Florencia Fernandez-Chiappe, PhD

(she/her)

Florencia received both her undergraduate degree and PhD from the University of Buenos Aires in the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences. As an undergraduate she conducted research with Dr. Nara Muraro at the Biomedicine Research Institute of Buenos Aires, where she studied the role of the neurotransmitter GABA in Drosophila melanogaster sleep and wake behavior. In 2015, Florencia was an Undergraduate Scholar at HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus, in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Reiser, where she examined visual perception in Drosophila melanogaster. Florencia returned to the laboratory of Dr. Nara Muraro to conduct her PhD research. She used whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology to study GABAergic circuits that regulate sleep and wakefulness in flies. Florencia was awarded both an undergraduate research fellowship and a PhD fellowship from The National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). Florencia is a board member for the Argentinian Society for Neuroscience Research and a member of the eLife Early Career Advisory Group. She is actively engaged in science outreach, contributing to books, articles and podcasts, including Oh, la humanidad, a science communication podcast. Florencia joined the Younger lab in 2023 as a Postdoctoral Fellow, where she is applying her expertise in whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology to study mosquito olfactory circuits. Florencia was named a Boston University Center for Systems Neuroscience Distinguished Fellow in 2023 and a Pew Latin American Fellow in 2024.