GAUSSI - Key Persons


A.S.N. Reddy

Job Titles:
  • Professor in Biology
A.S.N. Reddy is a Professor in Biology. He specializes in Plant Molecular Biology.

Abhik Roy

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology
Abhik Roy is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology in the Learning Sciences and Human Development Department within the College of Education and Human Services at West Virginia University. He conducts research on how evaluators create and utilize theory and the pedagogy of teaching developmental evaluation. Dr. Roy teaches graduate level courses in program evaluation, research methods, and social network analysis.

Adam Chicco

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor
Adam Chicco is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Sciences. He specializes in Cardiovascular Physiology.

Adam Heck

Adam Heck is a graduate student in the Cell and Molecular Biology PhD program. His work in Dr. Carol Wilusz and Dr. Jeff Wilusz's lab deals with the effects of RNA methylation on mRNA stability and gene expression. Specifically, he is utilizing human foreskin fibroblast (HFF) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells as models to examine the differences in RNA methylation that drives cell differentiation.

Aeriel Belk

Aeriel is a doctoral student in the department of Animal Science in the College of Agriculture. She is working under Dr. Jessica Metcalf to investigate the decomposition-associated microbiome. Specifically, she is modeling the postmortem succession of microbes to estimate the time of death in human cadavers and using the microbiome to evaluate mechanisms to modify the shelf-life of meat and poultry products. She obtained a B.S. in Animal Science from CSU and a Master's in Animal Science with certificates in meat science and food safety from Texas A&M University.

Alec Richardson

Alec is a PhD student in the School of Biomedical Engineering, working jointly under Dr. Charles Henry and Dr. Stuart Tobet. His research is focused on engineering an ex vivo intestinal model utilizing microfluidics and biosensing, with hopes of better understanding how host-microbiome interactions impact human health and disease. Long-term, Alec plans on connecting multiple tissue type (i.e. intestine, pancreatic, adipose) via microfluidic circuits to create ex vivo "body-on-a-chip" models.

Alex Mauro

Alex Mauro is a PhD student in Biology and the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. He is a member of Dr. Cameron Ghalambor's lab. His research focuses on understanding on how genetic processes and selective pressures interact to influence range limits and local adaption in tropical fishes from the island of Trinidad.

Alyssa Melvin

Alyssa Melvin is a doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Natural Sciences. She received her B.S. in Chemistry at Gannon University in May 2017. She is working under Dr. Melissa Reynolds developing biosensors that incorporate metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) into various aspects of the design to address common deficiencies of enzymatic biosensors. The first part of her project is focused on enhancing the biocompatibility of an in vivo glucose biosensor using MOFs. The second part of her project, in collaboration with Dr. Tom Chen, is focused on using MOFs to improve the signal transduction in the biosensor.

Amy Fox

Amy Fox is a PhD student in the Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology department. Her research with Dr. Marcela Henao-Tamayo and Dr. Brooke Anderson focuses on evaluating tuberculosis vaccine efficacy using computational tools. She is currently developing an R-based data analysis pipeline for flow cytometry data. Prior to pursuing her PhD, Amy earned a B.S. in Bioengineering from Rice University.

Asa Ben-Hur

Job Titles:
  • Associate Director
  • Professor at the Department of Computer Science
Asa Ben-Hur is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science. His lab studies important problems related to the interactions, function and processing of mRNA and proteins. Dr. Ben-Hur developed and co-taught the courses in the GAUSSI computational biology track , and currently teaches the GAUSSI capstone course He also teaches CS courses in bioinformatics (CS548) and machine learning (CS545).

Brad Borlee

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor in Microbiology
Brad Borlee is an Associate Professor in Microbiology, Immunology & Pathology. He specializes in vectors and vector-borne pathogens.

Breanna Wenck

Breanna (Bree) Wenck is a graduate student pursing her master's degree in Biochemistry as part of Tom Santangelo's research group in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department. She received her B.S. in biochemistry in May 2019 at Colorado State University, where she studied and characterized a factor that terminates transcription in archaeal organisms in vitro. Her graduate work will further characterize this factor in vitro and in vivo and determine the role this factor plays in 3' end formation using next generation sequencing techniques. In her personal life, Bree is a full-time mom and wife, and enjoys the Marvel cinematic universe, outdoor life, reading, friends, and family.

Brian Foy

Job Titles:
  • Professor in Microbiology
Brian Foy is a Professor in Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology. He specializes in Cardiovascular Physiology.

Brian Geiss

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor
Brian Geiss is an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology. His laboratory focuses on understanding the biochemical and molecular processes that RNA viruses, such as West Nile and Chikungunya viruses, use to replicate their genomes. He is examining the larger process of RNA genome replication using biochemical and structural approaches. His group collaborates on the development of novel pathogen affinity biosensors that can be used for rapid pathogen detection

Brian Munsky

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor in Chemical
Brian Munsky is an Assistant Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering. His research interests are in the integration of stochastic models with single-cell experiments to identify predictive models of gene regulatory systems.

Bridget Eklund

Bridget is a graduate student in the Microbiology PhD program within the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology. Her first rotation lab focuses on cell mediated immune responses to mycobacteria infections. She is also interested in investigating how changes in the microbial community of a person's microbiome affect the host through RNA sequencing.

Brooke Anderson

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor in Environmental & Radiological Health Sciences
Brooke Anderson is n Assistant Professor in Environmental & Radiological Health Sciences. She specializes in health risks associated with climate-related exposures.

Caleb Begly

Caleb is a Master's Degree EE Student at Colorado State University. He received a BS Computer Engineering degree from Colorado State University in May 2017, and an AS Physics degree from Colorado Mountain College in December 2014. The undergraduate degree focused on hardware classes and VLSI to build skills in digital systems design in addition to the core Computer Engineering coursework. For his senior design project, Caleb worked on the interdisciplinary BioBox environmental chamber project which won first place in the CSU 2017 E-Days. This project, coupled with the GAUSSI classes, sparked an interest in biosensing. Caleb is working on sensing applications using the third generation CMOS biosensor chip. Caleb enjoys hiking, biking, playing the mandolin, PC gaming, and working on hardware and software projects in his spare time.

Cameron Ghalambor

Job Titles:
  • Professor
Cameron Ghalambor is a Professor in the Department of Biology. His research focusses on the processes that constrain and facilitate adaptive evolution in natural populations. His lab group is investigating the physiological, morphological, and behavioral adaptations that occur in fish along salinity gradients, and birds and insects along temperature and habitat gradients. His group uses a combination of population genomic and transcriptomic methods in combination with field and lab experiments.

Carol Wilusz

Job Titles:
  • Associate Director
  • Professor
Carol Wilusz is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology. Her research focuses on the post-transcriptional control of gene expression in development and disease. All of Dr. Wilusz research projects rely heavily on RNA-seq to gain insights into gene expression regulation on a global scale. Dr Wilusz teaches courses in molecular biology methods to graduate students and will be offering "Nucleic Acids for Non-Life Scientists" and "Next Generation Sequencing Platforms and Libraries" as 1CR lab-based modules for GAUSSI. Dr. Wilusz serves as the Director of the Cellular and Molecular Biology graduate program.

Charlotte Cialek

Charlotte Cialek is a PhD candidate in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department. Her project is a collaboration of her co-mentors, Tai Montgomery and Tim Stasevich. She is using Dr. Stasevich's novel imaging technique to disseminate the mechanism of microRNA and protein Argonaute in gene silencing at the translation level. Her project seeks to further our understanding protein translation regulation and mRNA decay.

Chloe Stenkamp-Strahm

Job Titles:
  • Strahm
Chloe is a DVM/PhD student that studies gastrointestinal bacterial pathogen shedding and carriage dynamics in dairy cows. She is currently assessing how GI microbial communities influence colonization of bovine E.coli O157. A future focus of her work is to build models that predict this colonization and shedding, using national USDA samples with machine learning algorithms and GIS mapping. (photograph not provided)

Chris Snow

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor in Chemical
Chris Snow is an Associate Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering. He applies atomic modeling, design, and simulation methods to engineer new enzymes and novel biomolecular crystalline materials.

Christie Peebles

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor
Christie Peebles is an Associate Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering. She specializes in metabolic pathway engineering.

Chuck Henry

Job Titles:
  • Professor of Chemistry
Chuck Henry is Professor of Chemistry and Chemical & Biological Engineering. He specializes in development of lab-on-a-chip technologies, to study environmental and biological phenomena

Courtney Jahn

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor in Bioagricultural Sciences
Courtney Jahn is an Assistant Professor in Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management. Her specialization is using genetic & molecular tools to improve plant bioenergy yields.

Daniel Ball

Daniel is pursuing a Master of Science in Computer Engineering under the advisement of Dr. Thomas Chen. He completed a BS in computer Engineering at Colorado State University in May 2017. Daniel's work focuses on development on a comprehensive ex vivo environment chamber with integrated fluorescence microscopy. The box will be capable of precise control of environmental conditions with the goal of keeping microbiological specimens alive for extended periods of time. The box is intended to be large enough to house other moderately sized microfluidic devices.

Daniel Dean

Daniel Dean is a graduate student in the Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management (BSPM) department. His research in Dr. Pankaj Trivedi's lab uses sequencing, metabolic assays, and bioinformatics to explore the structure and function of the soil microbiome, especially changes under stressors like warming and drought. These findings may be applied to help project, and prepare for, climate change effects on agriculturally relevant soil properties and services.

Daniel Jonas

Daniel Jonas is a doctoral student at Colorado State University in the mathematics department. He is working with Dr. Kirby on connecting mathematical models with biological data. In particular, he will be working with a variety of epidemiological data sets, for which state space reconstruction methods will be applied to uncover underlying dynamical models. Machine learning techniques will also be used to scrutinize data in an attempt to identify properties of key interest such as pathogen tolerance and maintenance, biological mechanisms of tolerance, and the validation of pro-tolerance interventions. The research resources provided by the GAUSSI training program will prove invaluable in his investigations.

Daniel Sloan

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor
Daniel Sloan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology. His research focuses on evolutionary and comparative genomics. His lab is particularly interested in the functional interactions between the nuclear, organelle, and endosymbiont genomes that can all be found within the eukaryotic cell. He teaches undergraduate courses in Molecular and General Genetics and Genome Evolution.

Dayton Pierce

Dayton is a recent graduate of the Master's B program in Microbiology at CSU and is now a student in the Cell and Molecular Biology PhD program. His current research examines the metabolic processes of cells infected with Dengue viruses. Specifically, his work revolves around the glycolytic enzyme, hexokinase 2, and its impact on replication of Dengue viruses.

Don Neumann

Don Neumann is a graduate student pursuing his PhD in Computer Science as part of Dr Ben-Hur's research group. Don's research focuses on the intersection of machine learning and biology and he worked on protein interface prediction before moving onto modified base detection using next-next-generation sequencing technology using deep learning. The work aims to discover more about the epitranscriptome. (photograph not provided)

Dr. Steven Simske

Dr. Steven Simske was, until the end of 2017, an HP Fellow and a Research Director in HP Labs. He led HP in research and development in algorithms, multi-media, labels, brand protection, security and secure printing, imaging, 3D printing, analytics and life sciences. He is a long-time member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Councils, leads the Steering Committee for the ACM DocEng Symposium, and is currently President of the Imaging Science and Technology professional organization. Dr. Simske has more than 170 granted US patents and more than 400 professional publications, including the recent book, Meta-Algorithmics, and book chapters on forensic imaging and industrial inkjet technologies. He is an Honorary Professor in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, UK. Dr. Simske completed a BS (Marquette University, 1986) and Masters (Rensselaer Polytechnic University, 1987) in Biomedical Engineering; a PhD (University of Colorado, 1990) in Electrical Engineering, and a PostDoc (University of Colorado, 1993) in Aerospace Engineering.

Dylan Parker

Dylan Parker earned his B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Oregon in 2014 and began work as a graduate student in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at CSU in 2015. Working in the laboratory of Dr. Erin Nishimura, his research focuses on the developmental role of mRNA localization and dynamics in the C. elegans early embryo. He is currently using single-cell RNA sequencing as well as a variety of microscopy techniques to identify and perturb key mRNA developmental determinants to better understand the mechanisms of developmental regulation and cell-fate determination.

Erin Nishimura

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Erin Nishimura is an Assistant Professor in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. Her lab is interested in understanding how gene expression is regulated during embryogenesis and how it impacts eventual cell fate. They use a combination of computational and experimental approaches in the model nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans. Of particular interest, they use single-cell RNA-seq and single-molecule quantitative microscopy to assess the entire transcriptome and to zoom in on individual mRNA transcripts in worms.

Fred Hoerndli

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor in Biomedical Sciences
Fred Hoerndli is an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Sciences. He specializes in information processing by nervous systems depends on the dynamic regulation of synapses

Gareth Halladay

Gareth Halladay is a graduate student pursuing her Master's degree in Computer Science as part of Dr. Ben-Hur's research group. She has a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences from Colorado State University. Gareth plans to analyze and identify global patterns of alternative splicing over a large collection of RNA-seq data for Arabidopsis thaliana. She is passionate about teaching and taught an introductory computer science course at CSU this summer.

Greg Ebel

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor in Microbiology
Greg Ebel is an Associate Professor in Microbiology, Immunology & Pathology. He serves as the Director of the Arthropod-borne and Infectious Disease Laboratory (AIDL) .

Gus Waneka

Gus is pursuing a PhD in the Biology Department under the advisement of Dr. Dan Sloan. Gus's research focuses on understanding endosymbiont genome stability, by using high fidelity sequencing to characterize mutation in endosymbiotic genomes. The work aims to address the fundamental evolutionary question of how endosymbiotic relationships are established and maintained.

Heather Deel

Heather is a doctoral student in the department of Animal Sciences and the Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Program. She received her B.S. in Biology at Sam Houston State University, where she researched the core microbiome of human cadavers at an anthropological facility. Currently, she is working on characterizing microbial succession in human cadaver rib bones. She will then use this microbiome data to build a microbial clock for estimating the postmortem interval of human cadavers.

Jane Stewart

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor
Jane Stewart is an Assistant Professor in Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management. She specializes in Plant Pathology.

Jared James Luxton

Jared is a Ph.D candidate in the Cellular and Molecular Biology program working as a research assistant for Susan Bailey in the Environmental & Radiological Health Sciences department. The effects of spaceflight on the human body are unknown, presenting significant, potentially compromising risks to longterm manned space missions. Using specialized fluorescence microscopy techniques and data analyses pipelines written in Python, Jared examines the effects of spaceflight on telomere length dynamics and chromosome rearrangements in astronauts aboard the International Space Station, determining consequences for human health and feasibility of longterm missions. Learn more about Jared's work at LinkedIn and GitHub.

Jasmine Nejad

Jasmine Nejad is a PhD student in the Biomedical Engineering program at CSU. Her work is focused on software and microfluidics systems for a high-density microelectrode array for quantitative spatial mapping of electrochemical signals in live tissue. This type of sensor system could provide a platform for characterizing efficacy of chemotherapeutic for personalized medicine.

Jason Frazier

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor of Graphic Design
Jason Frazier has over 20 years in both graphic design and education. Jason is a Assistant Professor of Graphic Design in the CSU Department of Art & Art History, and is a co-director and coordinator of the Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition [CIIPE]. In addition to teaching, he continues to pursue professional studio work with a variety of clients in publication, identity design, illustration and multimedia, and his personal work reflects his interest in technology, social and environmental issues. He has been recognized for his poster, marketing, publication and media work in the United States, Mexico and South Korea, being the recipient of multiple regional and national awards for his efforts.

Jessica Metcalf

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor in Animal Sciences
Jessica Metcalf is an Associate Professor in Animal Sciences. She specializes in interactions between microbes and vertebrates during life and after death.

Jessica Warren

Jessica Warren is a graduate student in the Department of Biology working in Dr. Dan Sloan's lab. Her research focuses on the evolution of mitochondrial translational machinery by studying the cytonuclear response to transfer RNA (tRNA) gene loss. This work will provide unique insight into cellular mechanisms required for eukaryotic translation and involves the sequencing, assembly and comparison of multiple mitochondrial genomes, tRNA-seq libraries, and transcriptomes.

Josué Rodríguez-Ramos

Josué Rodríguez-Ramos is a PhD student in the department of Soil and Crop Sciences that is pursuing a degree in Ecology as part of the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology (GDPE). He is working in the laboratory of Dr. Kelly Wrighton to study the influence of viruses on microbial communities and how these interactions impact ecosystem-scale biogeochemical processes. Specifically, Josué is working on the effects that viruses have on microbial communities in aquatic systems including the viral influences on nitrogen and carbon cycling in the Columbia river and methane-producing microorganisms in freshwater wetlands. Prior to pursuing his PhD, Josué obtained a B.S in Industrial Microbiology from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez.

Julia Labadie

Julia Labadie is a DVM/PhD student in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences pursuing her PhD in cancer epidemiology. Her research focuses on understanding genetic and environmental risk factors for canine lymphoma. Prior to attending CSU, Julia earned her MSPH in Epidemiology at Emory University and her BS in Biological Sciences at UC Davis.

Julius Stuart

Julius joined the Snow Lab in January 2018. Having obtained a B.S. degree in Biology from Warren Wilson College, he spent time working as a lab technician before joining the PhD program in Chemistry at Colorado State University. His research interests include computational protein design and optimizing existing protein properties for biosensing applications in various contexts.

Kate Sherrill

Job Titles:
  • Program Coordinator

Kelly Wrighton

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor in Soil & Crop Sciences
Kelly Wrighton is an Assistant Professor in Soil & Crop Sciences. She specializes in microorganisms, their genomes, and the surrounding environment.

Laurie Stargell

Job Titles:
  • Professor
Laurie Stargell is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Her research focuses on investigating the regulation of gene expression using budding yeast (S. cerevisiae) as a model system and genetic, genomic, molecular and biochemical approaches. The long-term goal of her research is to understand how the RNA Polymerase II transcription machinery interfaces with chromatin to regulate gene expression in living cells. Her work has received support from the March of Dimes, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Luke Schwerdtfeger

Luke Schwerdtfeger is a PhD student in the Biomedical Sciences program. He works under Dr. Stuart Tobet. Luke's research uses an in vitro culture model for mammalian intestine, coupled with ongoing development of a microfluidic system to regulate environmental conditions of the intestine more accurately. Coupling these cultures with both microbiome and metabolome analysis, he hopes to further understand how the innate bacterial - immune - neural signaling of the intestines occurs in both health and disease.

Lyndsey Gray

Lyndsey Gray is a PhD student in CSU's Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology Department. Working in Dr. Brian Foy's lab, her research investigates how mass drug administration of ivermectin among human populations affects entomological indices of malaria transmission in children under five years of age. Specifically, she will be studying if ivermectin disrupts the age structure and causes novel, genetic variations or genetic bottlenecks in wild Anopheles gambiae populations.

Marcela Henao Tamayo

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor
Marcela Henao Tamayo is an Assistant Professor in Microbiology, Immunology & Pathology. She specializes in immunopathogenesis of Tuberculosis.

Mark Stenglein

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor
Mark Stenglein is an Assistant Professor in the Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology. His research aims to apply a variety of old and new techniques to better understand viruses.

Melissa Reynolds

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor of Chemistry
Melissa Reynolds is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and School of Biomedical Engineering. Her research focuses on the molecular design and fabrication of biomimetic materials for use in medical device applications.

Michael Friedman

Michael is a graduate student at Colorado State University in the department of biology studying within Dr. Daniel Bush's Lab. His work focuses on enhancing crop production to support bioenergy technology and food security needs through plant molecular biology, biotechnology, and gene discovery.

Michael Kirby

Job Titles:
  • Professor
Michael Kirby is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics with a joint appointment in the Department of Computer Science. His research interests primarily concern the development of mathematical theory and algorithms for the the modeling of large data sets. He is interested in the modeling of infectious disease and early warning algorithms for the detection of infection. He has taught courses in geometric data analysis, the mathematical modeling of large data sets, optimization, ordinary and partial differential equations, projects in applied mathematics and numerical analysis.

Michael May

Michael May received two Bachelors degrees in Chemical Biological Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Colorado State University in 2017 and is currently a doctoral student in the School of Biomedical Engineering who is co-advised by Dr. Munsky and Dr. Stasevich. Michael works on problems characterizing variability in single-cell, single-molecule experiments using computational and mathematical tools, with future directions moving towards using control theory with stochastic processes in cell populations. His current work examines the ability to identify proteins involved in translation using imaging techniques developed by Tim Stasevich using stochastic models and his next project is developing optogenetic controllers to control gene expression in cell populations.

Michael Siegel

Michael is a graduate student pursuing his Master's degree in Electrical Engineering. He received a BS in Electrical Engineering at Colorado State University in May 2019, and an AS in Automotive Technology from Front Range Community College in May 2015. For his senior design project, Michael was part of the Bio-Analysis project which won first place in the CSU 2019 E-days. Both the project and support from his advisor inspired Michael to continue into graduate school and work with biosensors. Michael will be working as part of Dr. Tom Chen's group to develop and test various biosensors which can simultaneously measure different aspects of cell metabolism. In his spare time, Michael enjoys RC hobby vehicles, PC gaming, and restoring antique cars.

Mike Mangale

Mike Mangalea is a PhD student in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology working with Dr. Brad Borlee. His research focuses on the bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei, which is found in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide and causes the deadly disease known as melioidosis in humans and animals. Specifically, he is interested in biofilm dynamics and hopes to better understand how bacterial pathogens transition from an environmental reservoir to establish persistent infections within susceptible hosts.

Pankaj Trivedi

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor in Bioagricultural Sciences
Pankaj Trivedi is an Assistant Professor in Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management. His research goal is to elucidate and exploit the multitrophic interactions among and between microbiome and the plant environment that influence the health and productivity of managed and natural systems, especially in response to environmental change.

Reyes Murrieta

Reyes is a graduate student pursuing his PhD in Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology working under Dr. Greg Ebel. His research uses computation biology and experimental virology to study how different ecological and environmental conditions can impact Flavivirus population diversity. Through GAUSSI Reyes is looking forward to advancing his skill set as a computational biologist and establish new interdisciplinary collaborations for future projects.

Rich Feller

Job Titles:
  • Professor Emeritus of Counseling and Career Development and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Colorado State University
Rich Feller Ph.D (www.richfeller.com) is Professor Emeritus of Counseling and Career Development and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Colorado State University. Past-President of the National Career Development Association he has served as consultant to NASA, UN, NFL, AARP, and international organizations and businesses on six continents. Co-author of 3 books, 6 film series, the Who You Are Matters! (www.onelifetools.com) board game and the Career Decision Making system (www.cdminternet). As chief scientist to www.youscience.com; thought leader for www.lifereimagined.org ; and advisory board member for National University of Singapore's Center for Future Ready Students http://nus.edu.sg/cfg/ he leads the GAUSSI Career Planning program.

Richard Berl

Richard Berl is a doctoral student in the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources with a research focus on the dynamics of the transmission and evolution of culture. In the past, Richard has worked on the behavioral ecology of wild white-faced capuchin monkeys (Cebus capucinus), social behavior in captive and wild gray wolves (Canis lupus), and imitation and emulation in hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists of the Congo Basin. Current projects include evaluating the drivers of "prestige" and its influence on cultural transmission processes, and investigating the genetic and linguistic history of the Chabu, an isolated group of hunter-gatherers in the highland rainforest of Ethiopia.

Sarah Morton

Sarah Morton is a PhD student in the Health and Exercise Science Department and is pursuing a degree in Human Bioenergetics. Her research in Dr. Broussard's Sleep and Metabolism Lab focuses on the negative metabolic consequences of sleep and circadian disruption. Identifying likely mechanisms contributing to the specific tissues or pathways impaired by insufficient sleep and circadian disruption are critical for developing countermeasures to improve metabolic function when these perturbations are unavoidable.

Seré Williams

Seré Williams is passionate about understanding abiotic stress response in plants. Working with the Reddy Lab in the Department of Biology, she is looking at drought stress response in rice. A specific transcription factor is known to be involved in cold, herbivory, and salt stress response. In rice, a knock-out mutant of this transcription factor shows wilting while the wild type is still standing strong. Seré is generating complimented and overexpression lines to verify that this drought response phenotype is linked to this hypothesized transcription factor. She is also performing RNA-seq to identify specific gene products differentially regulated in drought stress response. With the GAUSSI program, Seré is analyzing big data to help solve complex problems, and ultimately, help farmers grow crops in a changing world.

Shannon Stiverson

Shannon Stiverson is a PhD student in the mathematics department at CSU. Her work focuses on the application of manifold learning techniques to biological data sets. She is currently exploring techniques for early diagnosis of influenza A based on changes in host genetic expression.

Shaun Cross

Shaun is a graduate student in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology. He is currently doing his rotations with several faculty, most recently with Mark Stenglein. His current research is to identify and characterize virus segments in Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes via RNA FISH that were discovered from previous sequencing.

Steven Lakin

Steven Lakin is an equine veterinarian and a PhD student in the department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology. His work in Dr. Abdo's lab involves the development and implementation of novel methods in statistics and bioinformatics to enable cutting-edge research in the areas of food safety, public health, and epidemiology. Outside of science, Steven practices Aikido with Fort Collins Aikikai and competes in medieval games and jousting with the Knights of the Tempest team.

Stuart Tobet

Job Titles:
  • Professor
Stuart Tobet is a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, Director of the School of Biomedical Engineering, and member of the Program in Cell and Molecular Biology. The Tobet laboratory studies the communication among cells in specific tissues of the body. These tissues range from the brain to the adrenal gland to portions of the gastrointestinal tract. The unique aspect of the laboratory investigations is that they are conduct ex vivo in special designed devices that allow a better preservation, visualization, and measurement of cell behaviors.

Tai Montgomery

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor
Tai Montgomery is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology. He specializes in small RNAs and RNA interference.

Thomas W Chen

Job Titles:
  • Program Director
  • Professor
Tom Chen is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a core faculty member of the School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME). His research interests are in the areas of biosensors. His research group is currently working on integrating and applying an 8000-electrode biosensor system to create chemical images to better understand cell-cell communication under the sponsorship of an NSF GK-12 grant. He is also collaborating on the development of new highly sensitive sensors and sensor systems for detection of microbes using highly multiplexed detection methods.

Tim Stasevich

Job Titles:
  • Assistant Professor in Biochemistry
Tim Stasevich is an Assistant Professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He specializes in the regulation of eukaryotic gene expression by post-translational modifications.

Tom Santangelo

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor in Biochemistry
Tom Santangelo is an Associate Professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He specializes in Mechanisms and regulation of archaeal transcription.

Zaid Abdo

Job Titles:
  • Associate Professor
Zaid Abdo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology Immunology and Pathology (MIP) in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Abdo's main research objective are focused on understanding the microbial community structure, its interactions, function, and how this microbial community interacts with and affects its host, and is affected by its surrounding environment. Dr. Abdo's experience and background is focused on developing and utilizing computational and statistical methods and models aimed to facilitate our understanding of these systems.