Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program Award

Like octopus and squid, cuttlefish have an amazing ability to change color to camouflage themselves. Tessa Montague is investigating how these chameleons of the sea turn the background colors and patterns their eyes perceive into a matching display on their own skin. By tracing how a cuttlefish's nerve cells translate visual information into instructions for color-changing structures in their skin, she plans to explore how the brain creates internal images of the outside world.