Research Opportunities and Lab Members
Why join our lab?
We are a creative, fun loving and well-funded lab known for pioneering new research areas using zebrafish, and for making significant scientific contributions to the fields of developmental, regenerative, and behavioral neuroscience.
We are looking for motivated individuals at the undergraduate, graduate school, and postdoctoral level. Lab members will be part of a well-established and highly interactive lab in which lab members think critically and creatively about their own and other lab members experiments and strategies, hereby generating scientific synergy in a sportive and fun environment. Graduate students will engage in well defined projects with ample technical advice and constructive feedback from your PI and a group of experienced and interactive postdocs. Postdocs will design in consultation with your PI new projects geared towards building projects you will continue in your own future lab, obtain grant writing and career advise from your PI and other current postdocs, and will be part of a support network of lab alumni postdocs now holding their own faculty positions (see Lab Alumni list below).
Want to talk about available research opportunities, ideas for projects, rotations, or just want to chat about lab culture? Email me (granatom@upenn.edu).
Current Lab Members
Faculty
-
Read More about Michael Granato, Ph.D.Michael Granato, Ph.D.
Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology
Email Michael Granato, Ph.D.
215-898-2745
Michael Granato, Ph.D.
Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology
granatom@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
215-898-2745
Michael received his PhD at the University of Tuebingen, Germany where he studied the genetics of organ development using C.elegans as a model system. For his postdoctoral studies he joined the lab of Nobel laureate Dr. Christiane Nuesslein Volhard. He then joined the faculty in the Department of Cell & Developmental Biology at the University of Pennsylvania to continue his studies on the molecular cellular mechanisms of nervous system development and function. Outside the lab Michael enjoys playing racket sports and traveling.
Research Specialists
Postdocs
-
Read More about Philip Campbell, M.D., Ph.D.
Philip Campbell, M.D., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Philip.Campbell@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Phil is a psychiatrist-scientist interested in the cellular and molecular mechanisms of psychotic disorders. Using mutagenesis, behavioral phenotyping, and brain imaging approaches, he is studying the greatest known genetic risk for schizophrenia, the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, with the ultimate aim to identify novel molecular targets for therapeutic intervention.
-
Read More about Beth Harvey, Ph.D.
Beth Harvey, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
bharvey@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Beth studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms that promote regeneration of the optic nerve following an injury. She is specifically interested in how post-translational modifications, such as glycosylation, control protein function to mediate axonal regeneration.
-
Read More about Alexandria Hulegaard
Alexandria Hulegaard
Postdoctoral Researcher
Alex.Hulegaard@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
I am interested in studying the dynamic events that occur in astrocytes in the spinal cord following injury and during regeneration. How do astrocytes change the spinal cord architecture after injury and how do these changes modify the regeneration potential of injured axons? What signaling events occur between neurons and astrocytes to initiate and modulate astrocyte behavior? I will live-image astrocytes in the zebrafish spinal cord to quantify their behaviors following laser-axotomy.
-
Read More about Joy Meserve, Ph.D.
Joy Meserve, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
jmeserve@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Joy is interested in how genes and molecular pathways regulate behavior, and how these processes go awry in inherited neurological disorders. She is utilizing a simple behavior, the acoustic startle response, with a well characterized neural circuit to investigate how genes control neuron development and function.
-
Read More about Kristian Saied Santiago, Ph.D.
Graduate Students
-
Read More about Jaffna Mathiaparanam
Jaffna Mathiaparanam
Neuroscience Graduate Student
jaffna@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Jaffna is interested in mechanisms of spontaneous CNS neuronal regeneration, a unique attribute of the zebrafish model. To study this, she is combining molecular and genetic manipulations with live cell imaging of neurons after injury.
-
Read More about Elelbin Ortiz
Elelbin Ortiz
Neuroscience Graduate Student
ortizel@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Elelbin is interested in how molecular and circuit mechanisms establish behavioral thresholds, or the point at which stimuli are sufficient to elicit a response from an organism. Her thesis work focuses on how a synaptic protein important for synaptic vesicle release and replenishment regulates the threshold of a conserved behavior, the acoustic startle response.
Rotation Students
-
Fall 2023: Andrea Edwards - Cintron
NGG Graduate Student
-
Winter 2023: Leo Claure
DSRB Graduate Student
-
Winter 2023: Diana Pham
NGG Graduate Student
Lab Alumni
|
Name |
Years in Lab |
Current Position |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Lauren Walker | 2016 - 2023 | Faculty, Department of Molecular and Systems Biology, Dartmouth College |
| Dr. Mafe Navarro | 2016 - 2023 | Medical Writer, ETHOS Health Communications |
| Dr. Hannah Shoenhard | 2014 - 2022 | Faculty, Brynmawr College |
| Dr. Patti Murphy | 2013 - 2022 | Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University |
| Dr. Jessica Nelson | 2014 - 2021 | Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Denver |
| Dr. Owen Randlett | 2015-2019 | Assistant Professor, University of Lyon |
| Dr. Melissa Ducommun Priest | 2011 - 2018 | Medical Writer, ETHOS Health Communications |
| Dr. Katherine Gribble | 2010 - 2017 | Senior Scientist II, Akouos Inc |
| Dr. Kurt Marsden | 2010 - 2017 | Faculty, NC State University |
| Dr. Juliane Bremer | 2011 - 2017 | Faculty, University of Zurich, Switzerland |
| Dr. Jessie Isaacman-Beck | 2009 - 2015 | AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow, Special Assistant to the Acting Director, Office of Science Policy, NIH |
| Dr. Roshan Jain | 2008 - 2015 | Faculty, Haverford College |
| Dr. Santanu Banerjee | 2006 - 2014 | Research Associate, Syracuse University |
| Hannah Bell | 2011 - 2014 | MD/PhD Student, University of Rochester |
| Dr. Allison Rosenberg | 2008 - 2014 | Scientific Outreach Officer, KCNT1 Epilepsy Foundation |
| Dr. Marc Wolman | 2007 - 2013 | Faculty, University of Wisconsin, Madison |
| Dr. Camille Syrett | 2011 - 2013 | Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania |
| Dr. Rajiv Sainath | 2006 - 2012 | Faculty, Temple University |
| Dr. Laura Gordon | 2007 - 2011 | Associate, BakerHostetler Law Firm, Philadelphia |
| Dr. Lili Jing | 2004 - 2009 | Principle Investigator, School of Pharmacy, Shanghai |
| Dr. Harold Burgess | 2001 - 2008 | Group Leader, NIH |
| Dr. Kelly Palaisa | 2003 - 2007 | Patent Agent, MannyV IP |
| Dr. Michael Gyda | 2002 - 2007 | Director, Life Sciences Multimedia Productions |
| Dr. Valerie Schneider | 2000 - 2007 | Genome Curator, NIH |
| Dr. Gerald Downes | 1999 - 2005 | Faculty, UMass Amherst |
| Dr. Julie Lefebvre | 2000 - 2005 | Faculty, SickKids, Toronto |
| Dr. Kristen Lorent | 1998 - 2001 | Research Associate, University of Pennsylvania |
| Dr. Julie Waterbury | 1999 - 2001 | Group Leader, Merck and Co. |
| Dr. Joerg Zeller | 1997 - 2001 | Research Fellow, University of Ann Arbor, Michigan |
| Dr. Jing Zhang | 1998 - 2001 | Faculty, University of Madison, Wisconsin |