People

I grew up near the Finger Lakes and Lake Ontario in upstate New York. I did my Ph.D. at MIT studying genome evolution in Prochlorococcus, the most abundant photosynthetic organism on Earth. I then did a postdoc at Caltech where I learned a lot about microbiology and genetics while working on hopanoid lipids and iron oxidizing microbes. My current research interests include microbial adaptation to climate change and virus-host coevolution.

My undergrad major was Geo-Biology and since then I have been curious about the interaction between biology and its surroundings. More precisely I want to conduct research that brings us closer to understanding how microbes shape and are shaped by their environment. This had led me to conducting research on the Great Lakes microbial community and its potential response to climate change. 

I am happy to answer questions about STEM or to talk about my experience as a first generation and woman in STEM. 

I like organizing outreach events for younger students and participating in student organizations. I also spend time playing games like Among Us and Wordle!  

Jessi is interested in how environmental context shapes microbial genomes and the ways in which molecular processes scale to influence ecosystem function. Her current work explores patterns of microdiversity in deepwater-adapted Chloroflexi in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Previously, she studied environmental science as an undergraduate at Temple University and worked as a lab technician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia/UPenn where she studied gut-microbial interactions in the context of C. difficile infection.

I am a PhD student in the Committee on Microbiology originally from upstate New York. I originally became interested in environmental microbiology studying cool systems like the Hudson River Estuary, meromictic Green Lake, and now the Laurentian Great Lakes! In the lab, I am interested in studying the genetics of microbes with unique metabolic traits such as aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria (AAPs), as well as nitrifiers, in order to learn more about their ecological roles in aquatic environments.

I graduated from Johns Hopkins university with a BSc in Molecular and Cellular Biology where I studied how the metabolism of microbes are influenced by artificial aeration systems. I'm interested in combining computational and experimental techniques to study aquatic microbial communities, including the viruses of the Great Lakes!

I graduated from UC Santa Barbara where I studied microbiology. Then I worked for a biotech startup for three years in the Bay Area.

Carlos is a third-year undergraduate majoring in biology and geophysical sciences.