Amanda Amodeo
Position: Principal Investigator
Education : B.S. UW Madison, 2008; Ph.D. Stanford University, 2014
Interests : Amanda is interested in how cells and organs make the measurements that allow them to make biological decisions. She is particularly interested in cellular decision making in the context of embryonic development. That is, how cells monitor their developmental stage, position, and size in order to correctly differentiate into the right cell types at the right time.
Yuki Shindo
Position : Postdoctoral Scholar
yuki.shindo@dartmouth.edu
Education: B.A. Keio University, 2012; Ph.D. Osaka University, 2016
Interests: Systems biology and biophysics in vivo. How do cells sense, compute and control their physical properties such as size, position, and the number (concentration) of cellular components? More about Yuki.
Shruthi Balachandra
Position : Postdoctoral Scholar
shruthi.balachandra@dartmouth.edu
Education: B.S. University of Mysore, 2004; M.S. University of Mysore 2006; Ph.D. University of Mysore, 2014
Interests: A single cell in collectively growing populations has to regulate its internal contents to maintain its optimum size, and it interacts with its neighbors to determine the organ size. I’m interested in exploring how a nurse cell decides its internal contents and how that influences the organ size of the egg chambers of Drosophila ovaries.
Anusha Bhatt
Position : PhD student
anusha.d.bhatt.gr@dartmouth.edu
Education: BS-MS Dual degree, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram, India, 2021
Interests: How do cells know when to grow, divide, or differentiate? How do differing rates of nuclear import and incorporation of biomolecules into chromatin affect transcription in early embryos? Anusha aims to use the early drosophila development as a model to understand developmental decision making in cells!
Eric Alpert
Position : PhD Student
Education: B.S. College of William and Mary, 2018
Interests: Everyone starts as a single cell and slowly becomes a complex organism with many functions and specialized tissues. How does that one cell start off this whole process? How does a cell control those first fateful decisions as it divides? I hope to explore the mechanisms by which cells sense their place, size, and position as a way to understand those first steps of development.
Kiera Schwarz
Position : Technician
kiera.e.schwarz@dartmouth.edu
Education: B.S. James Madison University, 2022
Interests: Cell biology, biochemistry, & understanding cellular decision making. What paces nuclear cell cycles in the developing embryo, and what would cause cells to speed up their divisions or undergo additional rounds? How do histones affect this timing?
Maddie Brown
Position : Undergraduate / Postbac
madeleine.g.brown.th@d/artmouth.edu
Education: Dartmouth Class of 2022, Thayer ’23
Interests: I’m interested using biochemistry, genetics, and cellular biology, to explore the biochemical pathways and cellular changes that control biological decision making. Further, I am interested in bioengineering techniques that would allow for these decisions as well as other cellular processes to be controlled and manipulated.
Allison Wall
Position : Undergraduate
allison.l.wall.26@dartmouth.edu
Education: Dartmouth Class of 2026
Interests: I am interested in the early rapid cell cycles of the Drosophila embryo, and the mechanisms behind its transition to patterned and regulated divisions. Specifically, I want to learn more about the role that histones play in this pathway, and how that can be used to better understand cell cycle regulation.
Aurora Wackford
Position : Undergraduate
aurora.b.wackford.26@dartmouth.edu
Education: Dartmouth Class of 2026
Interests: I’m interested in the processes of development and untangling the exciting ways in which cells know how and when to synthesize, divide and cellularize. I’m mostly interested in the genetic side, and am currently working on how histone chaperones affect import and incorporation of histones.
Lab Alumni:
Cameron Moore (Dartmouth Class of 2025)
Tim Liu (Dartmouth Class of 2024) – currently majoring in Math
Henry Wilky (Technician 2015-2020) – currently at the Department of Justice
Sudarshan Chari (Postdoc 2017-2019) – currently at GlaxoSmithKline
Jayalakshmi Govindan (Research Specialist 2015-2017) – currently a scientist at Evotech
Katherine Angier (Princeton Class of 2018) – went on to High Meadows Fellowship; currently PhD student at Harvard University
Eve Reilly (Technician 2015) – went on to PhD at Rutgers University; currently at Cello Health
Jack Mazzulo (Princeton Class of 2016) – currently a medical student at Oregon Health and Science University
Anagha Prasanna (Summer 2016) – Princeton class of 2019
Erica Avery (Summer 2015) – currently a PhD student at Johns Hopkins