People

Chris Waters-My days are generally spent answering emails and typing, but I love getting to see all the cool things my students do. And once in a while I get in the lab and do an experiment myself!

Amber Bedore, M.S.-Amber is our super awesome lab manager that keeps everything together! In addition to running the lab, Amber is developing tools to quantify single cell levels of c-di-GMP.

Micah Ferrell, PhD-Micah, a postdoc, joined the lab in October, 2021. Micah has two projects, working to understand the enzymatic activity of the phage-defense cytidine deaminase AvcD and exploring new cyclic di-nucleotide signaling systems.

Aathmaja Rangarajan, PhD-Aathmaja is a postdoc in the lab who started January of 2022. Aathmaja studies cyclic di-GMP signaling in V. cholerae, and is researching the transcriptional network of the system and the impact of metals on c-di-GMP signaling.

Jasper Gomez-Jasper is a PhD graduate student who joined the lab March of 2022. Jasper is interested in microbial evolution, and his project centers around discovering novel molecular defense systems that allow bacteria to resist phage infection.

Brian Hsueh, PhD-Brian is a graduate student in the lab who defended his PhD April, 2022. Brian has also discovered that the bacterial pathogen Vibrio cholerae encodes a new class of cytidine deaminase enzymes that are widely conserved, negatively regulated by a sRNA, and protect bacteria from phage infection by corrupting intracellular nucleotide concentrations.

 

 

Alex Wessel-Alex is a PhD graduate student who joined the lab in February of 2021. Alex is developing a high-throughput mtuagenesis system called BAR-Seq in V. cholerae to link genes with their given functions.

 

Kaylee Wilburn-Kaylee is a PhD graduate student who joined the lab in May, 2021 and is our resident phage expert. She wants to understand how phage defense pathways in V. cholerae impact its environmental persistence and evolution.

 

Soo Yoon, PhD-Soo is a DO/PhD graduate student in the lab who successfully defended his PhD May, 2022! Soo's projects revolve around identifying novel cyclic di-nucleotide signaling circuits in bacteria. He uses a combination of biochemistry, genetics, and mass spectrometry to identify new signals, their effectors, and study proteins that modulate their activity.

Jennifer Pusavat-Jennifer is a medical student at MSU in the College of Human Medicine pursuing her MD degree. In her "free" time, Jennifer spends time in the lab developing a high-throughput mutagenesis system for Pseudomonas aeruginosa. 

Drew Beckman-Drew is an undergraduate student in the lab who is developing systems level approaches to better understand phage infection of V. cholerae. 

Brennan Grimes-Brennan is an undergraduate student in the lab studying how different environmental inputs impact V. cholerae motility.

Ram Kumar-Ram is an undergraduate student who joined the lab in May of 2021. Ram is studying the interaction of V. cholerae phage with defensive elements on a genomic island unique to current pandemic strains.

Aubree Muethel-Aubree is an undergraduate researcher who joined the lab in May of 2022. Aubree is working with Micah to identify new cyclic di-nucleotide signaling systems.

 

Elist Trost-Elise is an MSU undergrad researcher who joined the lab May of 2021. Elise is exploring phage/bacterial interaction and characterizing the resistant profile of V. cholerae strains isolated from Africa to better help direct treatment strategies.

 

 

 

 

Postdocs

Natasha Vukov-2010

Karthik Sambanthamoorthy-2011

Will Soto-2016

 

Graduate Students

Adam Edmunds, M.S.-2011

Disha Srivastava, Ph.D.-2014

Ben Koestler, Ph.D.-2014

John Shook, M.S.-2016

Eric Bruger, Ph.D.-2016

Ben Pursley, Ph.D.-2016

Rudy Sloup, Ph.D.-2016

Michael Maiden, DO/Ph.D.-2018

Meng-lun Hsieh, DO/Ph.D.-2018

Nico Fernandez, Ph.D.-2019

Amber Bedore- M.S.-2019

Geoff Severin-Ph.D.-2020

 

Undergraduate Students

David Szandzik-2009

Carolyn Chan-2011

Megan Hull-2011

Kuenyoun Jang-2011

Jon Massie-2012

Amanda Ngouajio-2012

Lauren Priniski-2012

Ashley Konal-2012

Alani Adkins-2012

Jessica Hunter-2013

Evan Reynolds-2013

Sarah Smaga-2013

Josh Smith-2013

Mark Johnson-2013

Melanie Callaghan-2013

Prateek Garg-2013

Rachel Rudlaff-2014

Zamone Sawyer-2014

Kevin Baker-2015

Markus Sievertsen-2015

Katherine Magoulick-2015

Morgan Miller-2016

Jake Gibson-2017

Cassie Larivee-2017

Jenny Nyberg-2017

Ben Franco-2017

Macy Pell-2017

Charnay Gloss-2018

Chris Rhoades-2018

Hannah Smith-2018

Mitch Zachos-2018

Connor Riegal-2018

Emily Segneri-2018

Nils Benning-2019

Joe Williams-2020

Alyssa Corpus-2020

Kyle McCoy-2020

Megan Seyerle-2020

Jacob Hieber-2021

 

High School Students

Maurice Wilkins-2013

Gucci Fan-2015

Neehal Tumma-2019

 

Visiting Scholars

Ann-Katrin Kieninger, Germany-2015

Lara Behrman, Germany-2017

Sebastian Myllek, Germany-2017

Nik Kiel, Germany-2019

Marius Karbach, Germany-2020

Elisa Klienfeld, Germany-2021