People

Carla Brooks
Research Specialist

Carla Brooks

BS, Microbiology, Northern Arizona University

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Paul Caccamo
Lab Manager

Paul Caccamo

PhD, Microbiology, Indiana University

Paul is the firewall between John and the bureaucracy of scientific research. He also escapes containment sometimes to do bench work, making lots of bacterial mutants and studying how new endosymbioses are established. Paul loves going to movies, the Ottawa Senators (Go Sens Go!), and hanging out with his beautiful partner Jenny, his dog, and three cats.

Adam Carte
Postdoc

Adam Carte

PhD, Systems, Synthetic & Quantitative Biology, Harvard. Joint with Norbert Perrimon.

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Google Scholar

Shailey Kelly
Undergraduate

Shailey Kelly

BS, Microbiology (expected 2028)

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Dalton Leprich
Postdoc

Dalton Leprich

PhD, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Minnesota

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John McCutcheon
Principal Investigator

John McCutcheon

HHMI Investigator; Associate Director and Professor, Biodesign Center for Mechanisms of Evolution & School of Life Sciences, ASU

John is interested in how endosymbioses form (and how they sometimes breakdown), how hosts and endosymbionts become integrated with one another at the genetic, biochemical, and cell biological levels, and how the diversity of present-day endosymbioses might teach us something about how the mitochondrion and plastid came to be.

CV Google Scholar

Anistynn Mendez
MS Student

Anistynn Mendez

BS, Molecular Biosciences & Biotechnology, ASU

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Veronica Muller
PhD Student

Veronica Muller

BS, Bioengineering, Caltech

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Justus Nwachukwu
Postdoc

Justus Nwachukwu

PhD, Biochemistry, ASU

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Noah Spencer
PhD Student

Noah Spencer

NSF GRFP Fellow. BS, Biology, West Virginia University

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Braeden Sullivan
Undergraduate

Braeden Sullivan

BS, Microbiology & Biochemistry (expected 2027)

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Utsav Tatu
PhD Student

Utsav Tatu

BS, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, UC Davis

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Jess Warren
Postdoc

Jess Warren

HHMI Hanna Gray Fellow. PhD, Biological Sciences, Colorado State University

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HHMI Profile

Courtney York
Research Technician

Courtney York

BS, UC Irvine

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Lab Alumni

  • Amanda Abdelsamad (MS student, 2021-2022) - medical school
  • Amanda Brown (Postdoc, 2011-2013) - Associate Professor, Texas Tech University
  • DeAnna Bublitz (Postdoc, 2016-2020) - Scientific Review Officer, NIH
  • Matt Campbell (PhD student, 2012-2018) - Scientist, New England Biolabs
  • Arkadiy Garber (PhD student, 2020-2025) - Founder and CEO, Middle Author Bioinformatics
  • Filip Husník (PhD student, 2012-2017) - Associate Professor, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
  • Maria Kupper (Postdoc, 2017-2022) - Scientist, Azenta Life Sciences
  • Piotr Łukasik (Postdoc, 2014-2018) - Associate Professor, Jagiellonian University
  • Toby Spribille (Postdoc, 2012-2017) - Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Symbiosis, University of Alberta
  • Stephanie Temnyk (MS student, 2021-2024) - Molecular Biologist, Corteva Agriscience
  • Zerrin Üzüm (Postdoc, 2021-2022) - Lab Manager, Imaging Core at ASU
  • Dan Vanderpool (PhD student, 2013-2018) - Bioinformatics Scientist, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station
  • James Van Leuven (PhD student, 2010-2015) - Assistant Professor, University of Idaho
  • Stephanie Ray Weldon (Postdoc, 2015-2017) - Sr. Research Program Manager, Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard
  • Tim Wheeler (MS student, 2015-2017) - Senior Research Scientist, University of Montana