Postdoctoral Scientists
Maeva Perez is a remote post-doctoral researcher based at Hong-Kong Baptist University. She obtained her Ph.D. from Université de Montréal in September 2023. She grew up in France, Ivory Coast, and Canada, and has been living in Asia since 2020. She is interested in the ecology and evolution of deep-sea organisms. Maeva joined the group through the SMBE mentoring program in 2023 and is modeling the evolutionary dynamics of bacterial symbionts jointly supervised from Hong Kong (Jianwen Qiu) and in the Liberles Group.
Amanda Wilson was a Temple University Biology Ph.D. student (google scholar page linked here) who recently graduated (congratulations!). She is originally from Dorseyville, PA and received her B.S. in biological sciences from University of Rochester (NY). She also plays the cello. Amanda joined the group in summer, 2018, working on models for duplicate gene retention in genomes as well as studying the role of whole genome duplication on pathway diversification. She is working on finalizing results in the group for publication before beginning postdoctoral work with Laura Landweber at Columbia University in June, 2024.
Master’s Degree Students
Jamie Bregman is a P.S.M. student in bioinformatics at Temple after completing an undergraduate biology major at Temple. Originally from Gladwyne, PA, he joined the group in October, 2022. He aims to graduate at the end of the Spring semester, 2024.
Katherine Hurm is a +1 PSM student in bioinformatics at Temple who is completing an undergraduate Genomic Medicine major at Temple. Originally from Souderton, PA, she joined the group in February, 2024.
Undergraduate Students
Vidyut Baraneedaran is a biochemistry major at Temple who joined the group in Spring, 2024. He is from Berwyn, PA. He is working on protein evolution to understand how gene duplication and subsequent sequence divergence lead to the divergence of pathways.
Dex Giglio is a computer science major at Temple. Originally from Cheltenham PA, he joined the group in 2023. He also likes to play drums and bass. He is currently researching evolutionary dynamics, specifically exploring operon maintenance and independently, the evolution of gene expression, with the aim of understanding genome evolution through simulations.
Laura McDonnell is an undergraduate biochemistry major at Temple. She grew up in the city of Lansdale, Pennsylvania. Other than biochemistry, her academic interests include computer science and mathematics. Following her graduation from Temple in 2024, she plans to pursue a PhD in computational biology. She joined the Liberles group in fall, 2023 to research protein evolution after whole genome duplication.
Cara Virgin is a genomic medicine major at Temple who joined the group in 2023. She is from Sweden but grew up mostly in Parkland, FL. She is working on the evolutionary processes leading to the stable maintenance of operons in the group.
Older group pictures:
And here is a picture from spring, 2000, my first ever group photo from when I just started my research group at Stockholm University (Sweden). A lot happened between this photo below and those above from after I moved to Temple University. Below from left to right: Wagied Davids, David Liberles, Malin Almgren.
