Current Lab Members

Kieran Samuk
Principal Investigator

Kieran is an Assistant Professor in the EEOB Department at UC Riverside.

He is interested in evolutionary genetics, particularly the interaction between recombination and the forces of evolution.

About Kieran

Education

HBSc – University of Toronto.
PhD – University of British Columbia (with Dolph Schluter).
NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow – Duke (with Mohamed Noor).

Kieran is passionate about the natural world, the positive role of science in society, and making academia a better place for everyone.

Gina Lucas

PhD Student, 2022 – Present

Gina is interested in evolutionary biology and comparative genomics. Her current project is focused on experimental evolution of chromosomal inversions.

About Gina

Education

BSc – University of California, Riverside

Alexandra Sumarli

PhD Student, 2022 – Present

Prior to joining the lab, Alex worked at the USGS and completed an MSc at SDSU working on the phylogenomics of chuckwallas.

About Alexandra

Education

MSc – San Diego State University
BSc – La Sierra University

Mikhail Plaza

PhD Student, 2023 – Present

Mikhail is interested in genome evolution and its applications in plant breeding and adaptation. Before joining the lab, he earned an MSc from CSUN.

Margaret Wanjiku

SDSU Joint PhD, 2023 – Present

Margaret is interested in the impact of missing data on population genetic inference. She is visiting the lab from SDSU, where she is supervised by Dr. Arun Sethuraman.

Jericho Eusebio

Lab Technician, 2023 – Present

Jericho is a recent UCR graduate of the Chemistry program. He is currently assisting in a variety of projects.

Rajeet Patel

Undergraduate, 2021 – Present

Rajeet is an undergraduate in the Biochemistry program at UCR. His current project in the lab is developing genomic tools for studying chromosomal inversions in wild population of Drosophila pseudoobscura.

About

Education

Paimon Goulart

Undergraduate, 2022 – Present

Paimon is an undergraduate in the Computer Science program at UCR. His current project is focused on building testing and benchmarking tools for our bioinformatics software pixy.

About

Education

Reyna Quiñonez

Undergraduate, 2022 – Present

Reyna is undergraduate in the Mathematics program at UCR. She is an NIH MARC-U Scholar, and her project is focused on methods for identifying aneuploidy using single cell RNA-seq data.

Noah Cecilio

Undergraduate, 2023 – Present

Noah is an undergraduate in the Biology program at UCR. His project is focused on evaluating the extent to which experimental populations of Drosophila melanogaster have undergone local adaptation.

Ly Tran

Undergraduate, 2024 – Present

Ly (they/any) is an undergraduate in the Neuroscience program at UCR. They are a RISE summer fellow and a NIH MARC-U Scholar. Their project is focused on understanding the role of chromosomal inversions in adaptation, and vertebrate brain development.

Adithi Sesani

Undergraduate, 2024 – Present

Adithi is an undergraduate in the Neuroscience program at UCR. She is currently working on experimental studies of Drosophila adaptation.

Jacquelyn Lopez

Undergraduate, RISE 2024

Jacquelyn is a visiting student from RCC for the summer of 2024. Her project is focused on understanding the role of chromosomal inversions in adaptation.

Luca Lin

Undergraduate, 2024 – Present

Luca is an undergraduate in the Biology program at UCR. He is currently working on experimental studies of Drosophila adaptation.

Past Lab Members

Bella Clement

Undergraduate, 2022 – Present

Bella is an undergraduate in the Cell, Molecular & Developmental Biology program at UCR. Her project was focused on exploring the degree of adaptation to a high-salt diet in an experimental population of Drosophila melanogaster.