Gibbons Lab Members

John G Gibbons (Principal Investigator)

John earned his BS in Biology from Keene State College, and his PhD in Biological Sciences from Vanderbilt University where he worked in the lab of Antonis Rokas. John was a postdoc at The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health where he worked with Bernardo Lemos. John was a faculty member in the Biology Department at Clark University for 4 years, before moving to the Department of Food Science at UMass. John is broadly interested in comparative and population genomics.

Kimberly Acevedo (PhD Student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)

Kim studies the evolutionary genomics of fungal domestication.

Adenike Adeyanju (PhD Student in Food Science)

Adenike studies the genetics of Listeria monocytogenes resistance to sanitizers.

Tyler Bechtel (PhD Student in Food Science)

Tyler is interested in using genomics and laboratory experiments to understand how the foodborne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes persists in the food environment.

Joe Ciurleo (Master's Student in Food Science)

Joe is interested in microbiome and sensory aspects of cocoa fermentation.

Cristina Ford (Master's Student in Molecular and Cellular Biology)

Cristina studies the genomics of antifungal resistance in Aspergillus fumigatus.

Colin McCarthy (Master's Student in Food Science)

Colin is interested in the sensory aspects of the koji mold Aspergillus oryzae.

Gibbons Lab Alumni

Katherine Chacon-Vargas (PhD (2022) Molecular and Cellular Biology)

Katherine is currently a genomics scientist at Synbiotic Health.

Shu Zhao (PhD (2021) Molecular and Cellular Biology)

Shu is currently a bioinformatics scientist International Flavors & Fragrances.

Julia Hershelman (Undergrad Researcher in Microbiology)

Julia is currently a PhD student in Ben Wolfe's lab @ Tufts