Abdelali (Ali) Barakat - Postdoctoral Research Associate; Ali is developing a research project on microRNA aimed at analyzing the distribution, the evolution and the function of some microRNA families involved in flower development. He is also working on the evolution of gene families playing key roles in flower development.
Barbara Bliss - PhD candidate. 2002 - present; Barbara is interested in the evolution of floral form, particularly symmetry, by changes in gene sequence and genomic evolution. She hopes to explore these questions in a basal angiosperm system in the Floral Genome Project.
Claude dePamphilis
- Ph.D. University of Georgia
; In addition to being P.I. of NSF's Floral Genome Project, Claude has active research projects involving chloroplast genome evolution, parasitic plants, and plant bioinformatics. Claude teaches Honors Biology, Plant Taxonomy, and Bioinformatics.
Jill Ricker Duarte - PhD student 2003 - present;
For her thesis, Jill is interested in expression divergence during the evolution of single-copy and duplicate genes.
Her research pedigree includes working on genome polymorphisms in parasitic nematodes, assembling a knockout construct for a mouse, and conservation and divergence
of the chloroplast tufA in the Coleochaetales. Someday she'll get back to studying organellar gene transfer and spreading the word about how "plants" are just dry
charophycean algae. When not in the lab, Jill enjoys cooking, photography, manga and philosophy of biology.
Yuannian Jiao - Ph.D. candidate, Plant Biology Program, 2007 - present. Yuannian is interested in both molecular biology and bioinformatics. He has experience in plant molecular biology and microarray gene expression data mining. In the dePamphilis lab, he will be working on some interesting gene family function analyses.
Lena Landherr Sheaffer - Lab Technician; An integral part of the research environment,
Lena ensures that the lab runs smoothly on a day to day basis.
Between training undergrads in new procedures, making sure that projects are getting done on
time, as well as doing research of her own, Lena certainly gets the job done.
Paula Ralph - Research Support Staff; Paula assists in a variety of research support areas. Paula is currently working on updating the lab websites, so let her know if you have suggestions for additions or improvements.
Kerr
Wall - research programmer, 2001 - present; Ph.d. candidate, 2004 - present; Kerr came from the IT industry as a web development person. Kerr built and continues to develop the databases, informatic pipelines, and web interfaces for the Floral Genome Project. He is interested in bioinformatics and has developed PlantTribes, a global classification of plant proteins, and uses it as a general research tool in plant phylogenomics.
Stefan Wanke - Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar, May 2007 - October 2007.
Yan Zhang - Ph.D. candidate, 2003 - present; Yan is studying parasitic plants, including chloroplast genome evolution and functional and genomic approaches to understanding parasites.
Kai Mueller - Adjunct Postdoctoral Scholar, summer 2006.
Jim Leebens-Mack - Research Associate; Jim is currently an Assistant Professor of Plant Biology at the University of Georgia
Sheila Plock - Lab Technician; Sheila recently made the Penn State Nucleic Acid Facility her new home.
Liying Cui - Ph.D. Penn State University, 2006; M.A.S., Applied Statistics, 2005 (Penn State); B.S. Genetics, 2000 (Fudan University, Shanghai, China); While in the dePamphilis lab, Liying worked on diverse topics related to genome evolution and gene expression analysis. These included: 1) gene expression profiles in floral organs based on ESTs and microarray data, 2) the genome duplication history of flowering plants, 3) chloroplast genome sequence analysis, 4) co-development of software for organelle genome rearrangements. Liying is currently working as a statistician in the Washington, D.C. area.
Joel McNeal - Ph.D. Penn State University, 2005; Joel is an outstanding botanist who worked on the evolution of dodder (Cuscuta),
a parasitic vine, while in the dePamphilis lab. Joel has recently taken a Post Doctoral position in the Dept. of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at
Harvard University.
Alan
Smith -
Ph.D. 2003, Vanderbilt
University;
Andrea D. Wolfe - NSF Postdoctoral fellow 1994-1996; Andi is an Associate Professor of Plant Biology at Ohio State University
in Columbus, Ohio. Andi studied the evolution of photosynthetic and ndh genes in parasitic Scrophulariaceae & Orobanchaceae.
Her work led to the discovery that some Orobanche species retain an intact, apparently functional rbcL gene, while other species have only a remnant pseudogene.
We continue to work together on trying to solve the mystery of what the function, if any, may be served by the intact rbcL genes. Andi's lab has active projects
in the molecular systematics and evolution of Penstemon, as well as several parasitic genera of Scrophulariaceae.
Nelson D. (Ned) Young - Postdoctoral associate, 1994-1998;
Ned is currently a Postdoctoral Associate in the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (Biomedical Sciences) at
Tufts Unviversity
.
Ned is working in the Stephen M. Rich lab
where he does research projects involving the use of computers in molecular biology and evolution.
While in the dePamphilis lab, Ned's studies of plastid
rps2 and matK gene sequences led to discoveries about the forces that influence rates
of sequence evolution, plastid gene function, and the phylogenetic relationships of nonparasitic as well as parasitic scrophs.
Gordon Chenery
- M.S. Vanderbilt University
,
1995; Gordon is a high school teacher at Montgomery Bell Academy
in Nashville, TN, who is working on a second master's degree in plant molecular systematics. Gordon developed mitochondrial atpA as a phylogenetic tool for angiosperms.
Todd Barkman
- Ph.D. University of Texas; postdoctoral associate in the laboratory; Currently an Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at Western Michigan University
While in dePamphilis lab, Todd worked on mitochondrial gene
and intron projects and plastid DNA molecular
evolution in parasitic plants.
L. Michelle Bowe - Ph.D. 1997, Vanderbilt University; Michelle is an Assistant Professor of Biology and Curator of the Herbarium at Southwest Missouri State University
in Springfield, Missouri. Michelle was the
first to develop the slowly evolving mitochondrial gene for molecular systematic studies in seed plants, and authored a seminal paper on the phylogenetic
implications of RNA implications of RNA editing and gene processing.
Suneeti Jog - Ph.D. Botany, 2003 Cleveland State University; Suneeti is currently a post doctoral researcher with the Kansas Biological Survey, University of Kansas.
While in dePamphilis lab, Suneeti was interested in plant molecular sytematics and evolution.
Henrietta Croom - Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Henrietta is a Professor of Biology at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN and works with us on studies of the coxI gene and its associated group I intron in flowering plants. Henrietta was visiting the lab on sabbatical from Fall 1996 - Summer 1997.
Kim Steiner - Ph.D., UC Davis; Kim is Chairman and Associate Curator of the Biology Department at the California Academy of Sciences and a world expert on plants that produce oil-flowers. Kim has worked in our lab from time to time on scrophulariaceae molecular systematics.
Gwenaele Coat - Gwenaele visited the lab from Roscoff, France in 1999-2000. She was fervently running the new CEQ 2000 on a 24 hour basis, pumping out those sequences.
Wayne Elisens - a Professor of Botany
at the University of Oklahoma, Wayne spent a sabbatical year in our lab (1994) working on scroph molecular
systematics and helped launch the plant mitochondrial gene project.
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Send mail to pkerrwall@psu.edu
with questions or comments about this web site.
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Last modified: 9 June, 2007
