People

Ilya Ruvinsky

Principal Investigator

Erin Aprison

Research Associate

Svetlana Dzitoyeva

Postdoctoral Researcher

Denis Faerberg

Research Technician

denisfaer

Ophelia Tong

Undergraduate Student

 

Former

Antoine Barriere (postdoc)

A graduate of Pierre and Marie Curie University and an all-around C. elegans expert, Antoine studied evolution of gene regulation. He left to take a position at the Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille.

Paul Wang (postdoc)

A bioinformatics expert and a reformed physicist, Paul joined us from the University of New South Wales. He worked on computational genomics and left to take a position at SA Pathology in Australia.

Zhengying He (postdoc)

With a PhD from Northwestern, Zhengying worked on regulation of heat shock genes and stress-induced neuronal death. She left to take a position at Sino Biological Inc in China.

Kacy Gordon (graduate student)

Supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Kacy studied evolution of gene regulation. Following graduation, she became an NRSA fellow at Duke University, studying cell biology of C. elegans germ stem cells and their niche. She is now on the faculty in the Department of Biology at the University of North Carolina. 

Devin Gouvea (graduate student)

A truly interdisciplinary scholar, Devin studied the effects of stress on reproduction. This work, supported by the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, was a wet-lab component of her degree in Evolutionary Biology, which she pursued in addition to a PhD in history and philosophy of biology.  

Alifya Saify (technician)

Alifya helped us in experiments aimed at understanding physiological and behavioral effects of several male pheromones and sensitivity of various mutants to these signals. She completed her MS and moved on to plant conservation work.

Hyuk “Jim” Jee (technician)

Jim helped us perform experiments aimed at understanding physiological and behavioral effects of several male pheromones. He moved to Boston to work as a technician at Harvard Medical School.

Sana Hira (technician)

Sana helped us study the male pheromone that accelerates sexual maturation in the opposite sex. She is pursuing further education at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science .

Grace Hirzel (technician)

Grace helped us with several projects in the early days of trying to understand how pheromones affect physiology and development. She later enrolled into a graduate program in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Arkansas. 

Aime Agather (technician)

Having substantially helped with several projects in the lab, Aime left to pursue graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin. She is now a genetic counselor. 

Kelsie Eichel (technician)

A Northwestern graduate, Kelsie studied proteotoxic stress and neuronal degeneration. She left to pursue graduate studies at UCSF, supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and winning the Weintraub Award. She is now a Damon Runyon fellow at Stanford University.

Elizabeth Pekarek (technician)

The first person to join the lab, Elizabeth helped us get started. She also helped with computational and experimental studies of genomes of several Caenorhabditis species. She left to pursue graduate studies at Duke University, where she was supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

 

Undergraduate students

Reem Elorbany – MD/PhD at the University of Chicago

Benjamin Postone – graduate studies at the University of Chicago

Catherine Sodroski – PhD at Harvard

Agata Parfieniuk – MD at the University of Illinois

Alonzo Diaz – MD at SUNY-Buffalo Medical School

Samina Lutfeali – graduate studies at Columbia University

Josephine Cool – MD at Cornell Medical School

 

High school students

Hoda Sayegh – The University of Chicago

Celia Hensey – Washington University, St. Louis

Rita Wu – University of Michigan

Madeline Stecy – Princeton