SLU Biology Alumni Highlights

I am a Senior Clinical Genetic Counselor in the the Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health at University of Wisconsin-Madison.  My primary role is to provide genetic evaluation, testing, counseling, result interpretation and suport for patients with inherited arrhythmia, cardiomyopathy, and dyslipidemia syndromes.  I teach cardiac genetics to graduate students, residents and cardiac fellows and do clinical supervision in the genetic counseling graduate program.  I also coordinate research studies involving iPS cell models of cardiac disease in conjunction with the Cellular and Molecular Arrhythmia Research Program (CMARP) at UW-Madison.  

Websites:

https://www.wigca.org/our-team

https://www.medicine.wisc.edu/cmarp/cellular-and-molecular-arrhythmia-research

I am currently a research scientist at Virginia Tech in the department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation after earning my M.S. in Biology from University of Maryland, College Park and my PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Alabama. I am interested in understanding how climate and habitat management interact to affect populations while still allowing for sustainable yield and non-commodity values for land managers. My research focuses on reptile and amphibian species in both the Southern Appalachian region and the Florida panhandle. In addition to research, I have also co-authored five international popular science books, including a New York Times best seller, I am a consultant on two science-based educational programs for kids, and I have appeared on local and national television and radio shows including Science Friday and The Doctors.

Website: carusonm.weebly.com

photo credit: Stacey Kuhar

Kanika A. Turner, MD, MPH is a native of St. Louis and has served as a board-certified Family Medicine physician at Family Care Health Center since August 2017 and Associate Medical Director of the Carondelet site since March 2019 and clinical faculty to SLU Department of Family and Community Medicine. She is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honors Society and serves as a consulting physician to Missouri State Opioid Response Team. She was instrumental in helping to build the Faith Based Opioid Initiative engaging communities of faith, primarily in African American neighborhoods, in St. Louis to increase awareness to resources and treatment given the current Opioid overdose crisis. Dr. Turner has a passion for serving the urban and underserved community by increasing access to primary care services, and decreasing disparities and inequities for communities of color.

I would like to share the following websites:

https://www.nomodeaths.org/

https://time2actmissouri.com/

After graduating from SLU in 2009 with a BS in Biology, I completed a PhD at Washington University in St. Louis in Molecular Cell Biology on the role of RNAs in obesity and diabetes. I then did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Immunology and Epigenetics in Germany studying the metabolism of adipocytes following bacterial infection. In 2019, I joined the team at Nature Metabolism as an Associate Editor, and in 2021 was made Senior Editor for metabolism and cardiovascular biology at Nature.

Here is the link to the Nature about the editors page that has my contact info: https://www.nature.com/nature/editors   

You can also follow me on Twitter: @curiousdrgeorge

For most of my career, I worked in research for Washington University in St. Louis and Saint Louis University studying axonal degeneration and molecular pathways behind anti-inflammatory responses in respiratory diseases.  During that time, I was included as an author on eight published papers in notable scientific publications.  In the past few years, however, I made a move to clinical laboratory work.  I now work as a clinical laboratory scientist specializing in molecular biology and microbiology for SSM.  I earned my certification through ASCP in 2020 for molecular biology.  I split my time working up patient bacterial cultures and running qualitative and quantitative viral clinical molecular testing, including for COVID-19.  

Here is a link to my LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-royse-93341948/ 

Here is a link to the American Society for Clinical Pathology: https://www.ascp.org/content/home 

After graduating from SLU in 2012, I got my Master of Science in Biology from The University of Hawaii at Manoa researching population genetics of softshell turtles. I briefly worked as a field technician surveying desert tortoises in the Mojave desert. Then, I completed my PhD in Biology at The University of Melbourne in Australia researching hybridization and speciation between dragon lizards (Ctenophorus decresii and C. modestus). I studied their visual systems, the fitness of hybrid offspring, and spent months conducting field surveys of wild populations in South Australia. Last year (2020), I moved to Tulane University in New Orleans where I'm currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department.

My personal website is "www.carolinedong.com" and my Twitter handle is "@colorfulagamids"

The photo above is from when I was conducting field surveys of lizards in South Australia in 2017.

Paul is currently a full-time Senior Instructor position at the University of Colorado Denver, where he teaches the general biology sequence. His PhD focused on multicultural science education, with an emphasis on how students construct science identities and ways in which science classrooms can foster meaningful opportunities to facilitate personal affinities to science. Some of his current projects include understanding (1) persistence and resilience in women of color pursuing computer science, (2) the types of resources and barriers that community college students experience in science education throughout their lives, and (3) community college faculty implementation of inclusive STEM teaching and pedagogy. 

Faculty email: paul.le@ucdenver.edu

I am a Research Leader in the team of Sustainable Use, Seeds and Solutions (Ecosystem Stewardship Priority) at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. I develop plant and fungal diversity approaches to support communities in locations and economies where nutritional, income and biodiversity issues are of paramount importance. I lead research projects based in tropical developing countries, primarily in Latin America, focused on studying utilized, neglected and underutilized plants. My projects are interdisciplinary in approach, integrating economic botany, ethnobotany, systematics, macroevolution, biogeography, restoration, and conservation biology. I am also interested in how climate change is affecting useful plants and the related ecosystem services.

• Institutional website: https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/people/mauricio-diazgranados-cadelo 

• Personal academic website: http://mauricio-diazgranados.com/

• Main current project: https://www.kew.org/upfc, http://colplanta.org/, http://colplanta.org/

• Some notes in the news: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/30/americas/mauricio-diazgranados-colombia-biodiversity-c2e-spc/index.html, https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-55830179

• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mauricio-Diazgranados

I am a postdoctoral scholar at the Department of Geosciences and Department of Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University.  My work is focused on understanding the impact of climatic variability and humans on tropical ecosystems across time. I study how climate and humans have impacted ecosystems over a short- (decades) and long-term scale (centuries and thousands of years) and how resilient are ecosystems to disturbance. The information contributes with a paleoecological outlook into an ecological problem that is critical for understanding not only how tropical ecosystems responded to changes in climatic conditions and habitat transformation over time but also bear on modern issues of how both vegetation and human societies will respond to the intensification of extreme climatic events.

Research Gate Profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alejandra-Domic 

Recent Awards

2019 Marie Curie award for women scientists granted by the National Academy of Sciences of Bolivia

2018 – present Young Affiliate Member of TWAS LACREP (TWAS Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Partner).

After my time at SLU, I continued my biological education by pursuing a PhD at University of Missouri. At Mizzou, my research explored how intracellular calcium modulates the kinetics of voltage-gated sodium channels in respiratory pace making neurons. Since graduation, I've been working for a Neuroscience company where I continue to converse with researchers about electrophysiology and multiphoton imaging systems. Working at a small company has been great, as I've been able to see all sides of international business, from sales and marketing to product design and implementation. I am always eager to learn and talk with people, so please reach out. 

Here's a great database to explore and learn more about Biology and Neuroscience: https://videocast.nih.gov/PastEvents?c=16 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marco-navarro-stokasticchannel/ 

Following SLU, I was a Research and Study Fulbright Fellow at Irkutsk State University (Russian Federation). During my time in Irkutsk, I worked at the Biological Research Institute at ISU, where I studied  how endemic amphipods from Lake Baikal altered proteomic signatures in response to elevated temperatures and how zooplankton prey vulnerability to cyclopoid zooplankton predators can be influenced by temperature. 

Following ISU, I moved to Washington State University in Pullman, WA for my PhD in Environmental and Natural Resource Science. At WSU, I used data intensive and synthetic approaches to asses how nearshore communities in large, deep, naturally nutrient poor lakes responded sewage pollution. During this time, I used a breadth of techniques from text analysis through high-dimensional mixing models to evaluate how sewage pollution can not only change algal and invertebrate community composition but also influence food web interactions. During my time at WSU, I also engaged heavily in data-intensive environmental and biological sciences. This ranged from modeling antibacterial properties of snake venom to predicting Pharmaceutical concentrations in museum-preserved pollinators. This trajectory ultimately led me to lead the creation of the Global Lake area, Climate, and Population dataset, a compendium of annual permanent and seasonal lake surface area for over 1.42 million lakes globally from 1995 though 2015 with paired annual, basin-level air temperature, precipitation, and human population. 

Following WSU, I am currently a Mendenhall Fellow and Research Geographer at the U.S. Geological Survey's Hydrologic Remote Sensing Branch. At USGS, I lead teams focused on remote sensing of water quality, with particular emphasis on understanding emergent ecosystem processes from local-to-global spatial as well as daily-to-decadal temporal scales. My main work focuses evaluating changes in lake trophic status for more than 55,000 lakes across the contiguous United Sates from 1984 through 2020. Additionally, I co-lead initiatives in harmonizing a global zooplankton dataset that will include time series from over 200 lakes worldwide. 

Additionally, I am perhaps most proud to  be a co-founder of the Aquatic Data Science and Open Science (DSOS) Community of Practice, which brings together practitioners of data science, open science, and aquatic sciences in one space. Founded in 2020, I co-organize the Virtual Summit for Data Science and Open Science, which has brought together over 500 scientists from 50+ countries and 6 continents for 2 days of talks and panels about the nexus of DS, OS, and aquatic sciences. We also have live hands-on training courses in Remote Sensing, Numerical Modeling, Machine Learning, and Data Science annually, which are available at no cost to participants.  



In general, I define myself as a data-intensive, freshwater scientist and limnologist, who specializes in merging disparate, heterogeneous data sources together to tell cohesive data narratives about novel aquatic questions. 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mishafredmeyer 

500 Queer Scientists Profile: https://500queerscientists.com/michael-f-meyer/?ids=[5217] 

LGBT STEMcast: https://anchor.fm/lgbtqstemcast/episodes/Lakes--Plankton-and-more-with-Michael-Meyer-el920p 

Science Pawdcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-44-twisty-graphene-earthquake-animal-detection/id1470690214?i=1000500428828 

he/him/his

PhD in Biology, 2013

I'm currently a full-time Assistant Teaching Professor at George Washington University (GWU), teaching in the department of psychological and brain sciences. Previously, I was teaching Cell biology and immunology at Howard University, and Microbiology for multiple years at Catholic University of America (CUA). Before focusing on teaching, I was a research consultant, lab coordinator and research manager at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, where I also taught a graduate course of cellular and molecular biology to students in the medical sciences graduate program. I was also a staff scientist at Mount Sinai Hospital and NYU Langone medical center in New York city, before that. My research at the time focused on Autoimmune diseases generally, and focused on Lupus and Diabetes, specifically. 

LinkedIn: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.linkedin.com/in/haedarabuirqeba/__;!!K543PA!OY3bja7hpHKShrVkDsEHON-MvuuFCqEVPM1Mzz-wQ9bZ7wfxQkGHxJMjIOMszBdyLtaDqwwHqivbcw2CmSbfSz1X9h4$

Publications: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=haedar*abuirqeba__;Kw!!K543PA!OY3bja7hpHKShrVkDsEHON-MvuuFCqEVPM1Mzz-wQ9bZ7wfxQkGHxJMjIOMszBdyLtaDqwwHqivbcw2CmSbfoBLVSsc$ 

I am a postdoctoral fellow with the Fellowships in Research and Science Teaching (FIRST) Program at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. I work in the Civitello Lab, whose research spans multiple disciplines, including disease ecology, community ecology and biodiversity, consumer resource ecology, natural resource management, and theory. I am also a part of Levy Lab, which uses environmental microbiology and environmental epidemiology methods to address questions related to water, sanitation, and hygiene. My current projects are focused on characterizing the epidemiological impact of human-cattle hybrid schistosomes in Tanzania and elucidating patterns of diurnal variation of water quality indicators in the Chattahoochee River. In addition to my research, I developed and taught 'Parasites and Peoples: Can You Worm Your Way Out?', an upper-level parasitology and disease ecology course, at Morehouse College.

https://karenanguyen.wixsite.com/khnguyen

I am currently working as a research data analyst at University of California San Diego Health.  My work focuses on developing computational tools and pipelines to understand complex genetic variants that underlie human diseases and the contribution of these genetic variants to gene expression and other traits.

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yli09/

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JxqMgN4AAAAJ&hl=en 

Stanley Andrisse, MBA, PhD, is currently an assistant Professor at Howard University College of Medicine in the department of Physiology & Biophysics. 

Dysregulated hepatic glucose metabolism plays a pivotal role in the pathophysiology of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and insulin resistance. The pathways that regulate hepatic gluconeogenesis, glycogen synthesis, and glycogenolysis are complex. Increasing evidence from my work and others has revealed many intersecting pathways that influence the traditional PI3K/AKT insulin action pathway. Discovering these mechanistic interactions using cutting-edge molecular technologies is the focus of my research group. I employ the use of animal models, cell culture models and clinical collaborations. I have a strong history of mentoring trainees who are underrepresented in the sciences. 

• Faculty Page: https://medicine.howard.edu/physiology-and-biophysics/faculty/stanley-andrisse 

• PBS article: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/prison-education-stem-science-incarceration-criminal-justice/

• Nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03370-1 

he/him/his

PhD in Biology (Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics), 2014

I am currently a senior lecturer in the Department of Animal and Environmental Biology at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. I am doing an ecological study of the mangroves of the Niger Delta, where me and my students are sequencing leaves of different mangrove species. We are also studying the soil and water of remediated mangrove sites to test their suitability for agricultural purpose. 

Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aroloye-Numbere 

I am currently a psychologist at Burrell Behavioral Health, which is a community-based mental health center in Columbia, Missouri. I work primarily with children and adolescents, specializing in diagnostic evaluations for ADHD, mood/ behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, and developmental disabilities including Autism Spectrum Disorder. I also work directly with children and families in therapy to address a variety of needs, including history trauma, anxiety, depression, oppositional behavior, aggressive behaviors, executive functioning deficits, and social/emotional skill development. 

Currently, I'm a Process Development Associate at a Pharmaceutical Company that works on the COVID vaccine. It has been an insightful 2 years. I hope to make the third more impactful. 

Other than that, I am the current title holder for Miss Uganda North America.

The link to the leadership program is: https://www.missugnorthamerica.com . 

After graduating with my Master’s degree, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. degree in the lab of Dr. Shaun Brinsmade at Georgetown University where I work with the opportunistic human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. My current dissertation research seeks to understand mechanistically how the S. aureus global regulatory protein CodY controls the production of toxins and other secreted factors via the Sae two-component system. CodY and Sae are key players during skin and soft tissue infections caused by this bacterium.

• Lab website: https://brinsmadelab.com/people_current.php

• Twitter username/profile link: Alqahtanisaq (https://twitter.com/alqahtanisaq)

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shahad-alqahtani-6a5a2021b/

I am currently a PhD student at the Medical College of Wisconsin in the Tarakanova lab where we study host-virus interactions using the mouse Gammaherpesvirus, MHV68. 

link to our lab website:

https://www.mcw.edu/departments/microbiology-immunology/research/tarakanova-laboratory

link to Black in Microbiology:  https://www.blackinmicrobiology.org/ 

I am a Research and Development Specialist at Bayer Crop Science, formerly known as Monsanto. I work in the Controlled Environment team where we assist other Project Teams with growing and processing their plants. My job specifically, is to process all the seed from all the projects and communicate with the project leaders about any issues and ways to improve the quality of seed.

People can learn more about the crop science division of Bayer by checking out this link: https://www.cropscience.bayer.com/

Photo credit: Jessica Bernhardt 

Paige Muñiz is the manager in Scott McArt's lab in the Department of Entomology at Cornell University. While she still has a passion for urban ecology, she is currently working on projects looking at pathogen transmission within plant-pollinator networks. Her portion focusses on the taxonomy and identification of bees and combines both field and lab-based experiments. In addition, Paige helps identify bees for various projects and works with Brain Danforth's lab. More recently, she was named as the teaching assistant and coordinator for The National Bee Course of the American Museum of Natural History.

Department of Entomology at Cornell University: https://entomology.cals.cornell.edu/ 

National Bee Course: https://www.thebeecourse.org/ 

I am a Research Specialist and Laboratory Manager in Dr. Michael Diamond’s Laboratory at Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis. The primary goal of my research is to study the efficacy of vaccines and therapeutics against ancestral and emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2. As our Laboratory Manager, I am responsible for managerial oversight of ~30 graduate students, staff, and postdoctoral researchers as well as for maintaining day to day laboratory operations.

Websites I'd like to share:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=TZyI4FgAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&gmla=AJsN-F73YgYgdBmIfML3_dUlGUYYxS4IDPoCE9c3rP_DW5bqhH17wLhZinmlbykewTIqyHT5NDu3EtJ2xtnxBbxA4DH-nmY9qO3-3EAbhqxUMkJBDkhmMg4

https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/school-of-medicine-staff-members-honored-with-2020-2021-service-awards/

I am a scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific working in the Cell Culture Development group, focusing on the production of monoclonal antibody treatments for diseases such as COVID, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. 

My LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theelizabethwalker/ 

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at Chinese Academy of Sciences. I am working on applying evolutionary approaches to analyze large-scale lineage tracing data in somatic cells at single cell resolution.

Connect via Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZhaolianLu

I am currently working as a research scientist with the medical device company Medtronic. My days consist of executing algorithm research that contributes to leading innovation in implantable pacemakers and defibrillators, including the smallest adult pacemaker currently on the market.

Personal Website: https://ciarraanders.wixsite.com/ciarraanders

Website on devices my team has developed: https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/patients/treatments-therapies/pacemakers/our.html