Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Graduate Students

Ryan Abdella

• Entry Year: 2014
• Lab: He
• Research Topic: Structure-function studies of human mediator in transcription initiation

Lauren Adams

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Kelleher
• Research Topic: Top-down proteomic characterization of RAS proteoform signatures in cancer

Pamela Agbu

• Entry Year: 2012
• Lab: Carthew
• Research Topic: A role for microRNA miR-7 in insulin regulation

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

Heidi (Schmit) Anderson

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Lackner
• Research Topic: Investigating the role of mitochondria and altered cytoplasmic dynamics in the asymmetric retention of heat shock aggregates

Xavier Anderson

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Petersen

Rachael Bakker

• Entry Year: 2013
• Lab: Carthew
• Research Topic: Effects of miRNA regulation on gene expression heterogeneity in dynamic developmental networks

Katherine Berman

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

Ronald Biggs

• Entry Year: 2014
• Lab: Marko
• Research Topic: Understanding the function of SMC complexes, topoisomerase II and histone post-translational modifications in controlling the structure and mechanics of mitotic chromosomes

Jonathan Boucher

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

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

Matthew Capek

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Gallio

Gabriel Cavin

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Wignall
• Research Topic: The roles of Ran GTPase and Aurora A Kinase in C. elegans acentriolar meiotic spindle assembly

Siyu Chen

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: He
• Research Topic: Structural visualization of key intermediates in the NHEJ pathway by single particle cryo-EM

WeiTing Chen

• Entry Year: 2014
• Lab: Lackner
• Research Topic: Investigating the mechanism of Mmr1-dependent mitochondrial inheritance

Luyi Cheng

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Lucks
• Research Topic: Uncovering the role of cotranscriptional folding in riboswitches

Liyushang Chou

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Mirkin
• Research Topic: Developing immunotherapy targeting immune suppression using spherical nucleic acids (SNAs)

Eleanor Clark

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Petersen

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: Understanding the role of M2 ipRGCs in behavior

William Corcoran

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

Emma Coughlin

• Entry Year: 2014
• Lab: Odom
• Research Topic: Exploring androgen resistance in prostate cancer

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

Nicolas Daffern

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Radhakrishnan
• Research Topic: Dynamics and evolution in the NR5A sub-family of nuclear receptors

Eleanor Degen

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Blythe

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

Alexandra de Paz

• Entry Year: 2012
• Lab: Tyo
• Research Topic: An investigation of environmental, sequence-based, and structural determinants of DNA polymerase fidelity

Clayton Dilks

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Andersen
• Research Topic: Genetic mechanisms of benzimidazole resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans

Nikita Divekar

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Wignall
• Research Topic: Characterizing the ring complex in C. elegans oocyte meiosis

Patrick Donahue

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Leonard
• Research Topic: Enabling cell-based therapy through an investigation of myeloid cell environmental signal processing

Stephenie Droll

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

Vasin Dumrongprechachan

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Kozorovitskiy
• Research Topic: Genetically-targeted neuroproteomics of striatal neuromodulation

Katie Evans

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Andersen
• Research Topic: Natural genetic variation underlies toxin responses in Caenorhabditis elegans

Blake Everett

• Entry Year: 2019

Molly Frey

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Scott
• Research Topic: Immunotheranostic probing of the pancreatic cancer microenvironment with nanocarriers possessing spion-loaded biomimetic ligand coronas

Kevin Gallagher

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Carthew
• Research Topic: Morphology directed fate specification during the retinal patterning of Drosophila melanogaster

Natalie Gilbert

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

Ritika Giri

• Entry Year: 2011
• Lab: Carthew
• Research Topic: Quantitative profiling of microRNA

David Gittin

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Petersen
• Research Topic: The role of wound-induced gene expression in planarian regeneration

Clare Harper

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

Laura Hertz

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Lucks

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: Investigating the functional roles of ring complex components in C. elegans oocyte meiosis

Miranda Jacobs

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Kamat
• Research Topic: Investigating how membrane mechanics affect the expression, folding, and function of a model mechanosensitive channel protein

Kristin Johnson

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: LaBonne
• Research Topic: Role of DNA and histone methylation in the maintenance of pluripotency

Jenna Jouandet

• Entry Year: 2011
• Lab: Gallio
• Research Topic: Neural substrates of decision making in Drosophila melanogaster

Alexander Karge

• Entry Year: 2013
• Lab: Petersen
• Research Topic: Determining the function of bruton's tyrosine kinase in controlling cell number in planarian regeneration

Nolan Kennedy

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

Emmie Knobloch

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Petersen

Christopher Koo

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Rosenzweig
• Research Topic: Heterologous approaches to the characterization of particulate methane monooxygenase

Daniel Kranz

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Klein

Isaac Larkin

• Entry Year: 2014
• Lab: Mirkin
• Research Topic: Delivering CRISPR to understand SNAs

Alexander Lee

• Entry Year: 2019

Jessica Lenoir

• Entry Year: 2014
• Lab: Horvath
• Research Topic: Negative regulation of TRAF proteins by the immune regulator LGP2

Julie Liang

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Tullman-Ercek
• Research Topic: Elucidating the roles of SPI-1 type three secretion system proteins in regulation and secretion

Brandon Liauw

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Vafabakhsh
• Research Topic: Characterizing conformational and interaction dynamics of metabotropic glutamate receptor 1

Andrew Liu

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

Sarah Lloyd

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Bao
• Research Topic: Characterization of RNA polymerase II pausing as an essential mechanism for regulating epidermal gene expression

Katherine Lo

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Petersen

Jasmine Lucas

• Entry Year: 2014
• Lab: Schmidt
• Research Topic: The properties and roles of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells during retinal development

Huijue Lyu

• Entry Year: 2019

Alexander McFarland

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Hartmann
• Research Topic: Examining the role of multidrug-efflux pumps in conferring tolerance to biocides and antibiotics in the indoor microbiome

Andrew Montequin

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

Nicolas Moya

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Andersen

Joseph Muldoon

• Entry Year: 2013
• Lab: Bagheri/Leonard
• Research Topic: Model-guided rewiring of innate functions in immune cell populations

Juhi Narula

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Wignall

Amy Neely

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

Joy Nyaanga

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Andersen/Mangan
• Research Topic: Impact of dietary variation on phenotypic plasticity in developing Caenorhabditis elegans

Jun Young (Daniel) Oh

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Dombeck

Krishna Paranandi

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Mirkin

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

Omar Payán Parra

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Yang

Emily Pujadas

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Backman

Idalis Ramirez

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Morimoto

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

Alexis Reyes

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: He
• Research Topic: Structure and function studies of RSC-mediated chromatin remodeling

Reyvin Reyes

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Rosenzweig

Reese Richardson

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Amaral

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

Kaleigh Roberts

• Entry Year: 2013
• Lab: Meade
• Research Topic: Cobalt(III) Schiff base complexes as inhibitors of metal-mediated amyloid-ß toxicity in Alzheimer's disease

Matthew Robey

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Kelleher
• Research Topic: Largescale characterization of fungal secondary metabolites and their biosynthetic pathways

Grant Rybnicky

• Entry Year: 2017
• Lab: Jewett
• Research Topic: Elucidating the mechanisms of type I-B CRISPR-Cas systems in Clostridia species

Michael Schamber

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Vafabakhsh
• Research Topic: Complexity of the conformational dynamics and heterodimerization of the calcium-sensing receptor

Nicolas Scrutton Alvarado

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Yang

Jay Seeler

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: O'Halloran
• Research Topic: The role of EMI2 as a zinc-dependent regulator of meiosis

Madison Spratt

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Lane

Loraina Stinson

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Andersen

Taojunfeng Su

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Kelleher

Aaron Sue

• Entry Year: 2012
• Lab: O'Halloran
• Research Topic: Modulating protein folding through intertissue chaperone signaling

Michael Sumner

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Brickner
• Research Topic: Quantifying chromatin dynamics

Bethany Sump

• Entry Year: 2016
• Lab: Brickner
• Research Topic: Mechanisms of epigenetic transcriptional memory in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Anna Talyzina

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: He

Elijah Taylor

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Mondragón

Arielle Thames

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Jewett
• Research Topic: Tolerance, toxins, and titers: interrogating the biology of glycan-mediated immune modulation in three therapeutic spaces

Frank Tucci

• Entry Year: 2019
• Lab: Rosenzweig

D. Jake VanBelzen

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

Matthew Verosloff

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Lucks
• Research Topic: The impacts of sequence and structure on regulatory RNA function

Antoineen White

• Entry Year: 2015
• Lab: Lackner
• Research Topic: Functional characterization of novel proteins involved in membrane trafficking

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

Ian Wolff

• Entry Year: 2013
• Lab: Wignall
• Research Topic: Characterization of Kinesin-12/KLP-18 activity essential for acentrosomal meiotic spindle assembly in C. elegans

Yue Yu

• Entry Year: 2018
• Lab: Lee

Ziyu Zhao

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