Current Lab Members
Kieran Samuk
Principal Investigator
Kieran is an Assistant Professor in the EEOB Department at UC Riverside.
He is interested in evolutionary genetics, particularly the interaction between recombination and the forces of evolution.
About Kieran
Education
HBSc – University of Toronto.
PhD – University of British Columbia (with Dolph Schluter).
NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow – Duke (with Mohamed Noor).
Kieran is passionate about the natural world, the positive role of science in society, and making academia a better place for everyone.
Gina Lucas
PhD Student, 2022 – Present
Gina is interested in evolutionary biology and comparative genomics. Her current project is focused on experimental evolution of chromosomal inversions.
About Gina
Education
BSc – University of California, Riverside
Alexandra Sumarli
PhD Student, 2022 – Present
Prior to joining the lab, Alex worked at the USGS and completed an MSc at SDSU working on the phylogenomics of chuckwallas.
About Alexandra
Education
MSc – San Diego State University
BSc – La Sierra University
Mikhail Plaza
PhD Student, 2023 – Present
Mikhail is interested in genome evolution and its applications in plant breeding and adaptation. Before joining the lab, he earned an MSc from CSUN.
Margaret Wanjiku
SDSU Joint PhD, 2023 – Present
Margaret is interested in the impact of missing data on population genetic inference. She is visiting the lab from SDSU, where she is supervised by Dr. Arun Sethuraman.
Jericho Eusebio
Lab Technician, 2023 – Present
Jericho is a recent UCR graduate of the Chemistry program. He is currently assisting in a variety of projects.
Rajeet Patel
Undergraduate, 2021 – Present
Rajeet is an undergraduate in the Biochemistry program at UCR. His current project in the lab is developing genomic tools for studying chromosomal inversions in wild population of Drosophila pseudoobscura.
About
Education
Paimon Goulart
Undergraduate, 2022 – Present
Paimon is an undergraduate in the Computer Science program at UCR. His current project is focused on building testing and benchmarking tools for our bioinformatics software pixy.
About
Education
Reyna Quiñonez
Undergraduate, 2022 – Present
Reyna is undergraduate in the Mathematics program at UCR. She is an NIH MARC-U Scholar, and her project is focused on methods for identifying aneuploidy using single cell RNA-seq data.
Noah Cecilio
Undergraduate, 2023 – Present
Noah is an undergraduate in the Biology program at UCR. His project is focused on evaluating the extent to which experimental populations of Drosophila melanogaster have undergone local adaptation.
Ly Tran
Undergraduate, 2024 – Present
Ly (they/any) is an undergraduate in the Neuroscience program at UCR. They are a RISE summer fellow and a NIH MARC-U Scholar. Their project is focused on understanding the role of chromosomal inversions in adaptation, and vertebrate brain development.
Adithi Sesani
Undergraduate, 2024 – Present
Adithi is an undergraduate in the Neuroscience program at UCR. She is currently working on experimental studies of Drosophila adaptation.
Jacquelyn Lopez
Undergraduate, RISE 2024
Jacquelyn is a visiting student from RCC for the summer of 2024. Her project is focused on understanding the role of chromosomal inversions in adaptation.
Luca Lin
Undergraduate, 2024 – Present
Luca is an undergraduate in the Biology program at UCR. He is currently working on experimental studies of Drosophila adaptation.
