Our Team

VISITING SCHOLARS

Prof. Ala’a Eftaiha

Hashemite University, Jordan

Prof. Eftaiha joined our lab from September 2023 to August 2024. Our collaborative project inspected the effects of Gemini Surfactants on the structure, organization, and dynamics of lipid membranes, with far reaching implications in artificial cells and other biotechnologies.

POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLARS AND RESEARCH ASSOCIATES

Dr. Suryabrahmam (Surya) Buti

Surya joined our lab in June 2023 after a postdoc at the Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris. He brings remarkable expertise in Flicker spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy. In our lab, Surya is involved in a number of projects including curvature-mediated membrane reorganization and dynamic responses of membranes to molecular additives.

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Dinidu Hathnagoda

Dinidu’s doctoral project is focused on understanding how architectural changes in sterols influence the packing state, dynamic fluctuations, and organization in mimetic lipid membranes – of relevance to cellular evolution and adaptation.

Chathurika Hetti Arachchige

Chathurika’s doctoral project is focused on the effects of polymeric additives on collective dynamics, phase-separation, and stability of lipid membranes – of significant relevance in liposomal delivery applications and artificial cell technologies.

Amirali (Al) Chizari

Al’s master’s project is focused on analyzing neutron reflectometry studies on supported lipid membranes, including the detection of nanoscopic lipid domains with sterol-lipid conjugation.

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Justin Polcha

Matt Crane

Cecelia Cashin

Dominic Arseni

Bokyoung Kim

ALUMNI

Former Postdocs and Research Associates:

  • Dr. Sudipta Gupta (2021-2022) – now a senior scientist at Merck
  • Dr. Saptarshi Chakaraborty (2019-2020) – now an engineer at Wacker Chemical Corp.

Former Graduate Students:

  • Teshani Kumarage (Ph.D. 2024) – now a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • Hadi Rahmaninejad (Ph.D. 2022) – now a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southern California
  • Chi Chen (M.S. 2022)

Former Undergraduate Students:

  • Brannon Semp (class of 2024) – joined graduate school at the University of Virginia
  • Joshua Buontempo (class of 2023) – joined graduate school at Cornell
  • Alexandra Habibi (class of 2023) – joined graduate school at Johns Hopkins
  • Nicholas Morris (class of 2023) – joined engineering school at the University of Alabama
  • Jasmine Albert (class of 2023) – joined graduate school at the College of William & Mary
  • Cassell McMillian (class of 2023) – Virginia Tech’s Inaugural Beckman Scholar
  • Al Mercedes Casado (visiting  REU student, Williams College, summer 2023)
  • Emma Lee Kinsey (visiting  REU student, Scripps College, summer 2023)
  • Maria Ziu (class of 2025)
  • Eleni Ziu (class of 2025)
  • Jeffrey Pearson (class of 2023)
  • Jacob DeGregoris (class of 2023)
  • Andrew Johnson (class of 2023)
  • Wallace Borden (class of 2022) – joined graduate school at Syracuse University
  • Vincent Vasudevan (class of 2022)
  • Julie Nguyen (class of 2021) – joined medical school at LMU-DCOM
  • Alison Gaylord (class of 2020) – became a high school teacher
  • Liam Weston (class of 2020) – became a high school teacher
  • Michael Kane (class of 2019) – joined Microsoft as a software engineer