People

Justin Kollman received his PhD in Biology from UC San Diego in 2005, where he worked on crystal and cryo-EM structures of blood clotting proteins in the lab Prof. Russell Doolittle.  In his postdoctoral work at UC San Francisco with Prof. David Agard he determined the structures of microtubule nucleating complexes using cryo-EM.  He started the lab in the Dept. of Anatomy & Cell BIology at McGill University in 2012, then moved the lab to the Biochemistry Department at the University of Washington in 2014.

---

Sophia Arons is majoring in Biochemistry and minoring in Chemistry. She works with Kelli Hvorecny to study the effect of phosphorylation on the enzyme Phosphoribosyl Pyrophosphate Synthetase. She is also involved in student government at UW and enjoys playing table tennis.

---

John Calise received his BS in Business Administration from the University of Florida in 2011. He then switched fields and worked as a research technician in Ed Chan’s laboratory in the Department of Oral Biology at UF for 4 years, prior to starting graduate school under Ed’s supervision in 2015. His dissertation work utilized cell-based assays and animal models to probe the physiological function of IMPDH filaments and the subcellular metabolic conditions that drive their assembly. John joined the Kollman lab in June 2020 and is developing new skills in electron microscopy and structural biology to combine with his cell biology expertise in the investigation of metabolic enzyme filaments. Outside the lab, he enjoys exploring hiking trails around the Seattle area and is currently searching for a go-to BBQ joint that meets his Southern standards (contact him with recommendations). John is currently funded with a fellowship from the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation.

---

Kelli Hvorecny completed her PhD at Dartmouth College, through the Geisel School of Medicine, where she worked with Prof. Dean Madden on the substrate specificity and physiological effects of a virulence factor from Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In the Kollman Lab, Kelli is studying the cytoskeletal protein actin from the intestinal parasite Giardia. Kelli is particularly interested in the quaternary structure of this highly divergent form of the actin protein. Kelli is currently funded by a postdoctoral fellowship award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

---

Eric Lynch completed his PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2013, where he investigated the molecular mechanisms of microtubule nucleation and organization in the laboratory of Ken Sawin. In the Kollman lab, Eric is studying the polymerizing enzyme CTP synthase. Eric is particularly interested in studying the structure and regulation of human CTP synthase filaments.

---

Josephine (Jojo) Molfino, Research ScientistJosephine (Jojo) Molfino is a recent graduate of the Biochemistry major at UW, where she earned the Distinguished Research in Biochemistry Award  for her work in our lab on enzymes in purine biosynthesis. She is now working on the structure and function of multiple filamentous enzyme systems.

---

Richard Muniz is a native of California and received his BSc in Biochemistry from Brown University. Before beginning his PhD he worked in the lab of Christopher deGraffenried studying the molecular underpinning of cytokinesis in T. brucei, the causative agent of African Sleep Sickness. Richard is working on Glutamine Synthetase and Glutaminase, enzymes important in maintaining glutamine flux in E. coli, Yeast and Humans. In his free time, he likes taking long walk on the beach, drinking IPAs, and dabbling in various outdoorsy things.

---

Audrey O’Neill received her BSc in Biochemistry from Loyola University Chicago. Currently, she studies the assembly and allosteric regulation of human IMPDH2. Outside of the lab, she enjoys cooking and doing ballet.

---

Zeqi (Chelsea) Wang is majoring biochemistry and minoring chemistry, and is the recipient of a Mary Gates Research Scholarship from UW. Currently studying the enzyme Glutamine Synthetase, working with Richard Muniz. She loves photography in her spare time.

---

Former Lab Members

Lab Member	Role	Years	Current Position
Andy Cai	PhD Student	2017-2023
Dylan Abramson	Undergrad	2022
Bessie Mekonnen	Research Scientist	2022-2023
Tanushri Kumar	PhD Student	2021-2022	Program Assistant, Fred Hutch
Anika Burrell	Research Scientist, PhD Student	2012-2016, 2017-2022	Scientist, InduPro, Seattle
Jesse Hansen	Research Scientist, PhD Student	2012-2015, 2017-2022	Postdoc, Florian Schur Lab, Institute for Science and Technology Austria
Sasha Dickinson	Research Scientist	2021	Research Scientist, UW Cryo-EM Center
Quynh Le	Undergrad	2019-2020	Research Associate, 10x Genomics
Kenzee Hargett	Undergrad, Research Scientist	2019-2022	Sales Representative, ThermoFisher Scientific
Jacob Croft	Visiting student	2019-2020	Postdoc, Lee Lab, UW
Anthony Klimo	Undergrad	2019-2020
Joyce Elauria	Undergrad	2018-2020	Security Engineer I, Auth0
Kevin Nie	Undergrad	2018-2020	Graduate Student, Biochemistry & Biophysics, UCSF
Christian Brix Folsted Andersen	Sabbatical visitor	2018	Associate Professor, Aarhaus University
Enoch Baldwin	Sabbatical visitor	2017	Associate Professor, UC Davis
Artem Yaschenko	Undergrad	2016-2017
Avital Horowitz	Research Scientist	2016-2020	Research Scientist, Novo Nordisk
Matthew Johnson	Postdoc	2016-2020	Senior Systems Specialist, Genentech Inc.
Julien Bergeron	Postdoc	2015-2017	Associate Professor, King’s College London
Daniel Calles-Garcia	Visiting student	2015	Instructor, Bowdoin College
Marcos Arreola	Undergrad	2015-2016	Medical School, Washington State University
Annie Dosey	Technician	2014-2017	Graduate Student, King Lab, UW
Ryan Noh	Undergrad	2014	Periodontal Resident, University of Toronto
Rui Han Liu	Undergrad	2014	Medical Student, Johns Hopkins
Gulsima Usluer	PhD Student	2014-2018
Shun Kai Yang	MSc Student	2013-2015	Graduate Student, Bui Lab, McGill University
Alyona Khomutovskaya	Undergrad	2013
Jelani Clarke	Undergrad	2013	PhD student, McGill University
Andrey Fedichev	Undergrad	2013
Matthew Shepherd	Undergrad	2013-2014	Software Engineer, Two Sigma
Angela Guadagno	Undergrad	2012	PhD Student, McGill University
Nancy Hom	Postdoc	2012-2014	Research Associate, UW
Emeric Charles	Undergrad	2012-2014	Graduate Student, UC Berkeley