You’re new as a professor at Berkeley, but I think I should be saying welcome back, no?
Yes, I was a postdoc here for five years, working on how hummingbirds fly in adverse weather conditions, from 2010 to 2012, then again from 2013 to 2016. My academic journey began with a bachelor’s degree in Puebla, Mexico, followed by a master’s degree in the Yucatán Peninsula. I then completed my Ph.D. in Baja California, in Ensenada. After Berkeley, I went to UNC-Chapel Hill, UC Davis, Georgia Tech, and to UMaine—the coldest place I have ever been! There I was, thinking, “Oh, I want to investigate how birds, like chickadees, fly in the snow.” And I didn’t have the time, but hopefully I can try to understand that someday here at UC Berkeley.
You study animal biodynamics; basically, how organisms move through the world, everything from ripple bugs skating across the surface of a pond to hummingbirds flying through rainstorms. The images you capture are amazing. I’m curious to know, how do you choose what animals and situations to study?
I’ve always been fascinated with flight. That’s why the first projects in my career were with birds. I’ve spent hours and days, even months, just observing birds. So I’ve become a very patient observer. I think the field was my teacher.
Now, when I’m observing something, I often say to myself, “Oh, this seems odd, but interesting.” Right before the pandemic I was at the zoo in Atlanta, for example, observing flamingos feeding, and I started thinking, “Oh, what do we actually know about flamingos feeding?” Because the picture that I remember from that time is that they were producing beautiful waves at the interface. So beautiful. One of my questions was, what is happening inside the water? We don’t know anything, really, about what is happening within the fluid, how they are taking advantage by producing all these complex fluid dynamics. And so I started working at Georgia Tech with flamingos from the Nashville Zoo, and we made a robotic version of the flamingo, and found that actually they are producing tornado-like vortices when they are retracting their beak from the water. But the other part is that when they are stepping with their feet, they are also producing some vortices. And we did some experiments to show they are producing a vortex and that all the food is recirculating in this vortex, and they are just taking the food from there.
You also study some fascinating insects, like springtails and water striders. And you were recently featured in Quanta Magazine for work you did on electrostatic attraction in spider webs. What other organisms are you studying around electrostatics?
One is jumping nematodes, which are less than 1 millimeter in size. They are parasitic worms that live in the soil. And when the time is right, when a host insect passes, they bend and jump into the air. These flying insects, the hosts, can be electrostatically charged, and these little guys are jumping. So what happens? As you can see in this slow-motion video, the nematode is jumping the wrong way, but because this fruit fly is charged, wow, it’s attracted electrostatically. So one of the ideas is that these nematodes are actually taking advantage of these electrostatic forces to make physical contact with the host.
Your lab is called Ornithopterus. Why?
An ornithopter was a [theoretical flying] device conceived by Leonardo da Vinci. I thought adding the -us ending could be nice because it reminds me of the Greek myth of Icarus, where after realizing his wings worked, he got too excited and flew too close to the sun. Remarkably, it was not registered on the internet, so I selected it instead of the classic, you know, Ortega-Jiménez Lab. I just chose a lab name that is more meaningful for me.
Talking to you, I’m reminded that Mexico’s lone Nobelist in the sciences so far, Mario Molina, got his Ph.D. from Berkeley [in 1972]. Were you aware of that?
Yes, he was here and then he went on to UC Irvine. But did you know we also have a Nobelist in literature, Octavio Paz, and he was here as well, as a fellow? And then he went to France. But many of the ideas for El Laberinto de la Soledad were from here [California]. And so I think Berkeley has some kind of magnet for Mexican Nobel Prizes. We have two who were here. And I think it’s an inspiration to us. As a Mexican, it makes me dream…
