{"id":42,"date":"2013-01-30T00:56:38","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T00:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/?page_id=42"},"modified":"2025-11-20T16:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T16:33:10","slug":"people","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/?page_id=42","title":{"rendered":"People"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Daven Presgraves, PI<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 Daven received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biology from the University of Maryland at College Park with\u00a0Jerry Wilkinson\u00a0and his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Rochester with\u00a0Allen Orr. He was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Munich with\u00a0Wolfgang Stephan\u00a0and an NIH-NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University with\u00a0Andy Clark. Daven is now University Dean’s Professor at the University of Rochester. The Presgraves Lab, established in 2005, works on evolutionary genetics and genomics using\u00a0Drosophila<\/em>\u00a0species as models with funding from the NIH, NSF, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the David & Lucile Packard Foundation species.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Emiliano Mart\u00ed, PhD Student \u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/span>Emiliano got his masters at the Sao Paulo State University studying the evolution of repetitive DNA in Schistocerca<\/em> grasshoppers. He is interested in male meiotic drive and its role in genome organization and sex chromosome evolution. \u00a0He works currently works on the evolution of hybrid incompatibilities, sex-ratio meiotic drive, Segregation Distorter, and still finds time to contribute to our collaborative project, with Al Uy, on speciation and neo-sex chromosomes in Pacific Island birds. \u00a0He is co-advised by Amanda Larracuente.<\/p>\n

\"ChristinaMuirhead\" Christina Muirhead, Computational\u00a0<\/strong>Biologist\/Population Geneticist \u00a0<\/strong>Christina (“Tee”) received her B.S. in Mathematics from Yale University and her Master’s from the University of Oregon, where she studied under Russ Lande. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied under\u00a0Montgomery Slatkin. She then did a postdoc with\u00a0John Wakeley\u00a0at Harvard University. Tee is spearheads many of our comparative, functional and population genomics efforts focused on meiotic drive and sex chromosome evolution.<\/p>\n

\"Lori_Wright\"<\/a>Lori Wright, Laboratory Manager\/Research Technician<\/strong><\/span> Lori received her B.S. in Biology from Syracuse University, where she did research with\u00a0William T. Starmer\u00a0on cactophilic\u00a0Drosophila.<\/em>\u00a0After graduating, she began her molecular biology career in Tom Eickbush’s lab, before moving to the University of Rochester’s Department of Micorobiology and Immunology. \u00a0Lori runs our fly lab, does a huge number of crosses and fertility assays, and tackles most of our molecular biology jobs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FORMER LAB MEMBERS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Beatriz Navarro Dominguez, Postdoc\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/span>Beatriz received her B.S. in Biology and her PhD in Systems Biology\u00a0from the Universidad de Granada in Spain. \u00a0She did a brief postdoc with Nicole Valenzuela at Iowa State University, before signing on to with our lab and the Larracuente lab. \u00a0Beatriz studied the population genomics of the selfish Segregation Distorter<\/em> gene complex, a collaboration with Amanda Larracuente. \u00a0She is now at the Universidad de Granada.<\/p>\n

Thomas Rzatkiewicz, Drosophila<\/em> Technician<\/b><\/span><\/span>\u00a0Thomas received his B.S. in Biology from the University of Rochester, and he’s now performing laborious experiments to determine the genetic basis of sex ratio distortion and hybrid male sterility on the X chromosome. \u00a0Thomas is now attending Stony Brook Medical School.<\/p>\n

Cara Brand, Graduate Student<\/strong><\/span> Cara received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she worked with\u00a0Jerry Wilkinson. She then spent a year as research technician in Jerry Wilkinson\u2019s lab, working on hybrid male sterility and meiotic drive in stalk-eyed flies. She studied the genetics and\u00a0evolutionary history of the selfish\u00a0Segregation Distorter<\/em>\u00a0system in D. melanogaster<\/em>\u00a0and the molecular genetic basis of evolved differences in the rate of recombination between\u00a0Drosophila. \u00a0<\/em>She is now a Life Sciences Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow with Mia Levine at UPenn.<\/p>\n

Zhenguo Zhang, Research Scientist\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Zhenguo received\u00a0his\u00a0B.S. from Nanjing\u00a0University and his PhD from the Chinese Academy of Science, where he used computational approaches to study alternative splicing and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay. He then did a postdoc with Masotoshi Nei\u00a0at Penn State,\u00a0where he studied the molecular evolution of sex determination in Drosophila.\u00a0He\u00a0worked on computational analyses of the regulation of sex chromosomes in the Drosophila<\/em> male\u00a0gremlin. \u00a0He is now a computational biologist at Zymo Research.<\/p>\n

Emily Landeen, Graduate Student<\/strong><\/span> Emily received her B.S. from the University of Arizona, where she worked with\u00a0Michael Nachman. During her PhD she studied\u00a0the regulation of the X chromosome in the\u00a0Drosophila<\/em>\u00a0male germline, and she worked to determine the molecular and evolutionary basis of the the special role played by the X chromosome in speciation between\u00a0D. mauritiana<\/em>\u00a0and its sibling species. She is now a postdoctoral researcher in Doris Bachtrog’s lab at the University of California at Berkeley.<\/p>\n

Ben Goule<\/strong>t, Undergraduate Researcher<\/strong> Ben\u00a0graduated with a\u00a0B.S in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology with a Distinction in Research. He is a\u00a0recipient of the Department’s 2014 Grace McCormack Award and he was the 2014 Biology Class Speaker. He worked\u00a0on the genetic and molecular basis of a hybrid lethal incompatibility between\u00a0Drosophila mauritiana<\/em>\u00a0and its two sister species. He is now PhD student with Robin Hopkins\u00a0in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.<\/p>\n

Justin Roncaioli<\/strong>, Undergraduate Researcher<\/strong><\/span> Justin graduated with a\u00a0B.S in Molecular Genetics (with minors in Chemistry and Psychology). He worked on genetic suppressors of the\u00a0Segregation Distorter<\/em>\u00a0element in\u00a0D. melanogaster. \u00a0<\/em>He now a PhD student in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley.<\/p>\n

Victoria Cattani, Graduate Student<\/strong><\/span> Vicky received her Licenciatura in Ciencias Biol\u00f3gicas from the University of Buenos Aires and her M.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Rochester. She worked on the evolution and genetics of a lethal X-autosome hybrid incompatibility between\u00a0D. mauritiana<\/em>\u00a0and its two sibling species,\u00a0D. simulans\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0D. sechellia<\/em>. She also studied the evolution of the genetic control of recombination rate differences between species of\u00a0Drosophila<\/em>. In 2012, Vicky completed her Ph.D. and moved on to a postdoc doing evolutionary genomics in\u00a0C. elegans<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0Matt Rockman’s lab at NYU.<\/p>\n

Robert Edwards, Postdoc<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Robert (“Bort”) received his\u00a0B.S. from the Australian National University in Canberra\u00a0and his PhD from the University of\u00a0Queensland,\u00a0where he combined field and phylogenetics methods to study biogeography and speciation in the\u00a0broad-leaved paper bark (Melaleuca leucadendra<\/em>) species complex. While in the lab, Bort mapped X-linked regions from\u00a0D. simulans<\/em> that cause\u00a0hybrid male sterility when introgressed into\u00a0D. mauritiana.<\/em>\u00a0In 2016, he accepted a\u00a0Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution\u00a0Herbarium at the\u00a0National Museum of Natural History in\u00a0Washington DC.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Amanda Larracuente, Postdoc<\/strong><\/span> Amanda received her B.S. in Biology from Canisius College in 2003 and her Ph.D. in Genetics from Cornell University, where she performed comparative analyses of the 12\u00a0Drosophila<\/em>\u00a0genomes, studied the factors affecting protein-coding sequence evolution, and investigated the genetics and evolution of the\u00a0D. pseudoobscura<\/em>\u00a0neo-Y<\/em>\u00a0chromosome with\u00a0Andy Clark. Amanda was\u00a0a NIH-funded NRSA postdoctoral fellow working on the genetics, molecular biology and population genomics of the\u00a0Segregation Distorter<\/em>\u00a0complex and studying the evolution and regulation of satellite DNAs in\u00a0D. melanogaster<\/em>. \u00a0Amanda is now a faculty member in the University of Rochester’s Biology Department.<\/p>\n

Sarah Kingan, Postdoc<\/strong><\/span> Sarah received her B.S. in Biology from Brown University and her Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University where she studied the evolution and population genetic history of a cryptic sex ratio distorter system in the\u00a0Drosophila simulans<\/em>\u00a0clade species with\u00a0Dan Hartl. She worked on the genomics of complex speciation between\u00a0D. simulans<\/em>, D. mauritiana<\/em>, and\u00a0D. sechellia<\/em>.\u00a0 Sarah\u00a0is now a Bioinformatics Scientist at Pacific Biosciences.<\/p>\n

Colin Meiklejohn, Postdoc<\/strong><\/span> Colin received his B.A. in Biology from the University of Chicago and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University where he studied the population genetics and transcriptional evolution of genes with male-biased expression in\u00a0Drosophila<\/em>\u00a0with\u00a0Dan Hartl. He was a NIH-NRSA postdoctoral researcher at Brown University where he worked on cytonuclear incompatibilities between closely related\u00a0Drosophila<\/em>\u00a0species with David Rand. He studies the evolution and regulation of the X chromosome in the male germline and the evolution of gene interactions affecting gene expression in\u00a0Drosophila<\/em>\u00a0(funded by a NSF grant to CDM). Colin is now a\u00a0faculty member of the U<\/a>niversity of Nebraska’s School of Biological Sciences.<\/p>\n

Pierre Gerard, Postdoc<\/strong><\/span> Pierre received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Genetics from the University of Paris VII and the University of Nancy, and his Ph.D. in forest genetics from ENGREF Paris. He worked on the genetics and evolution of embryonic lethality in\u00a0D. simulans-D. melanogaster<\/em>\u00a0hybrids. Pierre is now a postdoc working on the genetics and evolution of sex ratio meiotic drive in Drosophila simulans<\/em> at the CNRS\/Universit\u00e9 Paris-Sud XI with\u00a0Catherine Montchamp-Moreau.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daven Presgraves, PI\u00a0 Daven received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biology from the University of Maryland at College Park with\u00a0Jerry Wilkinson\u00a0and his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Rochester with\u00a0Allen Orr. He was an Alexander … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":3952,"parent":0,"menu_order":2000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"sidebar-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-42","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":62,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4402,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/42\/revisions\/4402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rochester.edu\/PresgravesLab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}