PEOPLE

Alix (Alexandra) Purdy, Associate Professor of Biology

BS The College of William and Mary, biology and chemistry, honors thesis in the lab of Margaret Saha
PhD Marine biology, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, in the lab of Douglas Bartlett
Postdoc fellowship Division of Infectious Diseases, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, in the lab of Paula Watnick

Current Lab Members

Bridget Cassata ’24 is conducting a senior honors thesis focusing on the role of exonucleases in Vibrio cholerae metabolism.

Sarah Quiros ’24 is conducting a senior honors thesis focusing on the investigation of the genes directly regulated by CrbR in Vibrio cholerae and Vibrio fischeri.

Sydney Wishner

Sydney Wishner ’24 is investigating the genes directly regulated by CrbR in Vibrio cholerae and Vibrio fischeri.

vibrio choloerae

Nora Dockter ’25 is leading efforts to wrap up our screen of genes regulating Acs in Vibrio fischeri.

Ines Rossi ’25 is currently assisting with research relating to the acetate switch in Vibrio fischeri. 

Connor Farquhar ’26 is also researching genes directly regulated by CrbR in Vibrios.

vibrio choloerae SEM image

Angie Lopez Aguilar ’27 conducted a SURF project focused on Vibrio fisheri and how redox conditions affect acs expression.

Karol Diaz ’27 conducted a SURF project focused on Vibrio fisheri and how redox conditions affect acs expression.

Alexa Martinez ’27 is conducting research on a survival analysis of fruit flies infected with Vibrio cholerae.

Lab Photos

Lab Alumni

Research Assistants

Manya Vivek (2021-2022), M.S. student at UMass-Amherst
Cecilia Prado (2016-2019), Co-director at Workers Dignity in Nashville, TN
Libby Daniele (2014-2016), Research assistant at UCSD


Senior Honors Thesis students in Biology or BCBP

Leslie Lopez (2023) – Research Assistant at the Broad Institute
Lucy Merickel (2023) – Research Assistant at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Talia Bioxham (2022) – Research Assistant at Columbia University
Atekana Nyamaa (2022) – Research Assistant at NYU
Eva Nelson (2022) – Doula & future medical doctor
Samantha Liu (2021) – Research Assistant at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Sarah Ibrahimi (2020) – Clinical Research Coordinator at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Kyra Raines (2020) – Graduate Student at Washington University in St. Louis
Elisa Bello (2019) – Medical Student at UMass Chan Medical School
Emily Flaherty (2019) – Medical Student at the University of Pittsburgh
Gabby Ro (2019) – Research Assistant at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Sarah Nessen (2018) – Medical Student at UPenn
Itai Muzhingi (2018) – Rhodes Scholar, Graduate Student at the University of Oxford, Medical student, Harvard
Duy Ngyuen (2017) – MD/PhD Student at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
Stephany Flores-Ramos (2017) – Graduate Student at UC San Diego
Kalle Liimatta (2016) – Graduate Student at UC San Diego
Mariame Sylla (2015) – Harvard Medical M.D., Resident Physician in Boston, MA
Monica Cesinger (2015) – Ph.D. from the University of Washington, Postdoctoral Scholar at UC Berkeley
Franny Diehl (2015) – Ph.D. from MIT, Postdoctoral Fellow at John Hopkins School of Medicine
Paul Tyler (2014) – Graduate Student at Yale University School of Medicine
Mariah Servos (2014) – Dartmouth Medical M.D., Doctor of Otolaryngology
Anna Rasmussen (2013) – Ph.D. from Stanford University, Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University

Undergraduate Researchers

Connor Barnes (2024) – Student at Amherst College
Yeju Kang (2024) – Student at Amherst College
Skyler Sung (2023) – Research Assistant at UCSF
Gabrielle Forman (2022) – Applying to medical school
Andrea Muno Ledo (2022) – Field Ecologist, UC Davis
Kenny Chen (2022) – MS in Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Eunice Daudu (2021) – TBD!
Nathaniel De Jonge (2021) – Research Associate at the Pew Charitable Trusts
Sam Grondin (2021) – Graduate Student at Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science
Ella Rossa (2021) – Master of Public Health Student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Danielle Zimber (2021) – AmeriCorps Fellow, Washington AIDS Partnership
Theo Bates (2020) – Care Coordinator, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Anna Buford (2020) – Medical Student at UT Southwestern
Will Dunne (2020) – Medical Student at Emory
Caroline Ferguson-Dryden (2020) – Medical Student at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
Teddy Lane (2020) – Math Teacher at Brooklyn Friends School
Abby Mesfin (2020) – M.S. in Social Work from Columbia University, Intern in Family Defense Practice at the Bronx Defenders
Bella Palma (2020) – TBD!
Angelika Hirsh (2019) – Graduate Student at Stanford University
Jenny Kim (2019) – Graduate Student at Harvard University
SabriAnan Micha (2019) – Support Coordinator at the Chicago Abortion Fund, Doula
Rachel Seifert (2019) – Clinical Scribe, Northampton Area Pediatrics
Sarah Wishloff (2019) – Masters Student in Medical Anthropology, McGill University, Medical Student, Emory University
Kennedy Countess (2018) – Masters, Johns Hopkins, Medical Student, Albert Einstein
Azka Javaid (2017) – Graduate Student in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences at Dartmouth School of Medicine
Victoria Luizzi (2016) – Graduate Student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona
Catherine Choi (2015) – Neuroscience Ph.D. from Tufts, Technology Specialist at Clark+Elbing LLP
John Kim (2015) – Decision Scientist II at ZipRecruiter
Lucy Xu (2014) – UChicago M.D., Otolaryngology Resident at Harvard Medical School