alumni
Amazing people who worked in the lab
Christine P. Zolnik
PhD 2015
MS (2005) Univ Rhode Island, Environ Sci: Entomol
BS (2002) Univ Rhode Island, Biol Sci
Christy studied the effects of landscape-level variables on the genetics of the Lyme disease tick vector in our lab and at Calder Center's Vector Ecology Lab. She investigated microbial community structure within blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis). Side projects included Babesia profiling in black bears (J Med Entomol 2015) and landscape genomics of white-footed mice (Evol Appl 2016). She was a postdoc in Robert Burk’s lab at A. Einstein College of Medicine working on human microbiomes in 2015-17, and recently started as an Assistant Professor of biology at Long Island University–Brooklyn.
Alyssa D. Ammazzalorso
Biology major
BS (2015) Fordham Univ, Biology & Theology
Alyssa was a Biology & Theology double major in the Honors program. She worked on gut microbiomes and tick-borne pathogen profiling from white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus), a major reservoir of the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, in and around NYC. Her earlier summer project here was on DNA extraction optimization from ticks (PeerJ 2015). She has prior experience in microbial pathogen genetic work on the chytrid fungus, Herpesviruses, and Mycoplasma in turtles at the Bronx Zoo. She is a medical student at A. Einstein College of Medicine.
Sarah Stellick Seepaulsingh
PhD student
MS (2014) Univ South Carolina, Mar Sci
BS (2011) Univ South Florida, Environ Sci
Sarah worked on bottlenose dolphin blowhole metagenomics prior to joining our lab. She spent some time in our lab working on Franciscana dolphin immunogenetics.
Claire Flynn
MS 2015
BS (2013) Adelphi Univ, Biology
Claire completed her MS work on the phylogeny of Distichontidae fishes, reconstructing the evolutionary history of pterygophagy. In collaboration with Melanie Stiassny (AMNH Ichthyology).
Stephen Coyle
Biology freshman
2014 Jan-July
Stephen learned the basics and worked on NYC ant DNA barcoding. He has since transferred to NYU and worked in Jane Carlton’s lab.
Johann Boteju
MS student
MAEd (2013) Argosy Univ Sarasota, Teaching & Learning
BS (2008) CUNY Queens, Physics
Johann is a laser physicist by training who became interested in comparative biology. He holds an MA in Education and has worked on physical oceanography at CUNY and later on eukaryotic transcriptomics at the Univ of South Florida. He worked on comparative transcriptomics of mosses (collaboration with Barbara Ambrose at NYBG).
Gloria Siclari
Biology major
BS (2016) Fordham, Biology
Gloria worked on immunogenetics of urban birds, examining the correlation between MHC genetic variation and blood parasite infection in passerines. She is now a research assistant in Robert Burk’s lab at A. Einstein College of Medicine working on human microbiomes.
Zoe Sakas
Biology major
BS (2016) Fordham, Biology
Zoe worked at first on Babesia parasite profiling from black bears and focused for her main project on population genetics of bedbugs in NYC. She continued on to a Master's in Public Health at the London School for Tropical Medicine & Hygiene.
Sarah Voor
Biology major
BS (2016) Fordham, Biology & Anthropology
Sarah worked on the genetic characterization of blood parasites isolated from passerine birds, both migratory and resident, in NYC. She became an expert in mist-netting birds at 4am. She now works in the biotechnology industry.
interns
Students from different majors joined the lab every semester to become acquainted with scientific research. Interns were paired with a senior peer and were exposed to fieldwork, labwork, and computational analysis. All students interacted with neighboring lab groups and collaborators within the Bronx Science Consortium and NYC.
Felicia Zhang (2016) Business
Tiffany Zhang (2016) Biology
Nicole Uzzo (2016) Biology & Psychology
Alina Gandrabur (2016) Biology