current | former
- Stacy Alvares, Ph.D.
- Michael Bruno, Ph.D.
- Amanda Chunco, Ph.D.
- Javier Rivera Guzman, Ph.D.
- Joshua Hall, Ph.D.
- Sarah Lebeis, Ph.D.
- Kimberly Monahan, Ph.D.
- Julia Schmitz, Ph.D.
- Kendra Sewall, Ph.D.
- Daria Estrada Smith, Ph.D.
- Jenny Tenlen, Ph.D.
- Jennifer Thomson, Ph.D.
- Jennifer Uno, Ph.D.
Michael Bruno, Ph.D.
- Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
Education
- Cornell University
Biochemistry & Structural Biology
Mentors
- Barry Lentz, Ph.D.
Biography
I am honored and excited to be joining the SPIRE Program. Growing up in Connecticut, I knew early on that I wanted to be both a teacher and a scientist. Both of my parents are educators so education and learning were important priorities in my household. I had my first real taste of bench work the summer of my junior year in high school, as a student intern at Yale, and knew that I needed to pursue a science career.
In 1999, I graduated from Dartmouth with an A.B. in chemistry, with a concentration in biophysical chemistry. I wrote an honors thesis on oxidation kinetics of cytochrome P450s under Peter Sinclair. In 2006, I received my Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Weill Graduate School of Cornell University, in New York City. Under the mentorship of Olaf Andersen, I examined how poly-unsaturated fatty acids could modulate the function of embedded membrane proteins by altering the material properties of the lipid bilayer, which has implications for cardiac and neuronal health. Since Cornell's medical school doesn't have undergraduates, I satisfied my desire for honing my teaching skills running workshops and summer science programs for high school teachers and students, many for underserved or non-traditional students.
My graduate studies exposed me to the vital, and often overlooked, role that lipids play in cellular functions. I continued to study protein-lipid interactions in the lab of Tom McIntosh at Duke University. Since joining SPIRE, I have been working in Barry Lentz's lab, studying SNARE-mediated vesicle fusion, the process underlying the fusion of synaptic vesicles with the plasma membrane and release of neurotransmitter into the synapse. I am looking forward to being able to use my studies in the laboratory to demonstrate to my students the overlap between physics and biology and the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to scientific inquiry.
