Lab Members
Silke studied medicine, but then discovered that research was more exciting. She joined Jan-Michael Peters' lab at the IMP in Vienna, and then Yoshinori Watanabe's lab at the University of Tokyo. From 2005 on, she had her own group at the Max Planck Institutes in Tuebingen, from where the lab moved to Virginia Tech in 2014. Apart from being passionate about research, Silke enjoys beautiful design, modern dance and Japanese culture.
Doug joined the lab in 2017 after completing a M.Sc. degree at the University of Miami, and having worked as an Editor for the Journal of Caribbean Ornithology. He has lived all over the US, and abroad, and is an amazing molecular biologist with super attention to detail.
Wendi Williams
Graduate student
Samir comes from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and did his undergraduate at Penn State University Park. His latest undergraduate research involved tracking cellulose synthase in Arabidopsis thaliana using SIM, and he’s now using his image analysis skills on S. pombe. Beyond science, Samir also loves international film, soccer, getting to know others, and going on walks.
Mediocre seamstress. Some background in gene editing & also a cat mom (hoping to clone her one day). Favorite dinosaur is W. willensis. Crunchy peanut butter apologist. If Dee Reynolds from it's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was a molecular biologist.
Undergraduate Student Researchers
Jamie Lee (Computational Modeling and Data Analytics / Statistics)
Michael Blodgett (Microbiology / Computer Science)
Justine Biersack (Neuroscience)
Adriana Villar (Biomedical Engineering)
Lab outings
