Role: Potential Undergraduate Mentor

The Flyak lab studies human antibody response to viral pathogens. We try to answer questions like, how do human antibodies neutralize rapidly mutating viruses? And, how can we design vaccines that mimic effective antibody responses seen in some individuals? In our lab, we isolate antibodies[...]

Climate change dramatically impacts freshwater ecosystems, which are becoming warmer, more acidic, and nutrient rich. The collective influence of the microbial inhabitants of these ecosystems, despite their tiny size, can have an immense impact on water quality. However, we lack fundamental knowledge on the ecology[...]

The Feaga lab is focused on how bacteria maintain protein synthesis capacity under stress. We aim to identify factors that interact with the ribosome and prevent stalling, and to understand the impact of ribosome stalling on cell physiology. In particular, we are interested in how[...]

Fungi are responsible for devastating crop infestations that threaten global food supplies and diseases that result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of individuals each year. We use genetic and genomic techniques spanning from classical molecular biology to high-throughput functional genomics to understand how[...]

Dr. Schang uses small molecules with drug-like properties to probe the ways viruses cause infections. He is most interested in finding common features among the many viruses that cause disease in animals or humans, including how they enter cells and how they replicate and cause[...]

We are studying the evolution of hots-microbe relationships. Our current work focuses on vertebrates’ co-evolutionary histories with microorganisms through a combination of -omics approaches, gnobiotic experiments, and field studies.

Our lab is focused on pollinator health. Specifically: Combining empirical data with network modeling to understand pathogen transmission in complex plant-pollinator networks. Evaluating the relative importance of pesticides, pathogens, and other factors on colony performance. Understanding how pesticide and pathogen stress influence bee behavior and[...]

My lab has a broad interest in the structure and function of viral envelope proteins, and how genomic mutations lead to changes in the envelope proteins and control viral pathogenesis. We primarily study influenza viruses of humans and animals, and coronaviruses, principally, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and[...]

My lab studies how stress and social interactions alter the biological state of organisms that experience them. Much of our work uses free-living passerine birds, including tree swallows, as model systems to test the neuroendocrine, epigenetic, and gut microbial impacts of stress and social connectedness,[...]

The unifying themes of my ongoing research program are seeking to understand the underlying mechanisms that control the pathogenesis and disease associated with bacterial infections, as well as developing control strategies for the bacteria or its associated disease. The main focus for the past years[...]