The Moderators

Daniël P. Melters – I’m a 5th year graduate student in the labs of Simon Chan and Ian Korf. My work focuses on the evolution of centromeric satellite sequences in plants and animals and fungi and … in short, I look at tandemly repeated sequences in eukaryotes. Originally I am from the Netherlands (actually, I can even say I am from Holland), where I studied Biomedical Sciences at Leiden University. As my wife works in the Bay Area, we live in the Bay Area, so I enjoy a lovely 60 min drive to and fro on a daily basis. When I am not in the lab or behind the wheel of my car, I am behind my computer … following F1 and reading up on other interesting stuff, although I should probably be on my bike more often. All of this can be done enjoying some of the great beers from a local microbrewer (except while being on a bike or behind the wheel). Recently, I also became a dad, so life is keeping me busy with changing diapers. [twitter] [LinkedIn]

Andrew Murley –  I’m from Michigan and studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Michigan State University.  Now I’m a second year student in Jodi Nunnari’s lab.

Nadia Ono - I’m a 4th year student studying the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites known as hydrolyzable tannins in Li Tian’s lab. I, like Daniël am commuting from the Bay so that I can live under the same roof as my spouse, but I do it Amtrak style. Grew up in NorCal, attended Chapman University in SoCal, and came back for a 2nd helping of NorCal for grad school. I’ve really come to enjoy sunrises and sunsets on the train, getting to know strangers, writing while experiencing delays, and cooking delicious meals to redeem myself from bad days in the lab. I love my family, exploring, and my second family, the BMCDB community at UC Davis!

Gordon A. Walker – I am a 4th year PhD candidate in Linda Bisson’s lab in Viticulture and Enology. I am studying the mechanism of a novel prion called [GAR+] that allows S. cerevisiae to bypass glucose-associated repression, and make use of alternative carbon sources despite the presence of glucose. We are concerned with the impact of this atypical yeast prion on the robustness of fermentation, and it’s role in microbial interaction dynamics and ethanol tolerance. I am from Cambridge, MA but moved to California to attend UC Santa Cruz. While in Santa Cruz I did quite a bit of sailing, SCUBA diving, and working at a winery and brewery. Davis lacks the ocean, but has a great community of graduate students, and many opportunities to get involved in food, wine and beer science. I spend much of my free time cooking, playing with my cat, and grabbing beers with my friends.

Alex Gulevich - I’m a soon to be third year graduate student originally hailing from the San Francisco Bay Area. Right now I’m working in the laboratory of J. Clark Lagarias developing novel optogentic tools that provide reversible external control of gene expression independent of chemical induction. My overall research interest is using this system in synthetic biology applications, such as biofuel and pharmaceutical production. More recently, I happily volunteered to be one of the moderatorsof this blog. The internet has become a daily part of everyone’s lives and is the most powerful tool for learning and disseminating news and knowledge. Blogs are an outlet where everyone can share their thoughts, ideas or whatever we find that we think others will also think is cool. It is a way to develop communities, stay connected and learn what’s going on in this big wide world with our contributions to the blog. I’m hoping as a moderator I can contribute to our BMCDB community and help us become one of the top graduate programs in the nation.
Weston Powell

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