Our Faculty

QUANTITATIVE AND SYSTEMS BIOLOGY

Genetic basis and EvoDevo of vertebrate innovations

Email: camemiya@ucmerced.edu

Understanding how molecular interactions and forces across several length scales affect function in biology

Email: randreseneguiluz@ucmerced.edu

Computational biology and evolution of gene expression mechanisms

Email: dardell@ucmerced.edu

Experimental evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria

Email: mbarlow@ucmerced.edu

Evolution and development of chordates, developmental gene regulatory networks, STEM education research

Email: lbeaster-jones@ucmerced.edu

Microbial ecology and biogeochemical cycling in the oceans

Email: mbeman@ucmerced.edu

Evolution of animal-microbial symbioses

Email: gbennet2@ucmerced.edu

Terrestrial paleoecology, niche and community modeling and phylochronology

Email: jblois@ucmerced.edu

Polymer physics and engineering of cellular and environmental systems

Email: wchin2@ucmerced.edu

Cell fate decisions and regulation in Drosophila neural stem cells and RNA decay

Email: mcleary4@ucmerced.edu

Models of biological processes and molecular dynamics of disordered proteins

Email: mcolvin@ucmerced.edu

Evolutionary ecology, biogeography and phylogeography of marine invertebrates

Email: mdawson@ucmerced.edu

Biochemical and biophysical approaches to understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating inflammation and programmed cell death

Email: edealbastarrechea@ucmerced.edu

Understanding the relationships between morphology, behavior and performance in a variety of vertebrates including bat, carnivoran and avian species

Email: edumont@ucmerced.edu

Molecular dynamics simulations and machine learning modeling of biomolecular systems with a focus on RNA polymerase dynamics, function, and spatial organizations

Email: bdutagaci@ucmerced.edu

Ecological, phenotypic, genomic and behavioral evolution of reptiles and amphibians

Email: dedwards5@ucmerced.edu

Cardiac cellular signaling and techniques to study cardiac cells in vivo

Email: aescobar4@ucmerced.edu

Plant microbiomes; function, community assembly, transmission, and dispersal

Email: cfrank3@ucmerced.edu

Species interactions and the maintenance and persistence of biodiversity. complex network theory, empirical, and theoretical approaches focused on plant-pollinator interactions

Email: Starting January 2023

General microbiology, microbial systems, STEM education research

Email: mgarcia-ojeda@ucmerced.edu

Cell signaling in neural development, brain tumors and neurological disorders

Email: xge2@ucmerced.edu

Theory at the interface of biophysics and soft condensed matter physics

Email: agopinathan@ucmerced.edu

Microbiome regulation, viral metagenomics, systems immunology

Email: jagrasis@ucmerced.edu

Epigenetic and transcriptional networks, metabolic engineering of yeasts

Email: ahernday@ucmerced.edu

Experimental soft matter physics and biophysics

Email: lhirst@ucmerced.edu

Immunological tolerance and auto-immune disease, regulatory T cells

Email: khoyer2@ucmerced.edu

Matthew Hutchinson

Species interactions and their effects on individual fitness, population dynamics, and ecosystem structure, typically focused on large herbivores.

Email: Starting January 2023

Parasite pathogenesis and immunology, toxoplasma and host-immune responses

Email: kjensen5@ucmerced.edu

Fluid-structure interactions and multiphase flows in the ocean

Email: skhatri3@ucmerced.edu

Explores the interaction between environmental change and biotic response

Email: skim380@ucmerced.edu

Biology education research, entomology, aquatic ecology. Our research group broadly explores how to improve biology teaching and learning at the undergraduate leve

Email: pkranzfelder@ucmerced.edu

Cancer imaging, cancer therapy, fluorescence molecular tomography, x-ray imaging, biomedical imaging

Email: cli32@ucmerced.edu

Bacterial motility in complex media, single-cell behavior in biological processes

Email: bliu27@ucmerced.edu

Biochemistry and structural biology of chemokines, anti-HIV microbicides

Email: pliwang@ucmerced.edu

Organismal systems biology, limb and skeletal development, genetics of bone metabolism, transcriptomics

Email: gloots@ucmerced.edu

Developmental immunology, cell fate regulation, hematopoiesis

Email: jmanilay@ucmerced.edu

Genomic control of gene expression, gene regulatory networks in organismal development

Email: smaterna@ucmerced.edu

Stem cell and tissue engineering for regenerative medicine applications

Email: kmccloskey@ucmerced.edu

Computational approaches to big trees and big data, phylogenetics genomics, The Open Tree of Life

Email: ejmctavish@ucmerced.edu

Evolutionary ecology of plant responses to environmental change

Email: emoran5@ucmerced.edu

Protein folding, structure prediction and design, protein aggregation

Email: vmunoz3@ucmerced.edu

Host-microbe interactions and microbial ecology

Email: nish@ucmerced.edu

Molecular development of microbial communities, biofilm formation

Email: cnobile@ucmerced.edu

Aldosterone in cardiovascular disease and Angiotensin II in metabolic diseases

Email: rortiz@ucmerced.edu

Stem cell regulation, cancer and regeneration in planarians

Email: noviedo@ucmerced.edu

Molecular evolution, gene/genome structure, intragenomic conflict, balancing selection, sex chromosomes and determination

Email: sroy5@ucmerced.edu

Biomedical image analysis, mathematical modeling, machine learning, cancer treatment and resistance

Email: erutter2@ucmerced.edu

Developing machine-learning methods and sequencing assays for understanding cellular information processing and how this is encoded in the genome

Email: trube@ucmerced.edu

Epigenetic mechanisms of neuronal gene transcription, roles in mental health and autism

Email: rsaha3@ucmerced.edu

Plant adaptation, species range limits biological invasions and evolutionary conservation science

Email: jsexton2@ucmerced.edu

Kelly Shepardson

Fungal immunology and pathogenesis, anti-viral immune responses. Molecular and cellular techniques, as well as a murine model, focused on the lung environment.

Email: kshepardson2@ucmerced.edu

Mathematical biology, dynamical systems and computational biology and bioinformatics

Email: ssindi@ucmerced.edu

Viral evolution, metagenomics and genomics with a focus on comparative methods

Email: msistrom@ucmerced.edu

Population dynamics, social and cultural evolution, self-organization, mathematical and computational modeling

Email: psmaldino@ucmerced.edu

Exploration into how microorganisms use molecules to interact with their eukaryotic hosts and their environment. The Sogin lab employs a cross-disciplinary approach that combines metabolomic and meta'omic analyses with experimental and computational analyses

Email: esogin@ucmerced.edu

Novel optical imaging and sensing systems for applications in tissue regeneration, transplantation, and cancer

Email: joel.spencer@ucmerced.edu

Experimental biophysics, cellular reconstitution, experimental synthetic biology

Email: asubramaniam@ucmerced.edu

Biophysical chemistry, structural biology; Understanding the interplay between proteins and their environment by combining biophysical methods and live cell microscopy

Email: ssukenik@ucmerced.edu

Understanding the relationship between the structure and function of biological macromolecules, with an emphasis on revealing how temperature modulates this relationship

Email: mthompson30@ucmerced.edu

Sequence-based approaches to studying microbial community assembly, function and dynamics

Email: sgtringe@ucmerced.edu

Human functional genomics and enhancers in development and disease

Email: avisel@ucmerced.edu

Applications of high performance computing to big-sequencing data and machine learning

Email: zwang37@ucmerced.edu

Genetic and neural coding of behavior in Drosophila

Email: fwolf@ucmerced.edu

Endoderm development and epithelial morphogenesis in zebrafish

Email: swoo6@ucmerced.edu

Microbial genomics of candidate phyla representatives and development of functionally targeted single-cell approaches

Email: twoyke@ucmerced.edu

Experimental biophysics, quantitative biology single-molecule analysis of molecular motors

Email: jing.xu@ucmerced.edu

Animal foraging and food web dynamics over space and time

Email: jyeakel@ucmerced.edu

Structural, biochemical and functional studies of membrane transport proteins

Email: mzoghbi@ucmerced.edu

Contact

fred wolF

Quantitative and Systems Biology Graduate Program Chair

Email: fwolf@ucmerced.edu

Telephone: 209-228-3376

Website: qsb.ucmerced.edu

GRADUATE STUDIES | QUANTITATIVE AND SYSTEMS BIOLOGY