Our Students

Angel Avalos

angavalos@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Bart Weimer
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Plant-microbe interactions, agricultural microbiomes, bioinformatics

 

Lalita Bechtold

lbechtold@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Andreas Bäumler
Undergraduate Institution: Freie University of Berlin
Research Interests: Host-microbe interactions, microbiomes, gut dysbiosis

 

Amelia Bennett

ambennett@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Angela Gelli
Undergraduate Institution: Cornell University
Research Interests: Host Microbe interactions of fungal pathogens

 

Jordan Boeck

jmboeck@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Heather Bischel
Undergraduate Institution: St. Mary’s College of California
Research Interests: Virus Proteomics and Wastewater-based Epidemiology

 

Lizbeth Camacho

lizcamacho@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Renee Tśolis
Undergraduate Institution: CSU Northridge
Research Interests: Host Microbe Interactions

 

Titash Chatterjee

tchatterj@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Heather Bischel
Undergraduate Institution: UC Santa Cruz
Research Interests: Wastewater Microbiome, Applied Environmental Microbiology, Microbial Ecology

 

Shawn Christensen

smchristensen@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Rachel Vannette
Undergraduate Institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Research Interests: Evolution, plant-pollinator-microbe interactions, microbial ecology, palynology (the study of pollen)

 

Mira Conyers

mmconyers@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Johan Leveau
Undergraduate Institution: Oberlin College
Research Interests: Plant-microbe interactions, endophytes, plant pathology

 

Christian Erikson

cberikson@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Jorge Rodrigues
Undergraduate Institution: San Diego State University
Research Interests: Community assembly in wildfire-affected soils, and forest and ag soil health

 

Julia Finestone

jfinestone@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: David Mills
Undergraduate Institution: Boston University
Research Interests: Probiotic bacteria, host-microbe interactions

 

Adam Fishburn

atfishburn@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Priya Shah
Undergraduate Institution: UC Merced
Research Interests: Tropical Infectious Diseases

 

Charles Graddy

cmgraddy@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Douglas Nelson
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Microbial ecology

 

Brittany Greenwood

bblankenship@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Christopher Simmons
Undergraduate Institution: Virginia Tech
Research Interests: Microbial interactions, microbial ecology, sustainable agriculture, plant pathology, biotechnology

 

Nicholas Hilton

nhilton@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Scott Dawson
Undergraduate Institution: Brown University
Research Interests: Eukaryotic parasites, cellular biology, host pathogen interaction

 

Hannah Houts

hehouts@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: C. Titus Brown
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Microbial evolution and ecology

 

Nithya Krishnakumar

nkumar@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Danielle Lamay
Undergraduate Institution: UC Davis
Research Interests: Diet, microbe, host interactions

 

Dylan Lanser

dmlanser@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Angela Gelli
Undergraduate Institution: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Research Interests: Host Microbe Interactions

 

Annika Lee

lhslee@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Su-Ju Lin
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Microbial metabolism and molecular genetics

 

Clancy Lee

cjulee@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Dennis Hartigan-O’Connor
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Berkeley
Research Interests: Interactions between host immune system and viruses as vectors for delivery of therapeutic technologies

 

Scott Mahan

spmahan@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Andreas Bäumler
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Gut microbiome research, bacterial pathogenesis

 

Kaylah Marcello

kmmarcello@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Dawn Sumner
Undergraduate Institution: Michigan State University
Research Interests: Host Microbe Interactions

 

Erin Markle

edmarkle@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Stefan Rothenburg
Undergraduate Institution: Colorado State University
Research Interests: Virology, biotechnology, and host-microbe interactions of viruses, specifically how viruses evade the host innate immune response

 

Stephanie Martinez-Beltran

smbeltran@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Jeroen Saeij
Undergraduate Institution: UC Riverside
Research Interests: Host-parasite interactions, neglected tropical diseases, and protozoan cellular/molecular biology

 

Courtney Mattson

clmattson@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Sam Díaz-Muñoz
Undergraduate Institution: University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Research Interests: Genetic exchange and evolution in segmented RNA bacteriophages

 

Claire Morris

clamorris@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Stephen McSorley
Undergraduate Institution: UC San Diego

 

Andres Orea

ajorea@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Angela Gelli
Undergraduate Institution: CSU Bakerfield
Research Interests: Eukaryotic pathogens, host pathogen interactions

 

Shruti Parikh

sparikh@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Christopher Simmons
Undergraduate Institution: University of Washington
Research Interests: Community ecology of microbes in food waste and agricultural systems, fungal-bacterial interactions, and sustainable agriculture

 

Sebastian Perez-Orozco

sjperezorozco@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Sebastian Winter
Undergraduate Institution: University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez
Research Interest: Host and microbe interactions, bacterial metabolism.

 

Tyler Powell

tpowell@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Dawn Sumner
Undergraduate Institution: California State, Los Angeles

 

Alycia Rasmussen

arrasmussen@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Johan Leveau
Undergraduate Institution: UC Davis

 

Abigail Ray

abray@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Bennett Penn
Undergraduate Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Research Interests: Host-microbe interactions, microbial ecology

 

Mary Riley

myriley@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: David Mills
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Molecular biology and physiology of microbes

 

Andrew Rogers

awrogers@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Andreas Bäumler
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Santa Cruz
Research Interests: Bacterial Pathogenesis, Biofilms, and Bacterial Physiology

 

Lezlie Rueda

lrueda@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Karen Shapiro
Undergraduate Institution: UC Davis
Research Interests: Zoonotic parasites, protozoan pathogen pollution, pathogen transmission dynamics

 

Eduardo Ruiz

emruiz@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Johan Leveau
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Davis
Research Interests: The biology and ecology of bacterial multicellularity, plant-microbe interactions

 

Muhammad Adil Salim

asalim@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Ilias Tagkopoulos
Undergraduate Institution: University of Peshawar
Research Interests: Microbial systems biology

 

Dino Sbardellati

dlsbardellati@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Rachel Vannette
Undergraduate Institution: Sonoma State University
Research Interests:

 

Cory Schlesener

cschlesener@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Bart Weimer
Undergraduate Institution: University of Texas, Austin
Research Interests: Microbial evolution and ecology

 

Subah Soni

susoni@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Pamela Ronald
Undergraduate Institution: Monmouth University
Research Interests: Environmental microbiomes, plant-microbe interactions, sustainability agriculture

 

Jessica Trinh

jetrinh@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Gitta Coaker
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Berkeley
Research Interests: The discovery and evolution of immunogenic proteins in plant pathogenic bacteria
Keywords: bacterial evolution/bioinformatics, plant immunity, plant-microbe interactions

 

C. Joy E. Walters

cewalters@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Satya Dandekar
Undergraduate Institution: Point Loma Nazarene University
Research Interests: Microbial community dynamics in the mammalian GI tract; interactions between gut microbes and host immune system; gastrointestinal disease.

 

Lei Wei

leiwei@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Maria Marco
Undergraduate Institution: Wellesley College
Research Interests: Host-microbe interactions, microbial impacts on nutrition and human health, proteomics

 

Joseph Williams

joswilliams@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Scott Dawson
Undergraduate Institution: University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Molecular biology and physiology of microbes

 

Yuanji ‘Teddy’ Zhou

zyjzhao@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Sanchita Bhatnagar
Undergraduate Institution: UC Davis
Research Interests: Epigenetic of X-chromosome related diseases

 

Alexander Zerkle

ajzerkle@ucdavis.edu
Research Mentor: Scott Dawson
Undergraduate Institution: UC Berkeley
Research Interests: Evolutionary cell biology, cytoskeletal biology, non-model systems