Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior
The Rockefeller University

Lab Members

 
Ariadna Amador
Graduate Fellow
Ariadna earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Miami. She rotated in the lab as a first year PhD student in the summer of 2007, working with Gabriel Gasque on the genetics of the Drosophila Ih ion channel. Ariadna worked in the lab from 2008-2010, earning a Master's Degree. She went on to the PhD program at Scripps-Florida.
Ariana Andrei B.A./B.S./M.S.
Summer Research Assistant
Ariana was a summer technician in 2003, working with Silke Sachse. She went on to graduate work in systems neurophysiology and is currently in film school in Canada.
Kenta Asahina B.A.
Graduate Fellow
Kenta received his B.A. degree in Biology from the University of Tokyo and worked on larval coding in the lab from 2002-2008. He moved on to postdoctoral training at Caltech in David Anderson's Lab.
Daniel Baez
Outreach Student
Daniel worked in the Vosshall Lab as a high school student in 2002-2003 and went on to college at SUNY-Stonybrook.
Felix Baier
Research Assistant
Felix earned a BSc/MA student at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he studied biology, physics, and philosophy. In the summer of 2011, he was a SURF student working with Matt DeGennaro on the genetics of mosquito host-seeking behavior. Felix returned to the lab in 2011-2012 as a guest researcher continuing the project to document the neurotranscriptome of Aedes aegypti. From July-December 2012, he joined as a Research Assistant, working with Lindy McBride on the genetics of host preference.

Photograph (c)2011 Ronniedavidphotography.com
Deborah Beck
Research Specialist I/Insectary Manager
Debby graduated with a B.S. in Animal Physiology from Cornell University and went on to distinguished service as a research associate at Yale University until relocating to New York City and joining the Vosshall Laboratory in 2010. She supports all aspects of our mosquito research program and was promoted in 2011 to the position of Manager of the Vosshall Lab Insectary. Debby retired from the lab in May 2012.

Photograph (c)2011 Ronniedavidphotography.com
Catherine Belfi
Outreach Student
Katie worked in the Vosshall Lab while in high school at Bronx Science in 2001-2002. She went on to college at Columbia University in New York.
Richard Benton Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Richard was a postdoctoral fellow in the lab from 2003-2007. He received his PhD in Biology from the The Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Institute, Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, where he worked with Daniel St. Johnston on the role of the PAR genes in cell polarization. He is the recipient of an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship and a Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. Starting in September 2007, he is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Alana Bhajan M.S.
Research Assistant
Alana was the first technician in the lab and worked for the Vosshall lab from 2000-2001. She went on to a position as laboratory manager at Rockefeller.
Matthew Boisvert
BRSS Student
Matthew is a Bard College student who participated in the Bard Rockefeller Semester in Science in Spring 2011. He worked on male fly courtship behavior under the mentorship of Mike Crickmore.
Jake Brawer
Science Outreach Student
Jake is a student at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City and worked with Gabriel Gasque on Drosophila feeding behavior in the summer of 2011.
Emma Broches
Summer Volunteer
Emma worked on feeding behavior with Gabriel Gasque in the summer of 2008 while a high school student at the Dalton School in New York.
Veronica Burnham
SURF
Veronica is an Oberlin College student, who worked with Mike Crickmore on male Drosophila courtship behavior during her January 2012 winter term break of her sophomore year and returned as a SURF student in the summer of 2012. She is majoring in neuroscience and cinema science.
Caroline Bushdid
Research Volunteer
Caroline earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences with a specialization in Chemistry from the Université Paris V-­Descartes in Paris, France in June 2012. From July-December 2012, she worked as a development intern at Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle in Paris, France. In the Vosshall Laboratory, Caroline worked with Andreas Keller and Peggy Hempstead on human olfactory psychophysics from January-April 2013.
Rachel Cardero
Outreach Student
Rachel worked in the lab as a high school student in the summer of 2004, while she was a student at Notre Dame High School in New York City. She went on to Columbia University where she majored in Neuroscience and Behavior.
Chiung-Ying Chang
Graduate Fellow
Chiung-Ying earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from the National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan. She ranked first in her class for both degrees and is a five-time winner of the Presidential Award. Prior to joining the graduate program in 2008, Chiung-Ying worked on the cell biology of cargo sorting and autophagy with Dr. Wei-Pang Huang. She rotated in the Vosshall Lab in the Fall of 2008 and worked with Mike Crickmore on the regulation of male sexual behavior. She went on to do her PhD in the laboratory of Elaine Fuchs.
Jonathan Chen B.A.
Biomedical Fellow
Jonathan received his undergraduate degree at Stanford University. He worked as a rotation student with Matthieu Louis in the summer of 2006
Eugenia Chiappe Ph.D.
Graduate Fellow
Eugenia was a graduate student in the lab from 2000-2002, went on to do a PhD with A.J. Hudspeth at Rockefeller, and a postdoc at HHMI-Janelia Farm.
Christine Cho
Graduate Fellow
E-mail: Christine.Cho@rockefeller.edu
Christine graduated from Brown University in 2008 and rotated as a first year PhD student in our laboratory in the summer of 2009. She worked with Shelli Farhadian on the regulation of adult feeding behavior in Drosophila. She went on to join Cori Bargmann's laboratory for her thesis work.
Stephen Conway
Research Assistant-Drosophila
Steve is a 2010 graduate of Lafayette College, where he majored in neuroscience and minored in biotechnology/bioengineering. At Lafayette, he did an honors thesis in neuroscience, investigating the role of diet, specifically the Ketogenic Diet and caloric restriction, in ameliorating “epilepsy” in Drosophila melanogaster bang sensitive mutants. He also worked as a summer research intern at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. At Rockefeller, he worked with Gabriel Gasque and Mike Crickmore on innate behaviors in Drosophila from 2010 to 2012.

Photograph (c)2011 Ronniedavidphotography.com
Mike Crickmore
Postdoctoral Fellow
E-mail: Michael_Crickmore-at-hms.harvard.edu
Mike earned his PhD degree in 2007 from Columbia University, where he worked with Richard Mann on organ size regulation by hox genes. He is a 2007 Harald Weintraub Graduate Student Award Winner. In the Vosshall lab he is working on male sexual behavior. Mike is a 2008 Marco Stoffel Mind, Brain, and Behavior Postdoctoral Fellow Awardee, a 2009 Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow, and Grand Prize winner in the 2009 GE & Science Prize for Young Life Scientists. In the Vosshall Lab he worked on male sexual behavior. He moved on to Harvard University in 2013.
(Photo: Allan Zepeda, 2008)
Emily Cross
Outreach Student
Emily worked in the lab in the summer of 2004 while a high school student at the Brearley School. She went on to college at Harvard University.
Rachel David
Research Assistant
Rachel received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and worked as a research assistant in the lab for one year (2006-2007). She went on to Cornell Medical School.
Alexandra Deaconescu
Graduate Fellow
Alex rotated in the lab in 2002 and went on to do a PhD with Seth Darst at Rockefeller.
Orion Despo
Outreach student
Orion is a high school student from North Carolina who worked with Ben Matthews in summer 2012 on a de novo annotation of the Aedes aegypti neurotranscriptome. He previously worked in the laboratory of Dr. Fred Alt at Harvard University
Mathias Ditzen Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Mathias received his Diplom and PhD from the Free University in Berlin, where he worked with Drs. Randalf Menzel and Giovanni Galizia on the olfactory system of the honeybee. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for studies abroad at Tulane University during his undergraduate work. Mathias worked on the mechanism of action of insect repellents from 2005-2008. He was a 2006 recipient of the Henry and Marie Josee Kravis Postdoctoral Fellow Award. In March 2008, he returned to Berlin to accept a position in clinical studies administration.
Ana Domingos Ph.D.
Visiting Graduate Student
Ana received her undergraduate degree in Mathematics from the Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. She received her PhD student with a fellowship from the Gulbenkian PhD Programme in Biology and Medicine, Oeiras, Portugal in May 2005. She went on to a postdoc at The Rockefeller University with Dr. Jeff Friedman.
Marianne Dorado
Outreach Student
A 2010 Marymount School graduate, Marianne returned to the lab in the summer of 2010 and worked with Jen Bussell to examine female courtship behavior in Drosophila.
Marianne volunteered in the lab in the Summer 2009 Outreach Program while a high school student at the Marymount School of New York. In previous summers, she participated in the Outreach Program at the American Museum of Natural History, working with Dr. David Kizirian in the Department of Herpetology. She entered Cornell University in the Fall of 2010.
Sarah Eskreis-Winkler
SURF
Sarah was a SURF in the summer of 2004, working with Yelena Fishilevich, while an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania.
Shelli Farhadian B.A.
Biomedical Fellow
Shelli earned a BS in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003, and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to India where she researched genetic risk factors for heart disease. She was awarded a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans in 2007 and an F30 predoctoral NRSA fellowship from NIH in 2008. In the Vosshall Lab she worked on the regulation of behavior by feeding state and returned to the MD-PhD program to complete her PhD in August 2010.
Robbie Fenster B.A.
SURF (2001) and Summer Research Technician (2004)
Robbie received his A.B. in Biochemical Sciences, summa cum laude from Harvard University and a B.A. in English Literature from Cambridge University. He went on to the MD-PhD program at Weill Medical College of Cornell University.
Jeremy Fenton B.A.
Research Assistant
Jeremy was a research assistant from 2003-2004 and went on to medical school at New York University School of Medicine.
Konstantin Fishilevich
Summer Research Assistant
Konstantin worked in the lab in the summers of 2005 and 2006. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and is working toward his B.S. in chemistry at the University at Buffalo.
Yelena Fishilevich Ph.D.
Graduate Fellow
Yelena was the first Rockefeller PhD student to graduate from the Vosshall lab. She received her B.A. degree in Biochemistry from Vassar College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Yelena is a 2004 recipient of an NIH Ruth L. Kirchstein Predoctoral National Research Service Award. She is conducting postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Jonathan Minden at Carnegie Mellon University as a fellow of the American Cancer Society.
Eric Fritz
Graduate Fellow
Eric received an A.B. Summa Cum Laude in June 2008 from Harvard University in Chemistry with Secondary Field in Mind, Brain, and Behavior before joining the Rockefeller graduate program in 2008. His previous research at Harvard and in Freiburg Germany was in synthetic organic chemistry. In the Vosshall lab, he rotated with Gabriel Gasque on the regulation of feeding behavior in Fall 2008. He went on to do his PhD in the laboratory of Nina Papavasiliou
Gabriel Gasque Ph.D.
Research Associate
E-mail: ggasque-at-gmail.com
Gabriel received his PhD in Biochemistry in 2005 from the Institute of Biotechnology, National University of Mexico (UNAM), working with Dr. Alberto Darszon. He trained as a postdoctoral fellow in Brian McCabe's laboratory at Columbia University until joining our group in 2007. Gabriel is a recipient of a Latin American Scholar Award from the Pew Fellows Program in the Biomedical Sciences. In the Vosshall Lab, he studied chemical regulation of feeding behavior in Drosophila

Photograph (c)2011 Ronniedavidphotography.com
Alina Genis
SURF
Alina worked in the lab in the Summer of 2008. She is a Cornell University undergraduate who started her senior year in the Fall of 2008. At Cornell she worked with Dr. David Deitcher on a genetic screen for epileptic Drosophila mutants. In our lab she worked with Gabriel Gasque on feeding behavior.
(Photo: Allan Zepeda, 2008)
Austen Gess B.S.
Research Assistant
Austen worked in the lab from 2002-2004. She received her B.S. degree in Psychology from Fordham University. After working in our lab, Austen worked as an editorial assistant at the Journal of Cell Biology, Rockefeller University Press and at Elsevier and as a research assistant at Cornell University before returning to Hunter College for graduate school in psychology.
Lauren Giarratani M.S.
Graduate Fellow
Laurie was a graduate student in the lab from 2002-2004 and graduated with a Master's Degree. She is currently a Research Specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out of School Environments.
Chloe Goldman
Research Assistant-Mosquito
Chloe is a 2010 Cornell University graduate and joined the mosquito team in the summer of 2010 to support our new NIAID VectorBase Driving Biological Projects grant to decode the Aedes neurotranscriptome. She left the lab in 2012 for medical training at NYU Medical School.

Photograph (c)2011 Ronniedavidphotography.com
Iran Gomez M.D.
Clinical Study Coordinator
Iran received his M.D. from superior Medical Institute of Science, Villa Clara in Cuba. Iran has worked as a study coordinator at the Lovelace Scientific Resource center and the Clinical Research Center in Miami, FL. He served as clinical coordinator for the Rockefeller University smell study from 2005-2008 and is currently in medical residency training in family medicine in Montgomery, AL.
Carolina Gomez-Diaz B.A.
Visiting PhD Student
Carol was a visiting graduate student in our lab from May-August 2006 while conducting PhD research in the laboratory of Dr. Esther Alcorta at Universidad de Oviedo in Spain.
Alison Hill
Research Assistant
Alison received her B.S. degree from Yale University in 2007. She majored in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and completed a senior thesis project with Dr. Peter Tattersall studying the novel pathogen Human Bocavirus. She worked in the Vosshall Lab from 2007-2009. First with Jenny Mehren on fly pheromone receptors, then with Mike Crickmore on sexual behavior and with Gabriel Gasque on the DmIh ion channel. Alison went on to the Harvard University virology PhD program in Fall 2009.
(Photo: Allan Zepeda, 2008)
Victoria Hsia
Outreach Student
Vicky worked in the lab in the summer of 2005 while a high school student at East Brunswick High School in New Jersey and is interested in a career in medicine. She went on to college at Emory University.
Jenny (Yi-Chen) Hsieh
Research Assistant
Jenny graduated with high honors and received her B.A. degree from Cornell University in 2008. She majored in biological sciences with a program of study in genetics and development. She conducted her undergraduate research on longevity pathways in C. elegans. She worked with Gabriel Gasque on Drosophila larval feeding behavior from 2008 to 2010. She went on to the Duke-NUS MD-PhD program in August 2010.
(Photo: Allan Zepeda, 2008)
Stephanie Huang
Outreach student
Stephanie is a high school student who worked with Nilay Yapici on fly feeding behavior in the summer of 2012.
Christopher Ilch B.A.
Laboratory Manager
Chris was the first Vosshall lab manager from 2005-2006. He received his B.A. in Neuroscience & Behavior and English from Wesleyan University. He was previously a research assistant at Cornell University and a scientist at Memory Pharmaceuticals. He is currently a senior scientist at Amgen Corporation.
Avril Johnnidis
Outreach Student
Avril worked in the lab for three summers (2003-2005) while she was a high school student at the Trinity School, first with Mattias Larsson and then independently under the guidance of Laurie Giarratani and Andreas Keller. She was a semi-finalist in the 2005 Intel Science Talent Search, which recognizes outstanding science projects contributed by high school seniors. Avril went on to college at Harvard University.
Walt Jones Ph.D.
Biomedical Fellow
Walt received his BS in biology from Eastern Nazarene Collegeand defended his Ph.D. on December 5, 2006 as part of the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD program. He is currently an assistant professor and directory of the Lab for Behavioral Neurobiology at KAIST in Seoul, South Korea.
Remzi Karayol
HHMI Summer Student
Remzi is an undergraduate at Bogazici University in Istanbul Turkey. He has previously worked in the laboratories of Dr. Thomas Schwarz and Dr. Judth Steen at Harvard Medical School and Dr. Arzu Celik's laboratory at his home university. In the summer of 2011, Remzi worked with Nilay Yapici on Drosophila feeding behavior.
Shauna Katz B.A.
Undergraduate Researcher
Shauna worked with Richard Benton in the Winter of 2006, while a senior at Oberlin College.
Kenneth Kay B.A.
SURF
Kenny worked with Walt Jones and Andreas Keller in the summer of 2005. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University and went on to be a research assistant with Karl Deisseroth at Stanford University.
Jelena Kostic
Outreach Student
Jelena is a high school student at Holmdel High School and worked with Mike Crickmore on the regulation of male fly copulation behavior in the summer of 2010.
Max Ladow
Outreach Student
Max is a high school student at the Riverdale Country School and worked with Nilay Yapici on Drosophila feeding behavior in the summer of 2010. He returns in the summer of 2011 to continue this project.
Johannes Larsch
Foreign Research Intern
Johannes carried out his Diplom work in the Vosshall Lab from 2007-2008. His home institution is the University of Konstanz in Germany, where he worked with Giovanni Galizia. He returns to Rockefeller to join the PhD program in the Fall of 2008 and has joined the laboratory of Cori Bargmann.
Mattias Larsson Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Mattias earned his Ph.D. from Lund University in Sweden, working with Bill Hansson. He was a postdoc in the lab from 2003-2004 and went on to an Assistant Professor position at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Department of Crop Science, Division of Chemical Ecology Alnarp, Sweden.
Kristina Lo
Summer Volunteer
Kristina is pursuing her Bachelor's degree at Soochow University in South Korea and volunteered in the lab in the Summer of 2009. She worked with Jenny Hsieh and Gabriel Gasque on larval feeding behavior.
Annie Rose London
SURF
Annie Rose is pursuing her Bachelor's degree at Brown University and worked with Mike Crickmore on fly sexual behavior in Summer 2009.
Matthieu Louis Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Matthieu was a postdoc in the lab from 2003-2007 and went on to a junior group leader position at the CRG in Barcelona. Matthieu received his BA and MA degrees from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium in Theoretical Physics. He received his PhD degree in Bioinformatics from the Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK and was a fellow of the European Bioinformatics Institute, EMBL outstation located in the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Cambridge, UK. He worked in the laboratory of Dr. Liisa Holm on mathematical and computational modeling of gene regulatory networks. He was a 2004 recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation and a 2006 Recipient of a Revson Senior Fellowship in Biomedical Sciences.
Joel Lutomiah
Visiting Scientist
Joel is an Arbovirus Research Entomologist working with Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) where he heads the entomology section of the arbovirus and viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) laboratory. In spring 2012, Joel visited the Vosshall Laboratory on a 3-month training visit in connection with the research collaboration between KEMRI, the Vosshall Lab, and Jeff Powell's lab at Yale University. Lutomiah has experience in virus-vector interactions and has keen interest in how vector distribution and vectorial capacity influence the epidemiology of arboviruses in Kenya. He also has interest in the population genetics and behavior of Aedes aegypti, an important vector of Yellow fever, dengue and chikungunya viruses both locally and regionally. He is currently enrolled at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya, for his PhD in Medical Entomology and holds an MSc degree in Medical Entomology and Parasitology from the same university.
Louise Malle
Outreach Student
Louise is a student at the Lycee Francais de New York, in section "S", concentrating in mathematics and sciences. She volunteered in the lab through the Outreach program in the summer of 2009, working with Matt DeGennaro on developing novel tools for manipulating genes in the mosquito Aedes aegypti.
Tina Marney
Graduate Fellow
Tina worked as a rotation student with Matthieu Louis in 2006-2007 and went on to do her PhD in the laboratory of Charles Gilbert
Nareh Marukian
SURF
Nareh is pursuing her Bachelor's degree at Cornell University and worked with Matt DeGennaro and Lindy McBride on the genetic basis of host preference in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Summer 2009.
Sean McKenzie
Rotation Student
Sean is a 2011 graduate of the University of the South, where he received a B.S. in Ecology and Biodiversity. He has extensive experience as a field biologist studying ants and termites and also worked on the Sewanee Forest History Project in Tennessee. He rotated in the Vosshall lab in the Fall of 2011 to learn molecular biology and genetics with Ben Matthews and Nilay Yapici.

Photograph (c)2011 Ronniedavidphotography.com
Jennifer Mehren Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Jennifer received her PhD from Brandeis University, Waltham MA. Jennifer is a Drosophila neurogeneticist who studied courtship behavior in Drosophila in the laboratory of Dr. Leslie Griffith at Brandeis. Jennifer was the 2005 recipient of the Marco Stoffel Fellowship in Mind, Brain and Behavior and was a postdoc in the lab from 2005-2007. She went on to a A.A.A.S fellowship at NIH-NINDS.
Natasha Meyer
SURF
Natasha worked with Gabriel Gasque on larval feeding behavior in Summer 2009 while pursuing her Bachelor's degree at Davidson College.
Michael Miller B.S.
Laboratory Manager
Mike received his B.S. in Biology from Columbia University. Previously he was a senior research asssistant at Columbia University and a senior research associate at Sentigen Biosciences. He was our laboratory manager in 2006.
Mana Mirjany B.A./M.S.
Research Assistant
Mana worked in the lab from 2001-2002 and went on to the PhD program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Emma Mullen
Visiting Scientist
Emma is a staff scientist at Intellectual Ventures Labs in Seattle, WA and spent a 3-month training visit in the Vosshall Laboratory, working on molecular biology and mosquito behavior in the spring of 2012.
Takao Nakagawa Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Takao received his PhD from the University of Tokyo, where he worked with Kazushige Touhara on the functional characterization of insect pheromone receptors. He is a 2006 recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Takao worked in the Vosshall lab on small molecule inhibitors of insect odorant receptors from 2005-2011.
(Photo: Allan Zepeda, 2008)
Miho Nakajima B.A./M.A.
Graduate Fellow
Miho received her B.A. and M.A. degree in Biochemistry and Biophysics from the University of Tokyo. She rotated in the lab in 2005 and went on to pursue a PhD in the laboratory of Nat Heintz.
Natasha Novikov
Biomedical Fellow
Natasha graduated from Harvard in 2007 with a degree in Biochemistry, where she received a Flora M. Burt Fellowship and a Herchel Smith Harvard Undergraduate Research Fellowship. She rotated in the lab as a 1st year MD-PhD student working with Maurizio Pellegrino on structure-function analysis of Or83b in the Summer of 2007.
Ifije Ohiorhenuan B.A.
Biomedical Fellow
Ifije rotated in the lab in 2004 while a student in the Tri-Institutional M.D.-Ph.D. program.
Jazmine Ottley
Summer Research Assistant
Jazmine worked in the lab in the summer of 2004, while a high school student in New York City.
Thomas Paschke
Research Assistant
Thomas worked in the lab from 2003-2004 and returned to Berlin as an Instructor in biotechnology at the Emil-Fischer-School, Berlin, Germany.
Viktoryia Pavlenkovich
BRSS Student
Viktoryia was a Bard College student who participated in the Bard-Rockefeller Semester in Science Program in Spring 2007. She worked on the ethology of larval olfactory behavior with Kenta Asahina and moved on to the PhD program at the FMI in Basel, Switzerland in 2008.
Maurizio Pellegrino B.S./M.S.
Graduate Fellow
Maurizio received his Laura degree (B.S./M.S.) from Torino University in Italy in 2004. He earned a joint PhD in the Vosshall and Magnasco Laboratories, defending his thesis on July 22, 1010. In 2007, Maurizio was named the David Rockefeller Graduate Fellow for scientific excellence and distinguished service to the University. He is pursuing postdoctoral training with Diana Bautista at the University of California, Berkeley.
(Photo: Allan Zepeda, 2008)
Silvia Piccinotti B.A.
Research Assistant
Silvia is a 2006 graduate of Princeton University, where she worked with Becket Feierbach and Lynn W. Enquist in the Department of Molecular Biology. In the Vosshall lab, she worked on larval behavior with Matthieu Louis and feeding behavior with Shelli Farhadian. She moved on to the Harvard University PhD program in virology in 2008.
Jason Pinger
Rotation PhD Student
Jason earned a biochemistry degree from the University of Wisconsin. He entered the Rockefeller PhD program in 2011 and rotated with Lindsay Bellani in the Spring of 2012, during which time he worked on the problem of mosquito attraction to different human subjects. He went on to join the Papavasiliou laboratory for his PhD work.
Jason Pitts
Rotation PhD Student
Jason is a 2008 graduate of Cornell University who rotated in the Vosshall Lab in the Spring of 2011. He worked with Conor McMeniman on mosquito genetics.
Katya Prakash
Research Assistant
Katya graduated in 2008 from Williams College where she received B.A. degrees in Chemistry and Economics. She worked with Takao Nakagawa on high-throughput screening for insect odorant receptor inhibitors from 2008-2010. Kat went on to medical school at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.
(Photo: Allan Zepeda, 2008)
Sarah Puhr
Research Assistant
Sarah received a B.A. in Biology from Colorado College in 2008. She completed undergraduate research on the genetic analysis of a Salmonella transcription factor. She joined the lab in 2009, worked with Takao Nakagawa on high-throughput screening for novel insect odorant receptor inhibitors, and worked with Mike Crickmore on the regulation of male fly sexual behavior. She joined the Columbia Integrated PhD Program in 2010.
Nicole Ramsey
Rotation MD-PhD Student
Nicole is a graduate of Howard University and entered the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD program in 2007. She did a summer rotation with Shelli Farhadian on mosquito gene expression.
Eléonore Réal Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Eleonore received undergraduate training in chemical engineering at the École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris and a PhD in protein biochemistry from the Denis Diderot-Jussieu University, Paris, France working with Dr. Noël Tordo, Virology Department, Pasteur Institute, Paris. She carried out postdoctoral work with Dr. Antoine Triller at the École Normale Supérieure and with Dr. Roberto Malinow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. She is the recipient of a 2006 NARSAD Young Investigator Award and a 2008 Women & Science Postdoctoral Fellowship. She went on to a position in the laboratory of Jean-Rene Martin in Paris.
(Photo by Allan Zepeda, 2008)
Kacy Redd B.S.
Visiting Graduate Student
Kacy worked in the Vosshall Lab as a visiting Ph.D. student from 2003-2006. She received her B.S. in Biology and Psychology in the Honors College of The University of Southern Mississippi. She is the recipient of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowship in Biological Sciences, and is currently a Ph.D. student in the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University with Dr. Gareth Tibbs.
Anna Pearl Rivkin B.A.
Research Assistant
Pearl graduated magna cum laude from Stern College of Yeshiva University in January 2006 with a BA. She majored in Biology and also earned a minor in Judaic Studies. She worked in the Vosshall lab from January 2006-January 2009. In our lab, she worked with Takao Nakagawa and Maurizio Pellegrino, as our lead tissue culture technician screening for novel insect odorant receptor antagonists. Pearl went on to nursing school in 2009
(Photo: Allan Zepeda, 2008)
Tanya Rogoff B.A.
Research Assistant
Tanya worked in the lab from 2001-2003 and went on to graduate school in behavioral neuroscience at Rutgers University.
Emilie Russler
SURF
Mimi finished her freshman year at Stanford and worked with Kenta Asahina in the lab on larval food competition as a SURF in the summer of 2007.
Silke Sachse Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Silke was a postdoc in the lab from 2002-2005, working on odor-evoked plasticity in the olfactory system. She was the recipient of a Rockefeller Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship and the 2003 Till Photonics Technology Award. She is currently a junior group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany.
Lylyan Salas
Laboratory Technician
Lylyan worked in the lab from 2002-2005 while working toward her B.A. degree at Hunter College.
Emma Schatoff
SURF Student
Emma Schatoff is a 2009 graduate of Marymount School and did a Senior Internship with Matt DeGennaro in May 2009 making DNA constructs for transgenic Aedes aegypti. She returned to the lab in Summer 2009 to continue her work as an Outreach Student and went on to enroll in the honor's college at CCNY in Fall 2009. In the summer of 2010, Emma returns to continue working with Matt DeGennaro on mosquito genetics and behavior.
Laura Seeholzer
Research Assistant-Mosquito
Laura is a 2010 graduate of Cornell University, where she majored in biological sciences with a concentration in neurobiology and behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences and a global health minor. She joined the mosquito team in August 2010, and is an expert in measuring mosquito host-seeking behavior. She went on to join the Rockefeller University PhD program in September 2012.

Photograph (c)2011 Ronniedavidphotography.com

Pawat Seritrakul
SURF Student
Pawat ("Champ") Seritrakul is an undergraduate at Bowdoin College and worked with Gabriel Gasque on feeding behavior during the summer of 2010.
Ana Florencia Silbering
SURF
Ana Florencia worked as a SURF in the lab in the summer of 2002. She went on to do her Ph.D. with Giovanni Galizia at the Free University of Berlin, Germany
Sarabeth Spitzer
Outreach Student
Sarabeth worked with Lindy McBride on mosquito host-seeking behavior in the summer of 2010 as part of the high school outreach program. She devised quantitative methods to score mosquito scale and cuticle color and correlated this with host preference.
She returned to the lab in the summer of 2011 to continue this project and enrolled in Harvard University in the fall of 2011.
Nicole Steinbach
Foreign Research Intern
Nicole earned her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry/Chemistry
(combined) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, Munich (Bavaria), Germany in 2008 and completed work toward a Master of Science Degree in Biochemistry at the same institution in 2009-2010. Her past research interests included structural biology and biochemistry. She carried out Diploma work in our laboratory in 2009, working with Maurizio Pellegrino on the structure-function analysis of Or83b.
Chanlek Tan
Graduate Fellow
Chan received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University and worked as a rotation student with Jenny Mehren in late 2006-early 2007. He went on to do a PhD in the laboratory of Paul Greengard.
Liza Tevelev
Outreach Student
Liza worked in the lab in the summer of 2006 while a high school student at the Dwight Englewood School. She worked with Kenta Asahina.
Nicholas Urban Schwartz
SURF
Nicholas is an undergraduate at Duke University majoring in Neuroscience & Philosophy with a minor in Biology. He previously worked in Dan Tracey's laboratory at Duke on the problem of egg-laying behavior in Drosophila. In the summer of 2011, he worked with Ben Matthews on oviposition behavior in the mosquito.
Jennifer Valdellon R.N.
Fly Stock Keeper
Jennifer maintained our fly stocks from 2001-2003, while a nursing student at Hunter College. She went on to join the nursing staff at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Kirsten Vannice B.A.
Research Assistant
Kirsten worked in the Vosshall Lab from 2004-2006. She received her B.A. degree in biology and sociology/anthropology from Swarthmore College. She went on to pursue a Master's Degree in Public Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.
Silvia Vasquez
Laboratory Technician
Sylvia worked in the lab from 2003-2005, while working toward her B.A. degree in Liberal Arts at the City University of New York.
Erika Von Heijne
SURF
Erika is an engineering Master's student from Stockholm who worked on larval odor coding with Matthieu Louis in the summer of 2007.
Heike Wagner
Medical Technologist
Heike worked with Andreas Keller from 2004-2005. She received her Medical Technologist degree from State School for Medical Technicians of University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and went on to be a medical technologist in Germany.
Pinich Wangsomnuk Ph.D.
Visiting Scientist
Pinich was a Visiting Scientist in the lab from 2001-2002 and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.
Jermaine Watson M.S.
Laboratory Manager
Jermaine earned a B.S. in Animal Science at Rutgers University and a M.S. degree in Entomology at the University of Minnesota, where he worked on the genetics of malaria resistance in Anopheles gambiae. Since graduation, he has worked as both laboratory manager and assistant scientist at the University of Minnesota. He was our lab manager from 2008 to 2011.
Charlotte Weaver
part-time assistant
Charlotte is a 2011 graduate of Marymount School and interned in the Vosshall Lab in May 2011 and returned as a part-time technical assistant in the summer of 2011 and again as an insectary assistant in 2012. She is an undergraduate at Rhodes College.
Zhaoying Xu
SURF Student
Zhaoying is an undergraduate at Grinnell College and worked with Nilay Yapici on fly feeding behavior in the summer of 2010.
Sarah Yeoh-Wang
Science Outreach Student
Sarah is a high school student in NYC who worked with Roman Corfas on mosquito heat-seeking behavior and Conor McMeniman on mosquito genetics in the summer of 2011. Sarah returned to the lab in the summer of 2012 to continue working with Roman Corfas on mosquito heat-seeking behavior.
Stephen Zhang
SURF
Stephen is a student at Grinnell College majoring in Biological Chemistry who worked with Jennifer Bussell in the summer of 2012 on the neurons regulating female receptivity in the fly Drosophila melanogaster
Wancong Zhang
BRSS Student
Wan is an undergraduate student at Bard College who spent the Spring 2012 semester working in the Vosshall Lab under the auspices of the Bard-Rockefeller Semester in Science (BRSS) program. He worked on the post-fasting feeding response in Drosophila with Nilay Yapici, a project he continued as a SURF for the summer of 2012.
Julie Zimmer B.A.
Administrative Assistant
Julie was the lab's first administrator and worked for us from 2003-2005. She received her B.A. in Music Theater from Columbia College in Chicago. She is active in Broadway and musical theater in New York City and around the country.
Rachel Zipursky
SURF Student
Rachel is an undergraduate at Williams College. Previously she worked with Kelsey Martin at UCLA and worked with Mike Crickmore on male fly sexual behavior in the summer of 2010.
Mobeen Zohra
Summer Volunteer
Mobeen is a student at Ossining High School in Westchester in the Science Research Program. She volunteered in our lab in the summer of 2008, working with Maurizio Pellegrino on Or83b structure-function and in the summer of 2009, working with Gabriel Gasque on larval feeding behavior.
(Photo: Allan Zepeda, 2008)