Skip to content

Curriculum Vitae

Education

The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas Biochemistry; B.S., 2006

The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas Cell and Molecular Biology; PhD., Dec 2017

Honors and Awards

  • Elected to the Software Carpentry Steering Committee (2016 - 17)

  • University Graduate Continuing Fellowship, UT Austin (2016 - 17)

  • William Livingston Outstanding Graduate Student Academic Employee Award, UT Austin (2017)

  • Grant in Aid of Research, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (2016)

  • Academic Enrichment Fund Award, UT Austin (2014, 15, 16)

  • Honorable mention, National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2013, 14)

Publications

ORCiD publication list: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7943-5650

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_bVy9pMAAAAJ&hl=en

Google Scholar statistics as of December 2017: 434 citations; h-index of 8, i10-index of 7

Pre-prints

  1. Harris RM, Kao H-Y, Alarcon JM, Hofmann HA, Fenton AA (2017) Analysis of hippocampal transcriptomic responses to technical and biological perturbations. BioRXiv 153585.

  2. Devenyi GA, Emonet R, Harris RM, Hertweck KL, Irving D, Milligan I, Wilson G (2017) Ten Simple Rules for Collaborative Lesson Development. arXiv:1707.02662.

  3. Harris RM, Otopalik AG, Smith C, Bucher D, Golowasch J, Hofmann HA (2017) Single-Neuron Gene Expression Analysis Using the Maxwell 16 LEV System. BioRXiv 107342.

Peer Reviewed Publications

  1. Renn SPC, Machado H, Duftner N, Harris RM, Sessa AK, Hofmann HA. Gene Expression Signatures of Mating System Evolution. Genome. DOI: 10.1139/gen-2017-0075.

  2. Dijkstra PD, Maguire SM Harris RM, Rodriguez AA, DeAngelis RS Flores SA, Hofmann HA (2017) The melanocortin system regulates body pigmentation and social behaviour in a colour polymorphic cichlid fish. Proc. R. Soc. B. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.2838.

  3. Goppert C, Harris RM, Theis A, Boila A, Hohl S, Ruegg A, Hofmann HA, Salzburger WE, Boehne A (2016) Inhibition of aromatase induces partial sex change in a cichlid fish: Distinct functions for sex steroids in brains and gonads. Sex. Dev. 10:97-110.

  4. Simoes JM, Barata EN, Harris RM, O13Connell LA, Hofmann HA, Oliveira RF (2015) Social odors conveying dominance and reproductive information induce rapid physiological and neuromolecular changes in a cichlid fish. BMC Genomics 16:114.

  5. Stiver KA, Harris RM, Townsend JP, Hofmann HA, Alonzo SH (2015) Behavioral and physiological examinations of cooperation in Symphodus ocellatus, a species with alternative male reproductive tactics. Ethol. 121:152-167.

  6. Smith CC, Harris RM, Lampert KP, Schartl M, Hofmann HA,Ryan MJ (2015) Copy number variation in the melanocortin 4 receptor gene and alternative reproductive tactics in swordtail Xiphophorus multilineatus. Environ. Biol. Fishes 98:23-33.

  7. Brawand et al. (2014) The genomic substrate for adaptive radiation: Genomes of five African cichlid fish. Nature 513: 375-381

  8. Fischer EK, Harris RM, Hofmann HA, Hoke KL (2014) Predator exposure alters stress physiology in guppies across timescales. Horm. Behav. 65: 165–172.

  9. Harris RM, Dijkstra PD, Hofmann HA (2014) Complex Structural and Regulatory Evolution of the Pro-opiomelanocortin Gene Family. Gen. Compar. Endocrinol. 195: 107-115.

  10. Sessa AK, Harris RM, Hofmann HA (2013) Sex Steroid Hormones Modulate Responses to Social Challenge & Opportunity in Males of the Monogamous Convict Cichlid, Amatitliana nigrofasciata. Gen. Compar. Endocrinol. 189: 59–65.

  11. Oldfield RG, Harris RM, Hendrickson DA, Hofmann HA (2013) Arginine Vasotocin and Prolactin Pathways are Associated with Mating System Variation in North American Cichlid Fishes. Horm. Behav. 64:44-52.

Invited Articles and Reviews

  1. Harris RM, O13Connell LA, Hofmann HA (2016) Brain Evolution, Development, and Plasticity, in The Wiley Handbook of Evolutionary Neuroscience (ed S. V. Shepherd), John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK. doi: 10.1002/9781118316757.ch15

  2. Oldfield RG, Harris RM, Hofmann HA (2015) Integrating Resource Defence Theory with Nonapeptide Expression to Explain Variation in Territory-based Mating Systems. Front. Zool. 12:S16.

  3. Harris RM, Hofmann HA (2015) Seeing is believing: Dynamic evolution of opsin genes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112:1252-1253.

  4. Harris RM, Hofmann HA (2014) Neurogenomics of Behavioral Plasticity. Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 781:149-68.

Open Access Educational Materials

  1. Ahmadia A, Allen J, Banaszkiewicz P, Becker E, Bekolay T, Blischak J, Boughton A, Bray E, Cabunoc Mayes A, Crouch S, Davis N, Davis M,Duckles J, Emonet, R; Fortin, FA, Gonzalez I, Hamm C, Hansen M, Harris RM, et al. (2016) Software Carpentry: Instructor Training. Zenodo. 10.5281/zenodo.57571

  2. Harris RM, Hofmann HA (2014). Laboratory Experiments for the 2014 Integrative Molecular Neuroscience Module. Zenodo. 10.5281/zenodo.60725

Invited and Contributed Talks

  • The North Door. Nerd Nite Austin Texas. January 10, 2018. Slides

  • UT Austin. RNA/DNA Club. December 11, 2017

  • UT Austin. Thesis Defense. October 18, 2017. Sides

  • Yale University. James Noonan Lab. September 15, 2017

  • Yale University. Daniel Colón-Ramos Lab. September 14, 2017

  • Marine Biological Laboratories. Neural Systems & Behavior Course. July 24, 2017. Slides

  • The University of Texas at Tyler. Biology Department. November 9, 2016

  • UT Austin. Brain, Behavior, & Evolution Graduate Seminar. October 2016

  • UT Austin. Chips & Dips Graduate Seminar. April, 6, 2016

  • Michigan State University. Annual BEACON Congress. August 18, 2015

  • UT Austin. Waggoner Center for Alcohol Addiction Seminar. May 20, 2015

  • UT Austin. Brain, Behavior, & Evolution Graduate Seminar. April 17, 2015

  • Gulbenkian Institute of Science. COPEWELL Workshop on Functional Neuroanatomy of Fish. April 11, 2015. Slides

  • UT Austin. 10th Annual Integrative Biology Graduate Student Symposium. April 5, 2014

  • St. Edwards University. 3rd Annual Texas Poeciliid Conference. December 14, 2013

  • UT Austin. 9th Annual Integrative Biology Graduate Student Symposium. April 20, 2013

  • UT Austin. Darwin Day. February 10, 2013.

  • University of Bergen. NORDFORSK Behavioural Fish Neuroscience Network Workshop. November 16, 2012.

  • University of Bergen. Behavioural Fish Neuroscience Network Conference. November 12, 2012

Scientific Posters

  • 2017 The Moore Foundation Early Career Researcher Symposium. Waikoloa Beach, HI

  • 2016 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting. San Diego, CA

  • 2016 International Congress of Neuroethology. Montevideo, Uruguay

  • 2016 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Meeting Portland, OR

  • 2015 Celebration of Discovery at the Marine Biological Laboratories. Woods Hole, MA

  • 2015 Annual Waggoner Center for Alcohol & Addiction Research Advance. Austin, TX

  • 2015 National Science Foundation Data Science Workshop. Seattle, WA

  • 2014 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting. Washington DC. Poster

  • 2014 Annual BEACON Congress. Lansing, MI

  • 2014 Animal Behavior Conference. Bloomington, IN

  • 2014 Brain Behavior & Evolution Symposium. Austin, TX

  • 2014 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Meeting. Austin, TX

  • 2013 Gordon Research Conference in Neuroethology. West Dover, VT

  • 2013 Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology Annual Meeting. Atlanta, GA

  • 2012 Gordon Research Conference in Genes and Behavior. Galveston, TX

Selected GitHub Repositories

  • Thesis. The GitHub repository where I build a website for an easy-to-read-on-a-phone version of my thesis.\

  • IntegrativeProjectWT2015. My bioinformatic workflow for studying transcriptional plasticity in the mouse hippocampus and its role in avoidance learning.\

  • DissociationTest. My bioinformatic workflow for testing the influence of cellular dissocation on hippocampal gene expression in laboratory mice.\

Professional Activities

  • Peer-reviewer Behavioral Ecology; Gene; Genes, Genomes & Genetics; Journal of Experimental Zoology Part A; Physiology & Behavior; PLOS ONE; Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

  • Secretary Software Carpentry Steering Committee, 2017-2018

  • Member Software Carpentry Steering Committee, 2016-2017

  • Poster Judge College of Natural Science Undergraduate Research Forum, 2016, 17

  • Coordinator Annual Big Data in Biology Symposia, 2012 - 2017

  • Coordinator Summer School for Big Data in Biology, 2014 - 2016

  • Co-Chair Complementary Session to Symposium - New Frontiers in the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior, Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology Annual Meeting, January 2016

  • Blogger PLOS Neuroscience Community, BEACON: An NSF Center for Evolution in Action, Data Carpentry, and Software Carpentry, Since 2014

  • Graduate Representative Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Program External Review Committee, October 2014

  • Coordinator Transdisciplinary Graduate Student Luncheon, October 2014

  • Spanish Translator “Welcome to the World of Mushrooms”, INBio Park, Costa Rica, 2009

Teaching

Lesson Development

  • Instructor Training, Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry

  • Reproducible Research with Jupyter Notebooks, Data Carpentry

  • Integrative Molecular Neuroethology, Neural Systems & Behavior Course

Lead or Co-Lead Instructor

  • Instructor Training, Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry (2016 – present)

  • Integrative Molecular Neuroethology, Neural Systems & Behavior Course (2013 - present)

  • Introduction to Git for Bioinformatics, UT Austin (2017). Slides

  • Introduction to Unix and R, for Bioinformatics, UT Austin (2016)

  • The UNIX Shell, Software Carpentry (2015)

  • Version Control with Git, Software Carpentry (2015)

  • Introduction to Spanish, Futura Language Professionals (2008 - 2009)

Teaching Assistant

  • Biostatistics (SDS 328M), UT Austin (2017)

  • Introduction to Core Next-generation Sequencing Tools, UT Austin (2015, 16, 17)

  • Problems in Modern Biology (BIO 301E), UT Austin (2013)

  • Organic Chemistry Laboratory (CH 210C), UT Austin (2007-2009)

  • Advanced Organic Chemistry Laboratory (CH 118K/L), UT Austin (2007)

Guest Lecturer

  • Comparative Animal Physiology (BIO 361T), UT Austin (2016)

  • Introduction to Biological Statistics, UT Austin (2014)

  • Neurobiology of Social Behavior, University of the Republic of Uruguay (2013). Slides

Social Media and Blogs

Twitter: Personal @raynamharris, Bioinformatics @texas_cbrs, and Neuroscience @nsb_mbl

Professional/personal blog: https://medium.com/@raynamharris/.