Alumni

Mark joined the Wittkopp Lab in November 2017 following the completion of his PhD at University College London, where, along with Dr Max Reuter, he characterised the genetic basis of sexual antagonism in Drosophila melanogaster, using a combination of experimental and computational approaches. In the Wittkopp lab, Mark will be exploring the evolution of gene regulation in budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, primarily by combining experimental evolution and next generation sequencing.

Personal website: https://mark-stephen-hill.github.io/

Jon studied Entomology as an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received a B.S. with Highest Distinction in 2013. At Illinois, he completed a senior thesis project under the supervision of Dr. Gene Robinson that was focused on the effects of brain oxidative metabolism on aggression in the vinegar fly. Jon continued his research on fly aggression under the supervision of Dr. Marla Sokolowski at the University of Toronto with a focus on the effects of the foraging gene in modulating aggressive behaviors; he completed his M.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Toronto in 2014. In the Wittkopp Lab, Jon is interested in understanding the genetic basis of species differences in behavior and morphology. Jon successfully defended in May 2019 and will be starting his post-doc at Harvard University studying fly neurobiology. Hooray Jon!

Tasmine received her B.S in Biological Sciences from the University of Notre Dame, where she studied rare disease progression. After graduating, Tasmine received an NIH grant to work under the supervision of Dr. Jake Tu at Virginia Tech to study genes involved in sex determination and early embryonic development. In October 2018, Tasmine joined the Wittkopp Lab as a master's student and is currently investigating miRNA-target interactions.

Anati is an undergraduate student who started the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) in the Wittkopp Lab in her sophomore year, 2017. She assists Abby in her research project, which is examining the role of post-translational regulation in pigmentation evolution. Anati is specifically helping design tools for the detection of miRNA expression.

Lisa graduated with her B.S. in Biology from the University of Michigan in 2016. She hopes to continue her research in the lab to understand how noise in gene expression affects fitness in yeast, while also applying to veterinary schools.

Andrea joined the lab in May 2014 after completing her PhD at Yale University, where she worked with Jeff Townsend in the Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology combining empirical and theoretical approaches to study the evolution of genome-wide gene expression in budding yeast across an environmental gradient. In the Wittkopp lab, Andrea will study the evolvability of gene expression in yeast.

Swara joined the lab in September 2017. She is a junior in LSA majoring in Evolutionary Anthropology and is working with Pétra on a project examining phenotypic diversity in relation to nucleosome occupancy in yeast.

Joe studied Neurology and Physiology along with Genetics as an undergraduate student at Purdue University and received his B.S in 2012. During that time, he worked in the labs of Dr. Michael Zanis, Dr. Nancy Emery and spent a summer in the lab of Dr. Antonia Monteiro, and completed his honors thesis on the evolution of mononucleotide repeats. Joe then completed his Masters degree in the lab of Dr. Nancy Emery and worked as a research tech at the bioinformatics core at Purdue University. He is currently co-advised by Dr. Trisha Wittkopp and Dr. Stephen Smith, and is interested in finding ways to study differential gene expression in a phylogenetic context.

Rich joined the lab in the summer of 2011 after completing his PhD at UC Berkeley, where he worked with Mike Eisen to dissect the spatial relationships between transcription factor binding sites in Drosophila enhancers and yeast promoters. In the Wittkopp lab he explored how genetic variation between closely related Drosophila species drives patterns of change in expression and transcription factor binding. His work was supported by an NIH NSRA postdoctoral fellowship. Spring 2015, Rich moved on to a McKinsey and Company Consulting position in Detroit, MI.

Jen joined the lab in October 2014 after completing her PhD under the guidance of Christine Queitsch at the University of Washington, Seattle, during which she studied molecular mechanisms that control robustness to genetic perturbations and noise. Her projects in the Wittkopp lab will examine the evolution of gene expression using flies as a model.

In November 2017, Jen joined the faculty at Montana State University as an Assistant Professor in the department of Plant Sciences & Plant Pathology.
http://plantsciences.montana.edu/facultyorstaff/faculty/lachowiec/index.html

Kraig earned his B.S. in statistics from Michigan State University in 2007. Afterwards, he joined Sebastian Zoellner's group at the University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics, where he studied leveraging population structure in sibling genotype data and CNV detection from microarray data. After receiving his M.S. in biostatistics in 2009, he entered the Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics as a PhD student. He officially joined the lab in January 2010 and worked to develop strategies to improve estimation of total and allele-specific gene expression measurements from RNA-seq to classify regulatory divergence between closely related species of Drosophila. Kraig took a job as a Data Scientist here in MI at Trinity Health in Summer 2014.

José earned his B.A. in Integrative Biology with a minor in Chicana/o Studies at UC Berkeley in May 2013 where he worked with Dr. Craig Moritz on a phylogeography project studying the diversification of an Australian gecko, Heteronotia binoei, and later with Dr. Nipam Patel investigating the regeneration of the germ line stem cell niche in Parhyale hawaiensis. He joined the lab in June 2013 and worked closely with Joseph Coolon on identifying mutations that provide Octanoic Acid resistance in Drosophila sechellia.José moved on to Stanford in Summer 2015 to pursue a Ph.D.

Elizabeth received her M.S. in Biology from Winthrop University in May of 2010. As a graduate student, Elizabeth spent two years researching evolutionarily-conserved mechanisms in the heart of the sea squirt, Ciona intestinalis. Elizabeth joined the lab in Fall 2010 as both a lab manger and research technician. She is currently assisting with various projects in the lab.

Patty joined the lab in May 2013. In Fall of 2015 she’ll be a Junior enrolled in UofM’s LSA Honors program, as a Cellular and Molecular Biology major. She’s currently working on a project involving the use of CRISPR to generate a Drosophila mutant.

Natasha began work in the lab in September 2012. She was an LSA Honors Student with an interest in Evolutionary Biology. She worked with graduate student Brian Metzger on a project investigating properties of mutations affecting gene expression in yeast.

Daayun started her research experience through UROP in the lab in September 2014. She is a sophomore LSA Honors student with an interest in Biochemistry. Daayun is currently working with post-doc Andrea Hodgins-Davis on a project examining environment-specific effects of new mutations in budding yeast.

Kiran joined the lab in August 2016 as a lab assistant for general maintenance, as well as contributing to a project with Elizabeth Walker and Fabien Duveau to understand how noise in gene expression affects fitness in yeast. She is an honors LSA undergraduate with an interest in Neuroscience.

Emily started in the lab in August 2012. She is a senior concentrating in Evolutionary and Ecology Biology, with a minor in Spanish. She primarily worked with post-doc Richard Lusk on a project examining the evolution of gene expression, between D. melanogaster and D. virilis. Emily graduated in May 2014 and is pursuing graduate school applications.

Tiffany Brooks started in the lab in May 2013. Tiffany is an undergraduate at the University of Cincinnati focused on Food and Nutrition with Pre-Medicine concentration. While in the lab, she worked under the guidance of Fabien Duveau. Her project focused on investigating the functional consequences of cis-regulatory variation in the TDH3 gene in yeast.

Laura started working in the lab in June 2011. She worked under the guidance of Joe Coolon. The main project she is currently pursuing investigates gene expression differences underlying the resistance of D. sechellia and susceptibility of D. simulans to octanoic acid. Laura got her bachelors, concentrating in Evolutionary Anthropology and minoring in Biology in Spring 2013. She is currently applying to graduate schools and pursuing her interests in evolutionary genetics.

Lisa earned her B.A. in Biology from Case Western Reserve university in 2006 and joined the lab officially in April 2007. Lisa had diverse interests that ranged from the physiological effects of pigmentation to the developmental genetic control of pigmentation patterning. She also pursued a Master of Science (M.S.) Degree in Post-Secondary Science Education. After her defense, Lisa moved with her family to Colorado and is pursuing a career in teaching.

Brad began his career here in the lab July 2011. He worked with Arielle Cooley on creating chimeric alleles of the tan gene to identify the genotypic variation betweenD. novamenxicana and D. americana that causes the phenotype divergence in the two species. Brad graduated witha degree in Economics and minori in Biochemistry, and started medical school at Case Western in Fall 2012.

Robert began working in the lab as a senior during the spring of 2012. He worked with Arielle Cooley on a project investigating the genetic control of pigmentation patterning in D. americana and D. novamexicana. He graduated in 2012 with a degree in biochemistry and is currently applying to medical schools.

After completing her Ph.D. research on the evolution of floral color patterning in monkeyflowers, with Dr. John Willis at Duke University, Arielle switched kingdoms to study the evolution of body color in Drosophila americana and D. novamexicana when she joined the Wittkopp lab in March 2009. She used transgenic flies to identify specific nucleotide variants, in the tan gene that contribute to color differences. In Fall 2012, Arielle left the Wittkopp Lab to join the faculty of Biology at Whitman College in Walla, Walla WA.

Jonathan earned his Ph.D. in December 2007 from the UC-Irvine, where he worked with Dr. Anthony Long on quantitative genetics in Drosophila. In his postdoctoral work, he explored fundamental characteristics of gene expression evolution and biology using the brewer's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Jonathan is now a Bioinformatics Scientist for Monsanto in Davis, CA.

Emma joined the lab as a freshman at UM in September 2005. She studies the genetic basis of pigmentation differences between D. americana and D. novamexicana using a combination of genetic, transgenic, and molecular genetic techniques. Although Emma transferred to Oakland University, she continued to work in the lab, serving a year as our Lab manager/Techincan. In Fall 2010, she began an accelerated graduate program in K-12 education at the University of Georgia.

Laura began working in the lab as a junior in January 2008. She is concentrating in both Biology and Math, and plans to submit an honors thesis in 2009, which will focus on the pupal development of D. americana and D. novamexicana. In Fall 2009, she began medical school at the University of Toledo.

Ulises spent 3 months in the lab investigating Drosophila pigmentation evolution during 2009, funded by a Darwin Award from British Council. He adapted morphometric tools developed during his graduate training for studying pigmentation and characterized tan and ebony expression in D. novamexicana and D. americana. Upon leaving the lab, he began a postdoctoral position with Michael Purugganan at New York University.

With a master's degree from U. Rochester (2003), Adam joined the lab in July 2006 with a strong background in molecular biology. During his time in the lab, Adam played an instrumental role in our studies of pigmentation evolution, constructing introgression lines, orchestrating a large fine-scale mapping project, and constructing transgnes. He left the lab in 2008 to pursue a new career overseeing clinical trials.

Yainna worked with us during the summer of 2008 as a visiting student from Universidad Metropolitana in Puerto Rico. She spent her time in the lab analyzing expression of the tan gene in D. americana and D. novamexicana using in situ hybridization. She gave an outstanding oral presentation on her work at the SROP symposium and presented a poster at the CIC SROP meeting at Michigan State University. Yainna was awarded the most outstanding student prize for the 2008 SROP group at U. Michigan.

Gabe worked in the lab from Janurary 2006 until he left for medical school in Virginia during July 2007. He investigated the molecular evolution of pigmentation genes in D. americana and D. novamexicana, and characterized pigmentation in isofemale lines of these species. Ultimately, he showed that variation in D. americana is consistent with local adaptation.

Saleh worked with us during the summer of 2007 as a visiting student from Northeastern Illinois University. He contributed greatly to fine-scale genetic mapping of interspecific pigmentation differences between Drosophila species. He also gave an excellent presentation on his work at the SROP symposium and at a the CIC SROP meeting at Purdue University.

After earning her B.S. in Biology from Cornell, Belinda became the founding member of the Wittkopp Lab (August 2005). She was instrumental in setting up the lab and getting all projects up and running. Her expertise, organization, and personality are sorely missed! In August 2006, Belinda moved to George Washington University to pursue her master's degree in Public Health.