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Milestones, papers, talks, travel, and behind-the-scenes build progress from the BIRD Lab.

Jump to: 2026 · 2025 · 2024 · 2023 · 2022

Legend: 🎉 Awards & honors · 📄 Papers · 🎙️ Talks & conferences · 💸 Funding · 🧰 Build & facilities · 📚 Service · 👥 People · ✈️ Travel · 🎓 Graduations

Highlights (last 12–24 months)

• 🧰 Bird Flight Research Center: the space is finished and we’re bringing the camera system online now, with a public opening planned soon.
• 💸 Funding: we secured a DURIP equipment award and several new grants that are letting us push core projects forward (and support trainees).
• 📄 Papers: we’ve published new work spanning bio-inspired flight mechanics and bird morphology/ecology.
• 🎙️ Talks: lab members have been invited to give talks, keynotes, and run symposia—good chances to share the work and build new collaborations.
• 👥 People: the group has grown—students have transitioned into PhD paths, trainees earned recognitions, and new researchers joined the team.

2026

March

🎉 Kaleb and Cisco passed the QE exam!

Congratulations to Kaleb Bordner and Francisco Jackson, the first students in the lab to pass the QE exam and advance to candidacy.

January

🎉 Alex passed the FE exam!

Congratulations to Alex Fillman has passed the FE exam and overcome the first hurdle in the PhD journey.

👥 New undergraduate researchers Welcome to Narihide Fujita, Meghna Tirumalai, and Wyatt Liu who will be working on projects supervised by Kaleb Bordner, Alex Fillman, and Francisco Jackson.