

Dr. Sara Sawyer
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
HOMETOWN: Olathe, Kansas
PhD: Cornell University
INTERESTING FACT: My first career was working on offshore oil drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Vanessa Bauer
LEAD SCIENTIST, HIV PROJECTS
HOMETOWN: Des Moines, Iowa
MS: Cornell University
INTERESTING FACT: I received a gold medal in snowshoe racing at the Empire State Games (NY).

Will Fattor
LAB MANAGER
HOMETOWN: Black Hawk, Colorado
B.S. DEGREE: University of Colorado Boulder
INTERESTING FACT: I am licensed to sail monohull boats.
Postdoctoral Research Fellows

Dr. Cody Warren
HOMETOWN: Fountain Valley, California
DEGREES: PhD @ U. Colorado Medical School; Masters of Public Health @ UC Berkeley
INTERESTING FACT: I used to play college baseball.
NIH HIV Postdoctoral Training Fellow,
NIH NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow
NIH K99 Award

Dr. Arturo Barbachano-Guerrero
HOMETOWN: Torreón, México
DEGREES: PhD @ SUNY Upstate; MSc @ National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico
INTERESTING FACT: I used to capture wild sea lions and howler monkeys for research on microbiology.
Graduate Students

Obaiah Dirasantha
HOMETOWN: Somasila village, India
B.S. DEGREE: Indian Institute of Technology
INTERESTING FACT: I like to sketch human faces

Sharon Wu
HOMETOWN: Foster City, California
B.S. DEGREE: MIT
INTERESTING FACT: I used to be a lucid dreamer and could fully control my dreams every night.

Emma Worden-Sapper
HOMETOWN: Boulder, CO
B.S. DEGREE: University of Colorado Boulder
INTERESTING FACT: I once crocheted a model bacteriophage.

Paul Gendler
Hometown: Foster City, California
B.S. Degree: University of California, Santa Barbara
Interesting Fact: I once grew an 8 foot tree from an avocado pit

Makky Mousa-Makky
Hometown: Iowa City, Iowa
B.S. Degree: University of Dubuque
Interesting Fact:I’ve hit a ping pong ball with a bow and arrow from 20 yards away.
Undergraduates

Sam Chappell
Hometown: Denver, Colorado
B.S. Degree: University of Colorado, Boulder
Interesting Fact: I once biked 135 miles from San Francisco to Aspen through the Rocky Mountains in 2 days.

Dani Swope
Hometown: Longmont, Colorado
Major: MCDB with minors in classics and philosophy
Interesting Fact: I taught a virtual cooking class during the pandemic, and still record some videos in my spare time
Lab Alumni
Qing Yang, Ph.D.
Postdoc, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Nick Meyerson, Ph.D.
CEO, Darwin BioSciences
Kyle Clark
Scientist, Darwin BioSciences
Alex Stabell, M.D. Ph.D.
Medical resident (Infectious Disease), Columbia University
Emily Feldman, Ph.D.
Scientist, Inscripta
Jeff Hussmann, Ph.D.
Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow, UCSF
Kyudong Han, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Dankook University, South Korea
Alysia East, D.V.M.
Veterinarian, Austin, TX
Ross McBee, Ph.D.
PhD, Columbia University
Chief Scientific Officer, TOMTEX
Joe Timpona, Ph.D.
Scientist, Stealth NewCo
Alison Gilchrist, Ph.D.
Research scientist, Raabe lab @ NYU Langone School of Medicine
Maryska Kaczmarek, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, EcoHealth Alliance
Scott Kerr, Ph.D.
Global Product Manager, BioFire Diagnostics, Salt Lake City, UT
Paul Rowley, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of Idaho
Dianne Lou, M.D. Ph.D.
Medical resident (Anesthesiology), Vanderbilt University
Ann Demogines, Ph.D.
Senior Director, BioFire Diagnostics
Elena Judd
PhD Student, U. Washington Seattle