Mike did his undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana where he earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Molecular and Cellular Biology. He then did his PhD training in the lab of Heide Ford at the Unviersity of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where he studied the role of developmental transcription factors in late-stage metastasis. His postdoctoral training was in the labs of Joan Brugge and Senthil Muthuswamy at Harvard Medical School, where he studied early genomic alterations in normal breast tissue and drug resistance in ER+ breast cancer.

Fun Fact: Mike is an avid retro sneaker collector! 

Ashley did her undergrad training at the University of Colorado Springs where she earned her Bachelor’s in Biomedical Sciences and her Master’s in Molecular and Cellular Biology. She studied how dysfunctional RNA binding proteins can contribute to neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative phenotypes in Drosophila Melanogaster. She is stoked to enter the field of cancer biology under the training of Mike to prepare for grad school in the future!  

Fun fact: Ashley can do cool tricks with nunchucks. 

Katie did her undergraduate studies at the University of Bath in the UK where she completed her Bachelors (Hons) degree in Biomedical Science with a year working in Industry. During her year in industry, she worked in the lab of Fabio Rossi under Dr. Marine Theret at UBC in Canada. Her main research project investigated the effects of TAK1 in aging and inflammation in different immune cell populations. In her final year, her honours dissertation focused on investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying Tau-induced neurodegeneration. She is excited to be a part of the Oliphant lab and breakthrough into the cancer biology field and continue to develop her skills and knowledge.

Fun fact: Katie is a certified snowboard instructor