Blake Hill, Ph.D

Blake earned a B.A. in chemistry from Kalamazoo College with a minor in biology. His undergraduate thesis at the NIH was under the direction of Dr. Barry D. Albertson studying the effects of RU486 on adrenal steroidogenesis. After undergraduate, Blake worked as a research chemist in drug delivery for The Upjohn Pharmaceutical Company under the direction of Dr. Philip S. Burton developing models for gastrointestinal absorption of peptides and proteins. He earned his Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry at Yale University under the direction of Prof. James H. Prestegard, where he developed new methods for studying protein-protein interactions by NMR spectroscopy. Blake then studied protein design as a postdoc with Prof. William F. DeGrado at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He was an Associate Professor of Biology and Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University where he helped start the JHU Biomolecular NMR Center and the graduate training program at the interface of chemistry and biology (the CBI graduate training program). Blake was also an active member of the biology (CMDB) and biophysics (PMB) graduate training programs at JHU. Blake is now a Professor of Biochemistry at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, WI.

Ugo Ihenacho

Ugo received his B.S. in Biology (minor, Biochemistry) from Northwest Missouri State University. Ugo's research interests in Biochemistry includes canonical and non-canonical cell processes, including crosstalk, that are essential for determining cell death/survival following a transient cytotoxic/genotoxic insult. As for Cell Biology, he is interested in tunneling nano-tubes (TnTs) and their role in cell survival and tumorigenesis.

Kelsey Meacham

Kelsey received her B.S. in Biological Sciences (minor in nutrition) from the University of Alaska-Anchorage. As an undergraduate, she worked in Dr. Jason Burkhead's laboratory studying disruptions in zinc metabolism secondary to copper accumulation in Wilson's disease, as well as the role of copper deficiency in clinical liver disease. Kelsey's scientific interests include protein structure and function, structure-based drug design, mitochondrial dynamics, and cellular metabolism. Outside of science, Kelsey enjoys cooking, baking, gardening, and home-brewing.

Megan Cleland Harwig, Ph.D. (Research Scientist I)

Megan is from Sioux Falls, SD. She earned her B.S. from St. Cloud State University with a double major in Biochemistry and Biomedical Science. Megan earned her Ph.D. from the Graduate Partnerships Program between Johns Hopkins Biology Department and the National Institutes of Health. Her dissertation work "The Dynamic Regulation of Mitochondrial Morphology and Mitofusin Function by Bax" in the lab of Dr. Richard Youle allowed her to develop expertise in imaging mammalian mitochondria. After her Ph.D. work, Megan studied intermediate filaments in the lab of Dr. Bob Goldman at Northwestern University. See Megan's publications1 2 on pubmed.

Rafael Toro, MS (Research Associate II)

Rafael received his M.S. degree in Genetics from the University of Iowa. Rafael then spent over decade at Albert Einstein College of Medicine as Manager of Crystalization Operations and then as a Laboratory Manager. Rafael joined the Hill Lab in 2017.

Ailing Tong, MS (Research Associate II)

Ailing received her M.S. degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. Ailing joined the Hill Lab in 2019.

John Egner, Ph.D.

John is from Joliet, Illinois. He earned a B.A. from Carthage College with all-college honors in biology and neuroscience. While at Carthage, he monitored urban and rural bat activity to determine their preferred habitats with Dr. Deanna Byrnes. John continued his studies, along with his love of bats, by conducting a phylogenetic analysis on bats of the genus Dobsonia (fruit-eating bats, native to Papua New Guinea). Currently, he is a graduate student from the Interdisciplinary Program in Biomedical Science at Medical College of Wisconsin. His interest is in protein NMR spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, and the evolution of mitochondrial fission and fusion proteins. John completed his dissertation "Discovery of a novel conformation of human Fis1 important for ligang binding and activity" in 2019. John is now a Data Analyst at Farm Market iD.

Amber Bakkum, Ph.D.

Amber is from Winthrop Harbor, Illinois. She earned a B.A. from Carthage College with majors in physics and mathematics. During her undergraduate career, she studied the fluid dynamics of propellant slosh in zero gravity with Dr. Kevin Crosby. Amber led a team of undergraduate physics majors to NASA Johnson Space Center to conduct zero gravity research through the SEED program. She is currently a graduate student from the Interdisciplinary Program in Biomedical Science at Medical College of Wisconsin. Her interest is in protein NMR spectroscopy of membrane-bound mitochondrial fission proteins. Amber completed her dissertation "Structural studies of the human mitochondrial fission protein, Fis1" in 2018. Amber is now an Upper School Science teacher at the University School of Milwaukee.

Ammon E. Posey, Ph.D.

Ammon is from Salt Lake City, Utah. He earned a BS from Brigham Young University with a major in biophysics and a minor in art. While at BYU he studied the redox properties of ferritin protein with Dr. Gerald Watt. Ammon also spent two summers at NASA Langley Research Center exploring the use of redox proteins in bioelectronic devices. Following his undergraduate studies, Ammon studied medical and biological illustration at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and received an MA. Ammon completed his dissertation "Intrinsic disorder and amphitropism in the mitochondrial fission enzyme Drp1" in 2014 from the Program for Molecular Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University. Ammon is now a Research Scientist in Dr. Rohit Pappu's laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis.

Marijke Koppenol-Raab, Ph.D.

Marijke Koppenol-Raab earned her Diploma in biochemistry with emphasis on microbiology from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich. While at the ETH she worked on a biochemical characterization of various Fo subcomplexes of a bacterial sodium-translocating F1Fo ATP synthase in the lab of Dr. Peter Dimroth. Marijke completed her dissertation "Investigating the functional role of Fis1 interactions in membrane fission" in 2013 from the Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology and Biophysics program. Marijke completed a postdoc with Aleksandra Nita-Lazar in the Cellular Networks Proteomics Unit of the Laboratory of Systems Biology at NIAID/NIH where she used mass spectrometry-based proteomics and surface plasmon resonance to study sphingosine-1-phosphate-mediated chemotaxis. Marijke is now a Review Microbiologist with FDA/CDER.

Jonathan P.B. Lees, Ph.D.

Jonathan completed his dissertation "The Cytosolic Domain of Fis1 Forms a Kinetically Trapped Dimer that may be Involved in Mitochondrial Fission" in 2012. Jonathan is now a research scientist at PlantVax, Inc. in Baltimore, MD.

Robert C. Wells, Ph.D.

Rob completed his dissertation "The role of Fis1 in the recruitment of mitochondrial fission factors and its interaction with membranes" in 2011. Rob is now a Research Scientist at Denali Therapeutics.

Lora K. Picton, Ph.D.

Lora completed her dissertation "The Dynamic N-Terminal Arm of Fis1 Regulates Mitochondrial Fission" in 2010. Lora is now a Research Scientist in Chris Garcia's laboratory at Stanford/HHMI.

Fred J. Tan, Ph.D.

Fred completed his dissertation work "An Evolutionarily Conserved Role For C. Elegans Bcl-2 Homolog CED-9 at Mitochondrial Membranes" in 2007 and is now a member of the bioinformatics research faculty at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Embryology (Baltimore, MD).

Guru R. Thuddupathy, Ph.D.

Guru completed his dissertation work "Solution to Membrane Conformational Change of Bcl-xL (delta) TM" in 2005. He is now a Senior Scientist II / Manager at GlaxoSmithKline.