People

PI: Andrea Swei, PhD

Professor of Biology

aswei -at- sfsu.edu

Current Appointments

Graduate program Coordinator, Department of Biology
Research fellow of the California Academy of Sciences
Associate Editor in Chief - Ecosphere: Disease Ecology section
Associate Editor - Royal Society Open Science
Ecological Society of America 2026 Meeting Program Co-Chair

Welcoming attendees to the 2026 Ecological Society of America meeting in Salt Lake City, UT.

Graduate students

Serena Chang

Genentech Scholar

Serena earned a B.S. in Environmental Science with a concentration in Environmental Systems and Society from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is interested in exploring how conservation science can be leveraged to reduce the impacts of emerging infectious diseases on human health. Her professional experience includes work in resource management and trail construction with Marin County Parks, where she contributed to habitat conservation and ecological stewardship projects. At the Swei Lab, her research examines how predator-driven trophic cascades influence Lyme disease transmission dynamics in the Bay Area.

Sofia Trinidad-Rivera, Genentech Scholar

Sofia received her B.S. in Biology from San Francisco State University. She is a Genentech scholar interested in vector-host interactions and the species specific response of gene expression to different bloodmeal interactions on ticks.

Keira Denlinger

Genentech Scholar

Keira earned her B.S in Biology (Concentrated in Physiology) and B.A. in Psychology from San Francisco State University (SFSU). As a graduate student, Keira study gene expression of mammal-fed tick salivary glands and how that can inform disease transmission.

Jennifer Louie

CDC Intern, PacVec intern, Genentech Scholar

Jennifer earned her B.S. in Biology with a concentration in Microbiology at San Francisco State University. Her research focuses on the development of molecular assays to identify bacterial co-infections in Ixodes pacificus.

Catherine Montoya-Quiroz

Genentech Scholar

Catherine received her B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology from SFSU. She is a Genentech Scholar interested in research that uses a proteomic analysis approach to identify a tick salivary protein present at the bite site during the early stages of tick feeding and that facilitates chemotaxis of the Borrelia burgdorferi spirochete.

Melody Sen

Genentech Scholar

Melody received a B.S. in Wildlife Conservation Biology and a B.A. in Ecology from the University of California, Davis. They are interested in how environmental change influences zoonotic disease dynamics. Currently, they investigate how reservoir host-targeted acaricide treatment impacts the prevalence of different medically significant species of Borrelia.

Undergraduate research assistants

Aryanah McAfee, Genentech scholar
Aaron Han, URISE scholar
Elizabeth Caoili
Komal Patel
Jasmine Lara, Genentech Scholar
Giselle Gatica
Jadyn Zapata, PINC summer scholar
Joselyn Barajas

Former Master's students

Timara Vereen (2025) Thesis:

Gerardo Ramos (2025) Thesis:

Alexander Esquivel (2025) Thesis:

Yuri Mahmoud (2025) Thesis:

Mariah Cuyson (2025): Thesis:

Maxwell Newton (2024) Thesis: "Rodent-targeted interventions to reduce the risk of Lyme disease in the western United States"

Shannon Summers (2024) Thesis: "Evaluation of species diversity metrics to predict Lyme disease"

Alice Truong (2024) Thesis: "Efficacy of a reservoir-targeted oral bait vaccine"

Grace Shaw (2022) Thesis: "Habitat connectivity and transmission dynamics of tick-borne diseases"

Jacoby Clark, NIH RISE fellow (2022) Thesis: "Climate influences pathogen and endosymbiont abundances in the Pacific Coast Tick."

Vincent Mai (2022) Thesis: "Molecular and niche modeling approaches to identify potential amplifying hosts for an emerging tick-borne pathogen Rickettsia 364D, the causative agent of Pacific Coast Tick Fever "

Marie Lilly (2021) Thesis: "Modeling the role of host diversity and habitat fragmentation on pathogen genotypic diversity"

Kacie Ring (2020) Thesis: "Vector transcriptomics and pathogen transmission"

Arielle Crews (Spring 2020) Thesis: "Drivers of genotypic variation in the Lyme disease pathogen, Borrelia burgdorferi"

Jordan Solomon, NIH RISE fellow (Spring 2020) Thesis: "Parasite aggregation interactions within small mammal hosts"

Samantha Sambado (Spring 2019) Thesis: "Elucidating the enzootic cycle of an emerging tick-borne disease, Borrelia miyamotoi, in Northern California"

Lisa Couper (Spring 2018) Thesis: "Determinants of vector competence for Lyme disease"

Kerry O'Connor (Fall 2018) Thesis: "Epidemiology of tick-borne parasites"

Jessica Kwan (Spring 2016) Thesis: "Ecological determinants of Ixodes pacificus microbiome"

Betsabel Chicana (Spring 2017) Thesis: "Transcriptomics of Borrelia burgdorferi and characterization of species -specific microbiome"

Past undergraduate students

2023-Adriel Evaristo (SF Build), Donovan Salvana, Raymond Herrera, Deborah Pereira (Genentech scholar), Caitlin Rillo (REU fellow)

2022-Thalia Fangon (Genentech Scholars Fellow), Joel Villalpando (CDC ORISE fellow), Isabella Mayotorena, Kymber Gastinelli, Kathy Hernandez, Maria Elysandra Concepcion, Georgia Hartmen, Mariah Cuyson, Bryan Hicks,

2021-Danielle Peterson, Sydni Mullen

2020- Nghia Nguyen, Monika Koczela-Stillman, Myles Peecher, Sophie Grengorius, Serena Barasi (Doris Duke Conservation Scholar Fellow),

2019- Thor Olsen, Adrienne Almarinez, Eric Seredian, Adrian Barrera-Velasquez, Rachel Grgich, Sukhman Sidhu, Laura Ann Hughes (NSF REU fellow on Career grant), Samira Ghazi, David Steckham

2018- Marick Buenafe, Steven Sun

2017-Vanessa Cabrera, Tiffany Hong, Jordan Salomon, Vahe Haroutounian, Phillip Galicinao, Amy Shon, Ives Rdialul (NIH Bridges to Baccalaureate fellow), Sarina Benavidez (NSF REU fellow)

2016- Shivang Mehta, William O'Neill, Joyce Ma, Jonathan Bertram, Enxhi Tahari (LSAMP fellow), Matthew Kumar (NIH Bridges to Baccalaureate fellow)

2015- Arnold Shir, Caitlin Miller, Liliana Cerna (NIH Bridges to the Baccalaureate fellow)

2014- Arturo Ruvalcaba (NIH Bridges to the Baccalaureate fellow), Stacey Porciuncula

2013- Kadie Ann Williams (LSAMP fellow)

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