Program Students

2023 Students

Bright Agbodzi
bagbodzi@ufl.edu

Undergrad: University of Ghana

Research Interests: Host-pathogen interactions (viral) and molecular evolution.

Jacob Best
jacob.best@ufl.edu

Undergrad: University of Florida

Research Interests: Evolution and protein homeostasis

Alexander Carbonell
acarbonell@ufl.edu

Undergrad: University of Florida

Research Interests: Characterization and structure of gene-regulatory proteins

Madison Follis
madison.follis@ufl.edu

Undergrad: Baylor University

Research Interests: Infectious diseases, specifically malaria and uncommon tropical diseases

Ronald Masse
ronaldmasse@ufl.edu

Undergrad: Indian River State College

Research Interests: Secondary metabolism, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology

2022 Students

Tristyn Garza
t.garza@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Jose F. Abisambra, Neuroscience

Undergrad: Marine Biology, University of West Florida

Research Interests: Tauopathies, RNA and ribosome interactions, Bioinformatics

Sebastian Guerra
sguerra1@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Marc Chevrette, Microbiology & Cell Science

Undergrad: Microbiology & Cell Science, University of Florida

Research Interests: Synthetic biology, Molecular genetics, Genetic engineering

Natalia Padillo-Anthemides
nataliap@whitney.ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Joseph F. Ryan, Biology

Undergrad: Marine Biology, Florida International University

Research Interests: Evolutionary genomics in marine invertebrates, bioinformatics, Developmental biology, Population genetics and ecology

Hannah Roberts
hannah.roberts@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Amor A. Menezes, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Undergrad: Microbiology & Cell Science, University of Florida

Research Interests: Synthetic biology for extreme environments, Microbial biomanufacturing, Genetic circuits, and Continuous directed evolution

2021 Students

Netanya Keil
nkeil@ufl.edu

Mentors: Dr. Lauren McIntyre & Dr. Rolf Renne, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology

Undergrad: Biology, New York University

Research Interests: Population genetics, Transcriptomics, Genetics of host-pathogen interactions

Juan Perez
juanperezjimenez@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Marco Salemi, Pathology, Immunology & Laboratory Medicine

Undergrad: Biology, Universidad del Quindio

Research Interests: Bioinformatics, Genomics, Transcriptomics, Metabolomics, Molecular cell biology, Exosome diagnostics 

Jacky Sanson
jsanson@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Martin Cohn, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology

Undergrad: Microbiology and Cell Science, University of South Florida

Research Interests: Equine genetics, Genome stability, Gene therapy

Connor Traugot
connertraugot@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Mingyi Xie, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Undergrad: Biomedical Engineering, Duke University

Research Interests: Molecular basis of genetic diseases, Gene therapy, Gene editing

2020 Students

Juan Arboleda
jarboleda@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Eric Wang, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology

Undergrad: Biology, University of Florida

Research Interests: Molecular basis of neurodegenerative human disease & pathomechanisms

David Berryman
david.lee@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Eric Wang, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology

Undergrad: Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida

Research Interests: Bioinformatics, gene editing, gene expression

Liudmyla Kondratova
l.kondratova@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Eduardo Vallejos, Horticultural Sciences

Undergrad: Molecular Genetics, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Acade

Research Interests: Bioinformatics, transcriptome analysis, and pathway reconstruction

Christian Maugée
cmaugee@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Christopher Vulpe, Physiological Sciences

Undergrad: Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of South Florida

Research Interests: Friedreich’s Ataxia; epigenetics in triplet repeat disease

Emily Vu
evu@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Bryony Bonning, Entomology & Nematology

Undergrad: Biochemistry, University of Florida

Research Interests: Bioinformatics relating to functional genomics

David Yu
jomamill7@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Julie Maupin-Furlow, Microbiology & Cell Science

Undergrad: Microbiology and Cell Science , University of Florida

Research Interests: Virology, molecular genetics

2019 Students

Rocío Amorín de Hegedüs
ramorin@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Ana Conesa & Dr. Jamie Foster, Microbiology and Cell Science

Undergrad: Biotechnology, ORT University, Uruguay

Research Interests: Bioinformatics, gene expression regulation, alternative splicing

Daniel Stribling
ds@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Rolf Renne, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology

Undergrad: Chemistry and Computational Biology, Florida State University

Research Interests: Computational Genomics / Bioinformatics; Cancer Genomics

2018 Students

Sadeem Qdaisat
sadeem.qdaisat@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Elias Sayour, RNA Engineering Laboratory

Undergrad: Clinical Genetics, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Research Interests: Clinical and translational science, focusing on the use of personalized medicine in cancer treatment. Gene editing, Pharmacogenomics, gene therapy, and rare cell detection

Shandra Trantham
s.trantham@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Barry Byrne and Dr. Manuela Corti, Byrne Lab, MGM/Pediatrics

Undergrad: Cell and Molecular Biology, University of South Florida

Research Interests: Friedreich’s Ataxia and similar microsatellite diseases; Gene therapy and gene editing

2016 Students

Yuan Hong
yuanhong@ufl.edu

Mentor: Dr. Rolf Renne, MGM

Undergrad: Genetics & Genomics, Fudan University, China

Research Interests: Epigenetics, cancer biology, cell cycle regulatory pathways and fate decisions

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