Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Graduate Students

Moneeza Agha

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: McLean
• Research Topic: Functional organization of commissural interneurons mediating left-right alternation at different speeds of locomotion in larval zebrafish

Gloria Alvarado

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Lane
• Research Topic: An investigation of cytokine expression dynamics in individual macrophages during Salmonella infection

Rogelio Alvarado

• Entry Year: 2022

Xavier Anderson

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Petersen
• Research Topic: Determining the roles of microtubules in injury response and regeneration

Brooke Angell

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Brickner
• Research Topic: Elucidating the molecular mechanism of transcript buffering

Katherine Berman

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Lucks
• Research Topic: Uncovering intermediate structural motifs and rearrangements in RNA folding pathways of prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems

Caroline Bond

• Entry Year: 2022

Jonathan Boucher

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Leonard
• Research Topic: Programmable gene therapy vector tropism and in vivo cell therapy via engineered vesicles

Julianna Bourgeois

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Mirkin
• Research Topic: Glucosylceramidase spherical nucleic acids for enhanced BBB transport and lysosomal activity recovery in neurodegeneration

Evan Buechel

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Pinkett
• Research Topic: Investigation of the molecular mechanism regulating Pdr1 transcriptional activity

David Bushhouse

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Lucks
• Research Topic: Sequence and structure features of the Cbe pfl ZTP riboswitch regulate leak, sensitivity, and dynamic range

Delfin Buyco

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Kamat
• Research Topic: Determining the role of lysosomal cholesterol transporter Niemann-Pick C1 (NPC1) function on the biophysical properties and structure of lipid membranes

Eduardo Campos Chávez

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Mondragón
• Research Topic: Structural and biophysical studies of the T-box riboswitch

Matthew Capek

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Gallio
• Research Topic: Investigations into the evolution of nocifensive and thermosensory behavior in insects

Lucas Carter

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Backman
• Research Topic: Interrogating the molecular modulators of chromatin organization via genomic screening

Nicholas Chamberlain

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Bao
• Research Topic: Regulation of keratinocyte proliferation and differentiation by nucleocytoplasmic acetyl-CoA

Edric Choi

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Lucks
• Research Topic: Deducing RNA structure and dynamics from quantitative analysis of chemical probing reactivities

Eleanor Clark

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Petersen
• Research Topic: Investigating positional patterning systems of body-wide homeostasis and regeneration

Jacob Cohen

• Entry Year: 2022

Karlin Compton

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: LaBonne
• Research Topic: The role of H3K4 methylation in formation and maintenance of the vertebrate neural crest

Ely Contreras

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Schmidt
• Research Topic: Melanopsin phototransduction regulates diverse visual behaviors

William Corcoran

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Leonard
• Research Topic: Investigating miniproteins as synthetic receptor binding domains to enable soluble ligand-sensing cell-based therapeutics

Corinne Croslyn

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Blythe
• Research Topic: The role of gap genes in directing spatial patterns of polycomb-mediated H3K27me3 in Drosophila embryogenesis

Emily Czajkowski

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Wignall
• Research Topic: Investigating the components of spindle assembly and stability that allow for faithful chromosome segregation in C. elegans and M. musculus

Eleanor Degen

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Blythe
• Research Topic: Spatiotemporal gene regulation by the Bicoid morphogen

Omar De León Vélez

• Entry Year: 2022

Simrita Deol

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Leonard
• Research Topic: Developing next-generation natural killer cell-based therapies through evaluation of tumor targeting strategies, therapeutic outputs, and signal integration strategies

Stephenie Droll

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Bao
• Research Topic: Characterizing two putative tumor suppressors in epidermal homeostasis and cancer progression

Elizabeth Duvall

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Braun
• Research Topic: Temporal network-based analysis using gene coordination and activity level to identify influential networks

Emily Faul

• Entry Year: 2022

Connor Forsyth

• Entry Year: 2022
• Lab: Mirkin
• Research Topic: Immunotherapeutic cGAS agonist DNA dendrons for the treatment of leptomeningeal metastasis

Tina (Jiayu) Fu

• Entry Year: 2022

Tiffany Ge

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Brickner

Natalie Gilbert

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Blythe
• Research Topic: Investigation into the role of chromatin dynamics in IFN-stimulated gene transcription

Yichen Gong

• Entry Year: 2022

Brent Groubert

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Brickner
• Research Topic: Defining the molecular mechanism of epigenetic inheritance of H3K4me2 during transcriptional memory

Elias (Qingxu) Guan

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Petersen
• Research Topic: Understanding the effect of directional and positional input for planarian wound response and regeneration

Qingyue Guo

• Entry Year: 2022

Clare Harper

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Lackner
• Research Topic: Uncovering novel roles of MECA in cellular and mitochondrial function

Zhuoling He

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Bozza
• Research Topic: Cell type specification and gene choice bias in the mouse main olfactory system

Laura Hertz

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Lucks
• Research Topic: Investigating distinct structures within the fluoride riboswitch to understand the dynamic cotranscriptional folding process

Patric Ho

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Bao
• Research Topic: Characterization of GATAD2A-NuRD and its interaction with the BAF complex in regulating epidermal homeostasis

Hannah Horton

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Wignall
• Research Topic: Bivalent organization and role in acentrosomal spindle architecture in Caenorhabditis elegans oocyte meiosis

Richard Hwang

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Lee
• Research Topic: Motion sickness signals in cerebrospinal fluid

Chloe Jackson

• Entry Year: 2022

Alexis Jacob

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Brickner
• Research Topic: How nucleoporin-dependent spatial organization of the yeast genome impacts transcription

Jamal Jenkins

• Entry Year: 2022

Jenna Jouandet

• Entry Year: 2011
• Lab: Gallio
• Research Topic: Higher order processing of temperature and humidity stimuli in the Drosophila brain

Rivaan Kakkaramadam

• Entry Year: 2022

Alexandra Karagiaridi

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Pinkett
• Research Topic: Characterizing the complex assemblies and transport mechanism of the non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae ABC Sap transporter

Nolan Kennedy

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Tullman-Ercek
• Research Topic: Investigating three functions of 1,2-propanediol utilization bacterial microcompartment shell proteins

Tim (Young Jun) Kim

• Entry Year: 2022

Daniel Kranz

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Klein
• Research Topic: Spatiotemporal characterization of amyloid beta oligomer proteoforms in Alzheimer's disease

Kyle Krueger

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Petersen
• Research Topic: Uncovering deeply-conserved genetic regulators of neoblasts in Hofstenia miamia

Tiffany Kuo

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Backman
• Research Topic: Studying the interplay between chromatin conformation, genome connectivity, and transcription in a gene-specific manner

Marie Lamarque

• Entry Year: 2022

Julie Ming Liang

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Tullman-Ercek
• Research Topic: Elucidating the roles of environmental and genetic factors in SPl-1 type three secretion system pathway expression and secretion

Shiqi Liang

• Entry Year: 2022

Andrew Liu

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Carthew
• Research Topic: Growth control of Drosophila melanogaster wings

Katherine Lo

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Petersen
• Research Topic: Investigating the role of wound-induced genes in planarian regeneration

Weifeng Lu

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: He
• Research Topic: NHEJ in the context of chromatin

Anika Marand

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Lane
• Research Topic: Investigating the dynamics of phoP expression during Salmonella infection

Jordy Martinez

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Wignall
• Research Topic: Investigating the role of the Ring Complex (RC) in meiotic spindle architecture using C. elegans oocytes

Meghan Masotti

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Kozorovitskiy
• Research Topic: Genetically targeted striatal proteomics across development in a mouse model of autism spectrum disorder

Ryan McKeown

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Andersen
• Research Topic: Comparative genome-wide association studies of telomere length variation in selfing Caenorhabditis

Karla Medina

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Backman
• Research Topic: Does chromatin conformation control ovarian cancer stem cell plasticity?

Jacob Miller

• Entry Year: 2022

Andrew Montequin

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: LaBonne
• Research Topic: Patterning the vertebrate neuroectoderm

Nicolas Moya

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Andersen
• Research Topic: The origins of Caenorhabditis briggsae hyperdivergent genomic regions

Juhi Narula

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Wignall
• Research Topic: Investigating the role of a conserved kinase in acentrosomal spindle organization using Caenorhabditis elegans oocytes

Amy Neely

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Bao
• Research Topic: Characterizing the role of nucleoporins in epidermal gene regulation

Tonatiuh Ocampo

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Mirkin
• Research Topic: Synthesis of virus-like particle spherical nucleic acids for enhanced therapeutics

Daniel (Jun Young) Oh

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Dombeck
• Research Topic: Immediate early gene Fos and Arc expression during CA1 place field formation

Brett Palmero

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Tullman-Ercek
• Research Topic: Determining the benefits of violacein pathway encapsulation in the 1,2-propanediol utilization bacterial microcompartment

Krishna Paranandi

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Mirkin
• Research Topic: Spherical nucleic acids as a disease-modifying therapy in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis

Jungsoo Park

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Mirkin
• Research Topic: Design and use of IDH1-targeting spherical nucleic acids with enhanced gene knockdown efficacy for glioblastoma multiforme

Stefan Pate

• Entry Year: 2022

Omar Payán Parra

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Yang
• Research Topic: Studying the formation of long-distance genomic interactions during mouse cerebellar development

Aldeb Perera

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Allada
• Research Topic: Identifying the genetic and cellular basis of sleep homeostasis in sNPF+ neurons

Riley Popp

• Entry Year: 2022

Emily Pujadas

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Backman
• Research Topic: Genome-wide transcriptional engineering through the regulation of the physical structure of chromatin

Anthony Pulvino

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Amato
• Research Topic: Primate microbiota metabolites and endogenous retrovirus interactions in mouse epithelial cells

Rebecca Rasmussen

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: O'Halloran/Lucks
• Research Topic: Zur- and zinc-mediated ribosomal protein regulation in Escherichia coli

Michael Ray

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Lackner
• Research Topic: Investigating the molecular mechanisms of organelle inheritance and asymmetric fitness-based organelle partitioning

Reyvin Reyes

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Rosenzweig
• Research Topic: Characterizing biosynthetic enzymes involved in the production of methanobactin

Reese Richardson

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Amaral
• Research Topic: Identifying bias and improving reproducibility in RNA sequencing computational pipelines

Sara Rigney

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: LaBonne
• Research Topic: Understanding the role of cell heterogeneity in pluripotency, lineage restriction and the establishment of neural crest cells

Kristen Rivera

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Pinkett
• Research Topic: Structural and biochemical investigation of the nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae Sap ABC transporter mechanism of selectivity and transport

Erica Rosario

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Lackner
• Research Topic: Investigating the roles membrane properties and architecture have on membrane contact site formation and function

Yannick Schreiber

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Leonard
• Research Topic: Development of tunable microenvironment-responsive CAR-T cells using synthetic gene circuits to enhance potency and safety

Nicolas Scrutton Alvarado

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Yang
• Research Topic: Characterization of a novel neuronal-specific nuclear subcompartment and its mechanism of formation in the mouse cerebellum

Zachary Shaver

• Entry Year: 2022
• Lab: Jewett/Kamat
• Research Topic: Enhancing the immunogenicity of glycoconjugate vaccines through rational carrier protein design and conjugation to synthetic vesicles

Gracie Siffer

• Entry Year: 2022

Madison Spratt

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Lane
• Research Topic: Characterizing the dynamics of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium virulence expression at the single-cell level

Taojunfeng Su

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Kelleher
• Research Topic: Characterization of IDH1 proteoform signatures in cancer using top-down mass spectrometry-based proteogenomics

Jordan Summers

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Tullman-Ercek
• Research Topic: Investigating regulatory and structural elements of the type III secretion system for heterologous protein secretion

Jack Sumner

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Hartmann
• Research Topic: Pulmonary pressures: identifying lung microbiome structure, function, and dynamics

Anna Talyzina

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: He
• Research Topic: Structural characterization of RNA Polymerase II and RNA Polymerase III transcription initiation using cryo-EM

Elijah Taylor

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Mondragón
• Research Topic: A single-molecule approach to observe domain movement dynamics in type IA topoisomerases

Arielle Thames

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Jewett
• Research Topic: Developing the synthetic biologist's toolbox for targeting Siglecs for the treatment of mast cell-mediated diseases

Yiren Tu

• Entry Year: 2021
• Lab: Wang/Vafabakhsh
• Research Topic: An optogenetic investigation of the native chromatin accessibility

Frank Tucci

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Rosenzweig
• Research Topic: Investigating the role of the membrane in particulate methane monooxygenase (pMMO) structure and function

Syed Uddin

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Lee
• Research Topic: Deciphering taste coding in the taste bud

D. Jake VanBelzen

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Brickner
• Research Topic: The molecular requirements and ubiquity of RNAPII promoter poising in epigenetic transcriptional memory

Citlayi Villaseñor

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Kamat
• Research Topic: The lipid bilayer's role in membrane protein folding, structure, and function

Alex Vogt

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: He
• Research Topic: Biochemical and structural investigation of end processing in NHEJ

Cole Wilson

• Entry Year: 2022

Brett Wisniewski

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Lackner
• Research Topic: Uncovering novel functions and regulators of the mitochondrial fission protein Dnm1 using cell biological, biochemical, and structural approaches

Bingxian Xu

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Braun
• Research Topic: Unveiling regulatory networks using dynamic circadian gene expression

Feihong Xu

• Entry Year: 2020
• Lab: Amaral
• Research Topic: Severe pneumonia subtyping and prognosis from multi-omics data and electronic health records

Hang Yang

• Entry Year: 2022

Yue Yu

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Lee
• Research Topic: Function of taste in regulating feeding behaviors

Janet Zhao

• Entry Year: 2022

Ziyu Zhao

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Yang
• Research Topic: Investigation of the organization and regulation mechanism of megaloops in mouse cerebellum