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Principal InvestigatorMichael D. Purugganan Michael obtained his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of the Philippines in 1985.He began his graduate work at Columbia in empirical and theoretical biophysical chemistry, obtaining an MA before moving to the University of Georgia where he got a Ph.D. in Botany (minor in Global Policy Studies) in 1993. After a two year Alfred P. Sloan Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at San Diego, he joined the faculty at NC State. He was promoted to associate professor in 2001. In 2005, he became a William Neal Reynolds Professor of Genetics and elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Michael's research interests include the molecular evolution and ecology of development, the nature of adaptation at the molecular level, and the evolutionary genetics of plant domestication. He seems to be distressingly fond of black clothing, preferably Armani. Back to the topPostdoctoral FellowsJosh Banta Josh received his undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Pittsburgh, where he worked with Kathi Beratan, Stephen Tonsor and Walt Carson on various plant ecology and evolution projects. He then spent a year as Johanna Schmitts lab manager at Brown University. Thereafter, he performed his disseration work with Massimo Pigliucci, first at the University of Tennessee and later at Stony Brook university, studying the evolutionary ecology and genetics of tolerance to herbivory in Arabidopsis thaliana and other Brassicaceae. In his current position in the Purugganan lab, Josh is focused on comparing and improving methods of association mapping, which are used to identify genes underlying ecologically relevant natural trait variation. Josh's extracurricular activities mostly revolve around his young daughter. Website Jonathan Flowers Jonathan completed his Ph.D. research on molecular evolution under the supervision of Dr. Ronald S. Burton at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 2005. He then conducted a two-year post-doc in the laboratory of Walter Eanes at Stony Brook University, where he engaged in functional and population genomics research in Drosophila. Since joining the Purugganan lab at NYU in September 2007, Jonathan has completed a study on the molecular evolution of Arabidopsis flowering time gene network. He is currently assisting with analysis of the first wild rice Oryza rufipogon genome sequence in collaboration with researchers at Purdue, Cornell and Washington Universities and is analysing two large-scale re-sequencing datasets in domesticated varieties of rice and the social amoeba (Dictyostelium discoideum) in collaboration with researchers at Rice University. Jeanmaire "Jean" Molina Jean obtained her B.Sc. in biology a the University of the Philippines-Diliman in 2001. Her profound interest in natural history inspired her to work for Conservation International, trekking the remote jungles of Palanan, Philippines while assisting in floristic inventories. Two years later, she traded the muddy mountain slopes for raduate studies in the US, under the aegis of Dr. Lena Struwe at Rutgers University. After submitting her final dissertation to the grad school on January 5 2009, she took the afternoon train to NYU and was officially welcomed into the Purugganan lab as a postdoc, working on the evolutionary genomics of rice.Melissa Pentony Melissa completed her Ph.D. in Bioinformatics at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth in 2004, where she worked on software development of novel phylogenetic methods. She spent the next three and a half years as a post-doc at University College London, working in David Jones' research group, where she studied intrinsic protein disorder. Since joining the Purugganan lab in November 2008, Melissa's research area is now focused on studying gene families in Arabidopsis and rice (amongst others) using both phylogenetic and proteomic methods. Christina Richards Christina completed her undergraduate degree in Biology at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, PA. After an internship with Steve Pennings at the Univeristy of Georgia Marine Institute on Sapelo Island and working as a research technician for Sonia Sultan at Wesleyan University, she started doctoral work in salt marsh plant eco-physiology and genetics. She received her Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Georgia working with Lisa Donovan and Rodney Mauricio and moved on to work on ecological genetics and epigenetics of the invasive Japanese knotweed with Massimo Pigliucci at Stony Brook University in New York. Here in the Purugganan lab, she will study epigenetic effects and microarray analyses of gene expression in wild Arabidopsis populations. When she's not in the lab, she's rowing with the NY Athletic Club in Westchester County. Webpage Back to the topGraduate StudentsSi "Sydnie" Li Si graduated from Peking University with a B.Sc. degree in Biotechnology in 2007. In Beijing, she worked on transposon-mediated enhancer detection and transcriptional regulatory element analysis in Danio rerio. Why she ended up in New York City can always be mysterious, but the point is that she is enjoying her exploration of life and life sciences in the Big Apple. Currently Si is playing with Dictyostelium discoideum, and is especially interested in the population genetics and sociobiology concerning development. It is tricky to find her in town during the holidays, since she is probably travelling to somewhere or nowhere with her camera. Nathan Poslusny I entered the doctoral program in 2008 and am co-advised by Dr. Rich Bonneau. I graduated from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a BS in Biology and Environmental Sciences. After graduating from UNC, I was a research assistant at Georgetown University in Dr. Matthew Hamilton lab. In the Hamilton lab, I used molecular and computational techniques to investigate the temporal genetic signature of a population bottleneck in Chesapeake Bay striped bass. My current research focuses on characterizing the regulatory network of MADS-box transcription factors in Arabidopsis thaliana with the broader goal of understanding the evolutionary mechanisms that contribute to gene regulatory network growth and complexity. Outside the lab, I can be found attending free concerts, hiking, or just enjoying NYC life. Undergraduate StudentsSilvia Martinez-Gerard Silvia is currently finishing up her undergraduate degree in Biology from Universidad Industrial de Santader in Bucaramanga, Colombia. She is performing an internship in the Purugganan lab as her undergraduate thesis project for her home institution. She will continue to be a part of the lab after graduating. Previously, Silvia has worked on plant evolutionary ecology projects in the Colombian tropics, studying phenotypic plasticity in the cocoa plant. Silvia's work in the Purugganan lab focuses on the detection of epistatic effects on flowering time variation in Arabidopsis. Silvia received an Undergraduate Diversity Mentoring Award from the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution to present her work at this year's annual meeting! http://ccg.biology.uiowa.edu/smbe/awards.php Lucy Chou Lucy is a senior at NYU, majoring in Biology. She plans to go to veterinary school after graduation. Lucy has been a part of the lab for several years, working on Arabidopsis projects ranging from structured association mapping of flowering time candidate genes, to epistatic effects on flowering time variation. When not in the lab, Lucy works as a veterinary assistant at Bideawee Veterinary Hospital. Back to the top |