent research on fruit fly and mosquito flight.