Meet the team of the Wagner Lab, comprising postdoctoral, graduate, undergraduate, visiting researchers and learn more about their focus areas. You can also discover the pursuits of our alum members.
Current Members
Tomasz Bieluszewski
Post-doctoral Researcher
bieltm@sas.upenn.edu
Shalini Yadav
Post-doctoral Researcher
yshalini@sas.upenn.edu
Sandhan Prakash
Post-doctoral Researcher
sandhanp@sas.upenn.edu
Sarah Matar
Post-doctoral Researcher
matars@sas.upenn.edu
Courtney Dresden
Post-doctoral Researcher
cdresden@sas.upenn.edu
Xinwei Ma
Research Specialist
xum91@sas.upenn.edu
Tian Huang
Graduate Student
ht54@sas.upenn.edu
Peter Ishola
Graduate Student
pishola@sas.upenn.edu
Joy Li
Graduate Student
lijoy@sas.upenn.edu
Reginald Kwarteng
Undergraduate Researcher
regkw@sas.upenn.edu
Tony Le
Undergraduate Researcher
leton@sas.upenn.edu
Alumni
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr THOMAS ROULE
Characterizing of chromatin remodelers activity during abiotic stresses. Currently pursuing his passion in Computational Biology Research at the Childrens Hospital in Philadelphia
Dr YANG ZHU
Identifying the upstream regulators of LEAFY. Currently Principal Investigator at Zhejiang University.
Dr JIANQIANG SHEN
Understanding the role of Polycomb in various plant species. Currently Assistant Project Scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr MIN WANG
Gene silencing by Polycomb in response to stress. Currently studing host pathogen interactions at the Sainsbury Lab in Norwich, UK.
Dr JUN XIAO
Understanding the identification of polycomb response elements in Arabidopsis. Currently Associate Professor at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Dr YUHEE CHUNG
Analyzing the auxin regulation of primordium initiation. Currently at GenKOre, Daejeon, South Korea.
Dr CHEOL WOONG JEONG
Studying the identification of upstream regulators of LEAFY Currently Strategy Planning Lead at Farmhannong in Seoul, South Korea
Dr NOBUTOSHI YAMAGUCHI
Studying regulatory interactions that lead to the formation of the first flower in Arabidopsis. Currently Associate professor at NARA Institute of Science and Technology, Japan.
Dr MIIN-FENG WU
Understanding the intersection between hormonal responses, plant development and chromatin remodeling. Currently Research Scientist at Monsanto/Bayer.
Dr AYAKO YAMAGUCHI
Analyzing the induction of LEAFY by the mir156/SBP age-sensing pathway. Assistant professor at Koyto University, mom and homemaker.
Dr YI SANG
Studying the role of SWI/SNF ATPases in development. Currently, data Scientist in the US.
Dr STAVER BEZHANI
Characterizing transcriptional targets of SWI/SNF ATPases SPLAYED and BRAHMA in Arabidopsis. Currently Senior Lecturer UPenn Biology.
Dr CHANG-SEOB KWON
Studying the role SWI/SNF ATPase SPLAYED in stem cell maintenance. Role of SWI/SNF ATPase BRAHMA in organ separation. Science education in South Korea.
YANHUI SU research specialist
Characterizing the posttranslational Regulation of SWI/SNF ATPase SPLAYED activity. Nephrology Division Research Lab Manager, Medical University of South Carolina
Graduate Students
Dr SAMANTHA KLASFELD
Developing a pipeline to improve signal enrichment in ChIP-seq in organisms outside of ENCODE. Currently Data Science postdoc with Pfizer.
Dr RUN JIN
Chromatin remodeling and pioneer transcription factors. Currently Data Scientists at McKinsey.
Dr UN-SA LEE
Understanding the epigenetic regulation of inflorescence and flower development.
Dr SOON-KI HAN
Charachterizing the role of chromatin remodeling in stress and hormone responses. Currently Assistant Professor, Ajou University, South Korea.
Dr CARA WINTER
Understanding the application of genome-wide approaches to identify direct LFY targets at two developmental stages. Currently Research associate, Philip Benfey Lab, Duke University.
Dr JENNIFER PASTORE
Characterizing the regulation of flower primordium formation downstream of LEAFY. Currently at Pastore orchards, New Jersey.
Dr MAXWELL REBACK
Studying the role of LEAFY in Biotic stimulus response, browse to display LEAFY genomewide binding. After Medical School now a Critical care physician and pulmologist in Hartford CT.
Master Students
Characterizing the role of SWI/SNF complex subunits during development and stress response. Teaching with a non-profit organization in India.Â
Undergraduate Students
MODESOLA OLANIYI
Measuring transcriptional repressor activity. Now taking a gap year to do research.
PRABH KAUR
Understanding the function of LEAFY.
GABRIELA BLANDINO
Understanding the function and additional targets of TFL1. Received chair’s research prize in Biology. Currently attending medical school at BU.
RENEE HASTINGS
Studying how the biophysical properties of disordered proteins coordinate stress responses. Currently Biophysics Graduate Student at Stanford University.
ADAM KONKOL
Characterizing disordered proteins Currently Churchill Scholar at the University of Cambridge in Biological Physics.
CECE CHEN
Learning about gene regulatory networks and plant immunity.
ANDREA LIMPUANGTHIP
Analyzing the role of LMI2 MYB transcription factor downstream of LEAFY. MD U Maryland. Practising in Pennsylvania.
LAUREN MALASPINA
Characterizing the role of direct LEAFY targets in the switch to flower formation. MD UCSD Albert Einstein College. Practising in California.
LOUIS SADDIC
Studying the regulatory network downstream of LEAFY in the switch to flower formation. MD PhD Stanford. Practising In Cailifornia.
DILUSHA WILIAM
Understanding genomewide identification of direct LFY targets. MD PhD UPenn, Practising in Minnesota.
MARIYA KOSTIV
Undergraduate Researcher
ALEXANDER GONZALEZ
Undergraduate Researcher
JANA KRIEN
Undergraduate Researcher
INDEARA COGDELL
Undergraduate Researcher
Visiting Scholars & Technician
YESEUL KIM
Understanding the mechanism in which genes are regulated by upstream binding of LFY. Currently PhD with Jan Lohmann EMBL Heidelberg.
SUJUAN CUI
Studying the role of chromatin remodeling in plant development and growth. Faculty Hebei Normal University, China.
ALFONSO MOURIZ VILLAR
Understanding the role of histone modifications and histone variants in reproductive development in Arabidopsis.
