Paige is a second-year PhD student of the Reynolds lab studying the impacts of epigenetics and food insecurity on human health.

Marcela is a fourth year PhD candidate studying anthropology.

I am a biochemistry graduate student in the Shaw Lab focusing on RNA and RNA modifications. Additionally, I focus on making the chemistry lab and science materials more accessible to the blind and visually impaired. I work with people with blindness or low vision and help them to feel more confident in scientific careers. 

I am a biochemistry graduate student in the Trakselis Lab, focused on DNA replication and repair fundamentals. DNA replication is the process of copying genetic material for cell division, and the accuracy of this process is vital since DNA is the the instructions that tell your body how to make protein machines and how to function. If anything in this process goes wrong, it can cause mutations that lead to cancer and other issues. I want to study how the replication machinery works to make sure those mutations don’t happen! Specifically, I study the E. coli Polymerase III Core Holoenzyme, which is responsible for the replication, or synthesis, of new DNA strands. I observe changes in activity of the wild type verses several mutants, which I create using site directed mutagenesis techniques. 

Mayte is a third year graduate student in the Shaw Lab studying various metalloproteins and how the metals affect the protein. Specifically, I look at a protein involved in a neurodegenerative disease, ALS, and the formation of its aggregates into amyloid.

Thushani is a second-year graduate student in the Trakselis Lab studying biochemistry!

Chloë is a third-year Chemistry PhD student in the the Kane Laboratory. Her research is focused on developing localized drug delivery systems.

Colin is a second-year graduate student in the Blair Lab. He does research in machine learning, quantum computing, and computer science. His current research projects involve the design and simulation of molecular computing systems. He is also doing research in the area of material discovery, researching how machine learning can be applied to the problem of discovering new materials like superconductors, which have useful quantum properties. He is in PYPhD in order to improve his communication skills and to contribute to increasing scientific literacy and participation in STEM-based activities.

Coming soon! Check back for updates.

Nick is a 5th year PhD student with the Planetary Research Group studying the planetary geophysics. He studies the inside of Mars using gravity and topography measurements along with modeling techniques. This data analysis and modeling work can help figure out what is happening inside the red planet and what it means for how the planet has evolved over the last 4 billion years.

Kayla is a second-year Ph.D. student in Dr. Joseph Taube’s Lab studying breast cancer. Breast cancer is known to affect 1 in every 8 women. Being a woman herself, she became motivated to understand the mechanisms by which metastasis arises. Through the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, the cells undergo a dramatic change in structure, motility, and protein expression. She is interested in understanding how the cell can modify the DNA, without modifying the genomic sequence. Understanding epigenetic regulation provides insight as to what proteins interact with the DNA, what part of the DNA is considered a ‘hot spot’ for protein binding, and how chromatin accessibility controls the entire process.

As drug-resistant infections (ex: MRSA) become more common, there is a need for other options to control these pathogens. We use proteins called antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) to kill bacteria in ways that prevent bacteria gaining resistance, compared to conventional methods. We also look forward with bioinformatics, a field of research that uses computing power to give us answers to biological questions. This is useful because it helps us monitor the bacteria of the microbiome to make sure we are only getting rid of the pathogenic bacteria while leaving the “good” bacteria behind, better understanding how bacteria work together.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the world now. Therapy resistance and metastasis are characters of HER2+ breast cancer. Non-cancerous cells surrounding the breast cancer are helping cancer cells to develop metastasis and drug resistance. Just as much as we have physical and biochemical responses to various stimuli in everyday life, cells respond the same way using their “feelers” or adhesion molecules. Kyaw is interested in studying these adhesion molecules of both cancer and non-cancerous cells to ultimately help breast cancer patients.

My research focuses on measuring important biomarkers of marine vertebrate physiology in tissues that grow throughout an animal’s life to understand how changes to their environment impact their health. Yelloweye rockfish live to be >100 years old and each year their opercula (bone that covers and protects their gills) lays down light and dark growth layers, similar to tree rings. Typically, these growth increments are used to age fish, however, I am measuring reproductive (progesterone and estradiol) and stress-related (cortisol) steroid hormones in these growth increments of female yelloweye rockfish to help estimate important fish reproductive parameters. Specifically, I am trying to estimate the age of sexual maturity, how often mature females spawn, and how their reproduction and stress physiology is impacted by changes to their environment. Lastly, I am measuring contaminants (total mercury) and other trace elements along the whiskers of a sentinel Antarctic species, the leopard seal, to understand the health of the leopard seal and its Antarctic ecosystem over the past two to three years. 

I am a biology PhD student in both the Powers and Scott Labs, focused on factors that drive harmful algal blooms and harmful cyanobacterial blooms. Specifically, I study the biogeochemical drivers of these blooms at different scales of size. While I now focus on freshwater, my past focus has been on the freshwater-to-marine continuum, meaning that I studied the interconnections between rivers, lakes, estuaries, coastal waters, and the oceans. I also have studied climate change through measuring diversity of insects across North America.

Roughly 100 years ago, Einstein came up with a new theory of gravity that succeeded all the previous ones. Apart from explaining everything with more accuracy it also had some remarkable predictions. One of them is the existence of Black holes. Despite all the criticism, we observed these exotic objects with the help of Gravitational waves in 2015. Recently we were also able to take a picture of a Black hole that is a million times heavier than our sun. Although our understanding of these objects has grown by leaps and bounds in these 100 years, we do not have a clear understanding of what happens inside a black hole. It is believed that we need a theory of quantum gravity to understand these regions. Although unfortunately, we do not have such a theory, scientists have been using semi-classical methods to study the interior of a black hole. My research is focused on these aspects

As you grow up some of your experiences may interact with your genes to affect how your brain develops. While the resulting product is the wonderful person you are today, sometimes this interaction can lead to the development of debilitating mental illnesses. How do some of these experiences influence brain growth? To what extent can they effect the way we behave as adults? Are they permanent? I work in the Lugo Lab, where we explore how epilepsy during childhood may contribute to the development of autism using rodent models.