Young man wearing a white lab coat, looking into a microscope in a UC Santa Barbara laboratory environment. UCSB photo repository

Photo Credit: UCSB

People

Izaiah Alvarado

Graduate Student- Dogic Lab

Alejandra Arroyo

Graduate Student- Weimbs Lab

Mihai Bibireata

Graduate Student- Louis Lab

Summer Blunk

Graduate Student- C. Montell Lab

Christopher Boles

Graduate Student- Gardner Lab

Cherie Briggs

Mellichamp Professor

Theoretical ecology, disease ecology, population dynamics, and systems biology.

Frank L. Brown

Professor (Affiliated)

Research in my group is entirely theoretical/computational in nature.

Thomas Bruice

Professor Emeritus

Our present research interests are in two areas: (i) nucleoside material chemistry (synthesis, characterization of interactions); and (ii

Alison Butler

Professor (Affiliated)

Roles of metals in metalloenzymes; microbial iron acquisition, including siderophores and new metallo-enzymes.

Andrea Carlini

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

The Carlini Group focuses on breaking down barriers between endogenous biochemical signals and exogenous soft materials for the fabrication of smart devices.

Mira Chokshi

Graduate Student- Gardner Lab

Dennis O. Clegg

Professor

Human stem cell research; Molecular mechanisms of stem cell differentiation; Derivation of ocular cells from stem cells; Soft tissue regeneration.

Frederick Dahlquist

Professor (Affiliated)

Biochemistry; protein structure and function relationships; protein dynamics; chemotaxis in bacteria.

Declan Degeorge

Graduate Student- C. Montell Lab

Siddharth Dey

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

The genome within all cells of a multicellular organism is identical, yet different cells within the heart, brain or small intestine for

Ethan Dickson

Graduate Student- Wilson Lab

Zvonimir Dogic

Faculty Graduate Advisor, Professor of Physics

Experimental Soft Matter and Biological Physics

Parker Elliott

Graduate Student - Rotating

Lisa Fetter

Graduate Student- Plaxco Lab

Deborah Fygenson

Professor

Physical foundations of macromolecular technology: self-assembly, polymer mechanics and stability, energy transport, diffusion, and DNA-based nanotechnology.

Brooke Gardner

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

In the Gardner Lab, we focus on how the cell has solved challenges for a metabolic organelle, the peroxisome.

Emily Gemmill

Graduate Student- D. Montell Lab

J. Thomas Gerig

Professor Emeritus

Addition of small molecules, such as an alcohol or an osmolyte, to aqueous solutions of peptides and proteins often alters the dominant c

Aria Ghasemizadeh

Graduate Student- Safinya Lab

Jenny Gibson

Graduate Student- Plaxco Lab

Brandon Greene

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

The role of radicals in enzyme catalysis and degradation, development of electron bifurcating flavoproteins, and biogeochemical redox cycling of phosphorus.

Lana Gross

Graduate Student- D. Montell Lab

Yang Hai

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

Nature has evolved the capacity to carry out many challenging chemical transformations of great interest to synthetic chemistry if they c

Hadley Hanson

Graduate Student- D. Montell Lab

Molecular mechanisms of ribosome pausing during protein synthesis and recruitment of SsrA (tmRNA) to stalled ribosomes.

Sarah Huerta

Graduate Student Researcher - Rotating

Luc Jaeger

Professor

RNA folding and evolution; nucleic acid-based bionanotechnology and biomaterials; emergence of complexity in living systems.

Maxwell Janssen

Graduate Student- Streichan Lab

Anna Jellema-Butler

Graduate Student- Rothman Lab

Xieergai Jiang

Graduate Student Researcher - Rotating

Pearly Joubert

Graduate Student Researcher - Rotating

Aimal Khankhel

Graduate Student- Streichan Lab

Sung Soo Kim

Asstant Professor (Affiliated)

My lab is interested in understanding the brain-wide, multi-sensory information processing and integration that underlies how the brain enables navigational decisions.

Ousmane Kodio

Professor (Affiliated)

Prof Kodio studies the patterns in soft matter and fluids mechanics.

Kenneth S. Kosik, M.D.

Harriman Professor, MCDB and Co-Director, Neuroscience Research Institute

Basic mechanisms and disorders of neural plasticity; the role of microRNAs in stem cell differentiation.

Darwin Lara

Graduate Student- Hai Lab

John Lew

Associate Professor, BMSE Diversity Advocate

Molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease; structure/function studies on tau using NMR, spectroscopic, biochemical, molecular, and cell biological methods; role of cdk5/p35 in neuronal development and signal transduction.

Matthieu Louis

Professor

Combining theory and experimentation to understand how navigational decisions come about in terms of neural-circuit computation.

David A. Low

Professor

Cellular communication between bacteria, including mechanisms and biology of contact-dependent growth inhibition; epigenetic gene regulatory mechanisms.

Binbin Lu

Graduate Student Researcher - Rotating

Michael J. Mahan

Professor

Microbial pathogenesis; innate and adaptive immune responses to infection; coagulopathy and inflammation of sepsis; vaccine development.

Kateryna Malkina

Graduate Student- Wilson Lab

Cannon Mallory

Graduate Student- Briggs Lab

Andrew Manion

Graduate Student- Morrissey Lab

Cristina Marchetti

IQB Director

Soft Matter Theory and Biological Physics

Alex Maynard

Graduate Student- Wilson Lab

Drew McDonald

Graduate Student- Reich Lab

Alexei Miller

Graduate Student Researcher - Rotating

Craig Montell

Professor of MCDB and Neuroscience

The mosquito, Aedes aegypti, spreads the viruses that cause dengue, yellow fever, zika and other diseases that affects hundreds of millio

Denise J. Montell

Professor of Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology

Every day, every single one of the trillions of cells in the human body makes an active decision whether to live or die.

Meghan Morrissey

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

We use high resolution live imaging, synthetic biology and biochemistry to figure out when and where signaling molecules are activated to make these essential decisions. We are motivated by re-wiring macrophage signaling pathways to generate new cancer immunotherapies.

Daniel E. Morse

Professor Emeritus

Bio-nano technology including molecular mechanisms controlling self assembly, emergent properties of biomolecular systems from minerals to dynamically tunable color in octopus skin; translation to revolutionary new routes to semiconductors, optoelectronics and energy.

Arnab Mukherjee

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

The Mukherjee group will pursue fundamental advances at the intersection of molecular biology, biomedical imaging, and biophysics.  

Ben Ng

Graduate Student- Wilson Lab

Todd Oakley

Professor (Affiliated)

Aquatic Biology, Behavior, Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology, Evolution, Evolutionary Ecology, Evolutionary Genetics, Macroevolution, Marine Biology, Organismal Biology, Zoology

Dallin Ostler

Graduate Student- Plaxco Lab

Neurotransmitter storage; transporter structure and function; development of in vivo diagnostics for PET and SPECT, rapid assays for drug abuse.

Philip A. Pincus

Professor

Soft condensed matter theory including biopolymer and biomembrane electrostatics, protein-membrane interactions, biopolymer solutions, and solution properties of conjugated polymers.

Kevin W. Plaxco

Professor

Bioengineering and protein biophysics.

Alyse Ptacek

Graduate Student- D. Montell Lab

Norbert O. Reich

Professor

Drug development. Nanoparticle-based delivery of siRNA, proteins, and drugs into cells (cancer/embryonic stem cell). Laser-dependent spatio-temporal control of drug targeting.
    

Chris Richardson

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

Human cells constantly repair DNA damage caused by everything from biological processes and chemical insults to CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing reagents.

Jose Roberto Rodrigues Reyes

Graduate Student- Wilson Lab

Anthony Rodriguez

Graduate Student- D. Montell Lab

Samuel Rosen

Graduate Student- Wilson Lab

Joel Rothman

Distinguished Professor

When a fertilized egg is transformed into a complex multicellular animal, how do cells learn when to divide, differentiate or die at the

Brennen Rudd

Graduate Student Researcher - Rotating

Cyrus R. Safinya

Professor (Affiliated)

Structures and interactions in complex fluids and biological systems; new materials for gene delivery into mammalian cells.

Omar Saleh

Professor

The Saleh Group studies the physics of soft matter systems, with a focus on the active and passive micro-mechanics of biomolecules and polymers.

Charles E. Samuel

Professor Emeritus

Molecular biology of animal virus-cell interactions; antiviral innate immunity & mechanisms of interferon action; translational control of gene expression in mammalian cells; and A-to-I RNA editing

Lior Sepunaru

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

Bioelectronics, Single entity Biophysics, Nano-electrochemistry, Electron Transfer, Enzyme Catalysis

Juliana Serena

Staff Graduate Advisor

Joan-Emma Shea

Professor (Affiliated)

Research in the Shea group focuses on developing and applying the techniques of statistical and computational physics to the study of bio

Connor Sheedy

Graduate Student- Gardner Lab

Kathrine Shelburne

Graduate Student Researcher - Rotating

Boris I. Shraiman

Professor (Affiliated)

Quantitative systems biology and bioinformatics; statistical mechanics of non-equilibrium systems.

Julie H. Simpson

Associate Professor (Affiliated)

Genetics, Neural Circuits, and Motor sequences.

Ambuj Singh

Professor

Analysis of biological data including sequences, structures, and images; synthesis and analysis of biological networks.

William Smith

Professor

Vertebrate developmental biology; growth factors and axis specification in Xenopus.

Morgan Smith

Graduate Student- D. Montell Lab

Erika Snyder

Graduate Student- Morrissey Lab

Ryan Stowers

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

Properties of the biopolymer scaffolding that surrounds cells in the body, known as the extracellular matrix, are known to influence many

Sebastian Streichan

Associate Professor

We use ideas and concepts from physics, computer science, and mathematics to ask how embryos get in shape, and how organs function. 

 

Sophie Streichan

Business Officer

Galen A. Stucky

Professor (Affiliated)

Design, synthesis, and characterization of new bioinorganic materials with an emphasis on understanding interface assembly & control of bioprocesses.

Fillan Swift

Graduate Student- Streichan Lab

Breanna Takacs

Graduate Student- Yi Lab

Anna Tomov

Graduate Student- Pruitt Lab

Timothy Tran

Graduate Student- Kosik Lab

Carol A. Vandenberg

Professor Emeritus

Ion channels in the nervous system and cardiac muscle; molecular mechanisms of ion channel trafficking, regulation, and signal transduction.

Sonny Vang

Graduate Student Researcher - Rotating

Lourdes Velazquez

Graduate Student- Briggs Lab

Niels Volkmann

Professor

Dr. Volkmann’s research focuses on the development and application of innovative new computational, artificial intelligence, and data science tools to bridge information between the atomic and cellular scales

J. Herbert Waite

Professor

Biochemistry and biophysics of bio-adhesion in marine organisms; bio and nanomechanics of sclerotized composites; liquid crystals and molecular gradients in biomolecular materials.

Sichu Wang

Graduate Student- Greene Lab

Zhiyu (Ludwig) Wang

Graduate Student- Rotating

Thomas Weimbs

Professor (Affiliated)

The Weimbs Lab is centered around two related areas of investigation:  Autosomal-dominant polycystic kidney disease and SNAREs and epithelial cell polarity.

Andrew White

Graduate Student- Dewey Lab

Max Wilson

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

The Wilson Lab comines tools from Biology, Engineering, and Physics to understand the cell's perceptual field.  

Leslie Wilson

Professor

Biochemistry and function of cytoskeletal proteins; regulation of microtubules assembly and dynamics.

Binzhi Xu

Graduate Student- Mukherjee Lab

Chaoming Xu

Graduate Student- O'Malley Lab

Yang Yang

Assistant Professor (Affiliated)

The Yang laboratory devises novel biocatalytic and protein engineering strategies to tackle challenging problems in synthetic organic che

Rae Yee

Graduate Student- Mills Lab

Alec Zebert

Graduate Student Researcher - Rotating

Cuiyi Zhang

Graduate Student- Richardson Lab

Jenny Zhu

Graduate Student Researcher - Rotating