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Principal Investigator |
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Ana obtained her B.S. in Biology in 1996 at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She left the lofty peaks of the Andes for the (flatter) environment of the Midwest U.S. to attend graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis; there she studied the population genetics of disease resistance genes in wild tomatoes and received her Ph.D. in 2003. During a postdoc at NC State, she carried out research on the evolutionary genomics of rice domestication and the population genetics of floral timing genes in Arabidopsis thaliana. Ana joined the UMass Biology faculty in 2006. Her current research interests include the genetic basis of adaptation, the genomics of plant domestication, and the population genetics of diversification within and between species (CV). |
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Postdoctoral Researchers |
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Katie receieved her B.S. and M.S. in microbiology and molecular genetics from Michigan State University in 2004, where she spent time researching the population genetics of pathogenic E. coli. She received her PhD in Evolution, Ecology and Population Bology from Washington University in 2010, where she studied the domestication of the winemaking yeast S. cerevisiae. Katie is currently a postdoc in Ana Caicedo's lab and is investigating the evolution of adaptation and divergence in weedy rice using comparative genomics. |
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Graduate Students |
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Carrie received her B.S. in biology from Framingham State College in 2005 and her M.S. in biology from SUNY Buffalo in 2007. Her master’s thesis was based on the molecular genetics of Rubisco small subunit genes in Flaveria bidentis. Now a 4th year student of the PB Graduate Program at UMass, Carrie has been in the Caicedo lab for the past three years, and is focusing on the evolution of various weedy traits, including shattering, in weedy rice. Carrie's interests include crop genetics and genomics, especially grass species used as forage for horses.
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Ian is a second year Plant Biology grad student with a BS in plant biology from the University of Washington Seattle. As an undergraduate he studied and wrote a paper on a Camellia colonial fungus, Seuratia Millardetii. He then rested on these laurels for many seasons before returning to the exciting world of higher education. Hitching a trailer on his car, with his cat sitting shotgun, he set off into the sunrise to find out what New England had to offer. Ian’s westcoast charm and caffeine fueled intellect secured him a place at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his interest in the processes driving evolution has brought him to the Caicedo lab. Ian’s specific interest is in how interactions between disparate organisms work and how they evolved.
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Stephanie Craig
Stephanie is now a 5th Year Masters student in the lab. She originally came to the Caicedo lab as an undergraduate to further explore her passion for genetics, and studied the effect of weed evolution on R gene diversity. As an undergraduate, she received two Commonwealth College Honors Research Grants and was selected to be a part of the prestigious Junior Fellows Program her senior year. Stephanie now plans to wrap up her work on weedy R gene evolution, and begin exploring some of the bases for hybrid incompatibility in U.S. weedy rice. |
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Zhongyun Huang
Zhongyun received her B.S. in biology from Fudan University in China in 2011, She worked on rice for two years when she was an undergraduate student. She left her crowded hometown, Shanghai, to study her beloved field of plant biology in the beautiful town of Amherst. She is now a 1st year student of the PB Graduate Program. Zhongyun is rotating in the Caicedo lab and focusing on red rice evolution in Asia. She is extremely interested in evolutionary history of crops and various topics involving genetics and evolution of plants. |
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Undergraduates |
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Lauren Resnick
Lauren is a senior Biology major and is also working on a Biochemistry major. She joined the Caicedo lab in the fall of 2010 in hopes of learning more about population genetics and performing some hands-on analysis of evolution. She is currently studying hybrid incompatibility in weedy rice plants using two characterized incompatibility loci. When not in Ana's lab, Lauren volunteers in an animal behavior lab, is an active member of several Biology-based and service learning-based clubs, and makes sushi for money. Not at the same time, though. |
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Rafaela Dos Santos
Rafaela is a senior Biology/Spanish major and is also working on a Portuguese minor. She joined the Caicedo lab in summer of 2010 to further explore her interest for genetics. She is venturing into the world of research by phenotyping and genotyping a set of mapping populations to identify loci underlying weedy traits in red rice. When not working at the lab, Rafaela volunteers at a dental office and works as a Resident Assistant. |
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Sara Goodwin
Sara is a freshman Biology major on the Pre-Med track and is considering adding a minor in Education. She graduated from Shenendehowa High School in Clifton Park, NY and moved west to MA to study. Her accomplishments include earning a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and her Gold Award in Girl Scouts. She joined the research lab in the Fall of 2011 to help Ian with his research on tomato evolution. |
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Technician |
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Sherin Kanthi Perera
Sherin received her B.S. in Biology in 1987 at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. She has a Post Graduate Diploma in education too. For many years Sherin was a high school biology teacher. Since immigrating to the U.S., Sherin has been searching to expand her biology research experience. During the summer of 2007, Sherin volunteered in the lab and got some hands on experience in rice phenotyping, DNA extraction, and challenging PCRs. She has now started working in the lab as a techinician. Sherin's knowledge of rice growth and agriculture has proved to be a great resource for all.
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Past Members |
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Mike received a B.S. in Biology from Antioch College (be ashamed to let it die!) in 1995 and worked in the exciting field of hazardous waste removal for several years before returning to graduate school. He received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 2006 where he studied evolutionary consequences of crop–wild hybridization in sunflowers and rice. Specifically, Mike was interested in how selection, migration and metapopulation dynamics interact to influence introgression of crop alleles. Mike was a postdoc in Ana Caicedo’s lab (2007-2010) and worked on a project investigating the evolution of adaptation using weedy rice as a model system. |
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Lauren Bishop
Lauren is a recent graduate of UMass with a degree in Biology and a Psychology Minor. She joined the Caicedo lab in Spring 2010 because of her interests in plant biology and genetics research, and studied hybrid incompatibility in weedy rice plants. Lauren has now joined the Peace Corps and is setting off for new adventures in Bulgaria. |
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Nicole Eckart
Nicole graduated in 2010 with departmental honors in Biology and a Spanish minor. After a year researching animal behavior in spiders, Nicole joined the Caicedo lab her junior year to explore the diversity present in Brachypodium distachyon, a new model species for grasses. She took a hiatus for one semester to study abroad in Accra, Ghana, but came back to the lab first as an HHMI summer intern, and then for her honor’s thesis. Nicole is now attending Human Genetics doctoral program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. |
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Neal Kalra
Neal majored in Biology and Anthropology at UMass. He spent a little over a year studying the effects of dam removal at various sites in New England at the "Northeast Instream Habitat Program" under Piotr Parasiewicz. During his year in the Caicedo lab, 2007-2008, he investigated tomato fruit evolution and wrangled with exciting PCR and seed germination issues. |
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Justin Nicholatos
Justin is a Biology major and Japanese minor graduate of 2010. His great interest in evolution and genetics led him to join the Caicedo lab as a junior, where he explored relationships among colored-fruited tomato groups and dealt with troubleshooting PCRs. He enjoys science greatly, but is also an active musician. He spent the summer after graduation as an intern in the Biology Research and Development group at Iquum, a molecular diagnostics company, and is now a research assistant in the Manning lab at the Harvard School of Public Health. |
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Mario Moreira
After braving Ana’s Population Genetics course his senior year, Mario decided he couldn’t get enough of the subject and joined the lab for a semester of research. During his stint in the Caicedo lab in Spring of 2008 he learned about the joys and challenges of DNA sequence alignment and data management, while exploring the molecular basis of plant height variation in weedy and domesticated rice. |
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Claudia Rullman
Claudia obtained her B.S. in Natural Resources in 1986 from the School of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. Following extensive research-related and work experience in plant biology, organic agriculture, integrated pest management, marine ecology and aquaponics, she completed an M.S. in Plant Stress Physiology at the University of Vermont in 2003. Claudia worked as a technician in the Caicedo lab during much of 2007. Her career interests include phytoremediation, effects of anthropogenic pollutants on habitat quality, environmental restoration, marine and estuarine ecology. |
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Mona Salameh
Mona graduated with Latin, Commonwealth College, and departmental honors in Biology as an undergraduate in 2009. She played in the concert band at UMass and was a member of the university ski club. In her junior year, Mona received two HHMI Academic Year internships and one summer internship to carry out research on aromatic rice evolution in the Caicedo lab. In her senior year, Mona was selected to be a part of the prestigious Junior Fellows Program of the Life Sciences program for undergraduate researchers to continue her research in the lab. Mona is now be attending Tufts University School of Dental Medicine where she hopes to attain a DMD/PhD. |
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Daniela Schmieder
Daniela is a native of Germany, who spent a chock-full year as an exchange student at UMass. Her research experience has ranged from subjects such as plant physiology to animal behavior, and organisms such as rats and A. thaliana, to turtles and (virtually) rice. During her stint in the lab in 2007, Daniela aligned and edited sequences of rice resistance genes. Now Daniela is working towards her PhD at the Max-Planck Institute in Seewiesen, Germany, studying how European horseshoe bats cope with vegetation.
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Sara Weil |
