Samuel Altshuler, graduate student
Sam is from St. Paul, Minnesota and earned a BS in Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2020. He is pursuing a PhD in Biological Sciences as a member of the Desai Lab and his work focuses on BET bromodomain proteins and their role in the progression of human cells through the G2 phase of the cell cycle.
Email: saltshuler@ucsd.edu
Zane Bergman, StaFF RESEARCHer
Zane was born and raised in central Indiana where he attended Purdue University and earned his BS in Biology while working in Jon Liebowitz's lab focusing on the trypanosome, Leishmania. Afterwards, he joined the lab of Tim Huffaker at Cornell University where his thesis project was investigating the role of the microtubule-associated protein She1 on the regulation of dynein in the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Zane then moved to the west coast, joining the lab of Blake Riggs at San Francisco State University, studying the morphology of the endoplasmic reticulum during the syncitial divisions of the Drosophila embryo. He then moved across the bay to UC Berkeley and developed an assay to reconstitute microtubule dynamics from yeast cytoplasmic lysate with Georjana Barnes. Zane now is exploring the microtubule binding and localization of the C. elegans TPX2 homolog, TPXL-1. Zane's work has centered around the dynamic microtubule cytoskeleton and its role in mitosis and cytoplasmic events using a variety of methods and organisms.
Email to: z2bergman@ucsd.edu
REBECCA GREEN, Project SCIENTIST
Rebecca Green, Ph.D. is a Full Project Scientist at the University of California, San Diego, where she spearheads a high-content screening team within the Oegema laboratory to functionally map essential developmental pathways; she also collaborates on a variety of projects related to embryonic development, cytokinesis, and germline biology. Rebecca earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis, and was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. While Rebecca has been engaged in phenotypic screening efforts for more than a decade, she has explored different biological questions at small and large scales, using bacterial systems, model organisms and human cells throughout her scientific career. She has always been drawn to microscopy-based approaches to answering scientific questions because of its versatility, beauty, and the effectiveness of an image to communicate complex ideas.
Email: regreen@ucsd.edu
Dorine Hintzen, POSTDOC
Dorine is originally from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and obtained her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Utrecht University. During her Master's, she conducted a research internship in the lab of Sophie Dumont at UCSF, which sparked her interest in the molecular mechanisms underlying cell division. She completed her PhD at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in 2024, where she studied aneuploidy and chromosomal instability. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Oegema-Desai lab, she will investigate how spindle poles regulate kinetochore–microtubule interactions to ensure accurate chromosome segregation and proper spindle size. Outside the lab Dorine loves running and traveling: she wants to explore San Diego and other parts of the US.
Email: dhintzen@ucsd.edu
Andrew Liu, Postdoc
Andrew is originally from Los Angeles and earned his Bachelor of Science from UC Berkeley. From there he moved to Northwestern University in Chicago where he received his PhD working with Richard Carthew to study normal and tumorous growth control in Drosophila wings. As a postdoc in the Desai lab, Andrew studies the mechanism underlying how TRIM37 suppresses CEP192 and bypass foci when centrioles are depleted in human cells.
Email: anl108@ucsd.edu
Diana Lopez Cantu
Diana is from Mexico, Monterrey and received her B.S. in Chemical Sciences and Nanotechnology from Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey in 2021. She is pursuing a PhD in Biological Sciences in the Oegema-Desai Lab and her work focuses on understanding the structure of the Rho GTPase Activating protein 3 (RGA-3), a negative regulator of RhoA signaling during cytokinesis using the one-cell embryo of C. elegans.
Email: dlopezcantu@ucsd.edu
Emily Hendrickson, graduate student
Emily is originally from Duluth, MN and earned a BS in Chemistry and Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Superior in 2021. She then obtained an MS in Genomics in the lab of Dr. Warwick Grant at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. Now pursuing a PhD in Biological Sciences as a member of the Oegema lab, Emily’s research focuses on the assembly and function of the C. elegans centrosomal corona
Email: enhendrickson@ucsd.edu
johnathan meaders, postdoc
Johnathan is originally from Texas and moved to The Netherlands where he earned his Bachelor of Science from Utrecht University. From there he moved to Boston, Massachusetts where he received his PhD working with David Burgess to understand how microtubule asters grow and translocate within the cell to position various organelles such as nuclei and the mitotic spindle. As a postdoc in the Desai lab, Johnathan uses the C. elegans one-cell embryo as a model to understand how spindle microtubule dynamics and attachments are regulated at kinetochores and centrosomes during cell division.
Email: jmeaders@ucsd.edu
BEATA MIERZWA, POSTDOC
Beata is exploring how mitotic mechanisms adapt to diverse challenges in different human cell types, and how epithelial and hematopoietic cells accommodate different demands for shape changes during division - with the aim to uncover unique susceptibilities for targeting of cancer cells. Beata is the recipient of EMBO and Human Frontiers Science Program fellowships.
When not in the lab, Beata combines her passion for science and art to create science art and fashion (BeataScienceArt.com).
Email: bmierzwa@health.ucsd.edu
Aleesa
Schlientz, POSTDOC
Aleesa is originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan and received her PhD from the University of Oregon, working with Bruce Bowerman on oocyte meiotic spindle assembly and polar body extrusion in C. elegans. As a postdoc in the Oegema lab, Aleesa is studying how cortical contractility is negatively regulated by the kinase Aurora A in the early C. elegans embryo and human cultured cells.
Email: aschlientz@ucsd.edu
Wanying Tian, Graduate Student
Wanying is from Bejing, China and earned a BS and MS in Biology from UCSD in 2021. She is pursuing a PhD in Biological Sciences as a member of the Oegema Lab and her work focuses on the assembly and mitotic expansion of centrosomes.
Email: wtian@ucsd.edu
Neha varshney, postdoc
Neha grew up in Delhi in India and obtained her PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India, under the supervision of Dr. Kaustuv Sanyal. During her PhD, she investigated the function of Aurora kinase B during cell division in two human pathogenic budding yeasts. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Desai Lab, using C. elegans embryo as a model, she is interested in understanding the contributions of protein phosphatase 1 signaling at the kinetochore during chromosome segregation and development. When she is not in the lab, she likes to travel, explore new places and paint in her leisure time.
Email: nevarshney@ucsd.edu
Jiawei Xu, graduate student
Jiawei grew up in Ningbo, a coastal city in East China, and received her B.S. in Biomedical Sciences from Zhejiang University in 2019. She was introduced to cell biology when working in the Nunnari Lab in UC Davis as an undergrad researcher during 2018-2019, and joined the UCSD Biology PhD Program in 2019, continuing to pursue her interest in organelle biology. Co-mentored by Karen and Arshad, Jiawei is studying acentriolar microtubule organizing centers (MTOCs) in mammalian cells.
Email: j7xu@ucsd.edu
Andrew bellaart, GRADUATE STUDENT
Email: abellaart@ucsd.edu
McKenna Maloney, LAb assistant
Undergraduate Research Scholar
Email: mmaloney@ucsd.edu
Eduardo Sanchez, LAB ASSISTANT
Undergraduate Research Scholar
Email: eds003@ucsd.edu
Helen Tswei , lab assistant
Email: htswei@ucsd.edu
Ela Ustuner , lab assistant
Email: eustuner@ucsd.edu