Postdoctoral Researchers
Audald Lloret-Villas – Audald earned his Ph.D. in Animal Genomics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Switzerland). His postdoc work in the Pfeifer Lab focused upon the detection of crossover and non-crossover events from pedigree data. Audald is currently a postdoc at the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
Niraj Rayamajhi – Niraj earned his Ph.D. in Biology with a focus on Bioinformatics and Genomics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His postdoc work in the Pfeifer Lab focused on structural variation in biomedically-relevant primates. Niraj is currently a postdoc at Purdue.
João Santos – João earned his Ph.D. in Population Genetics at CIRAD in Montpellier. His postdoc work in the Pfeifer Lab focused upon the impact of sample size and population history on mutational spectra. João is currently a postdoc at KAUST.
Lucy A.P. Tran – Lucy earned her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan as a NSF Predoctoral Fellow advised by Lacey Knowles, and worked as a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in the Rosenblum Lab at UC Berkeley. Her postdoc work in the Pfeifer Lab focused upon germline mutation rates in Old World monkeys. Lucy is currently a Research Development Associate at the University of Arizona.
Ph.D. Student
Abigail A. Howell – Abby earned her B.Sc. in Biomedical Sciences at Arizona State University funded by the New American University Scholarship President’s Award. In the Pfeifer Lab, Abby’s graduate work focused on the computational genomics of DNA viruses in order to gain novel insights into bacteriophage and human cytomegalovirus evolution. Abby is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor at Arizona State University.
Mark R. Milhaven – Mark earned his B.Sc. in Quantitative Biology and Bioinformatics at Stony Brook University funded by a New York State STEM scholarship. In the Pfeifer Lab, Mark’s graduate work focused on the development of software to obtain best practice recommendations for computational filter criteria and thresholds mitigating artefacts in de novo mutation detection tailored to specific study designs and species of interest. Mark is currently a postdoc at the University of Montpellier.
Visiting Scholar
Mario A. Apata – Mario earned his B.A. in Anthropology and M.S. in Biological Science at the University of Chile, funded by the national Bicentenario and Conicyt Scholarships, respectively. As a Visiting Scholar funded by a Fulbright-Conicyt BIO scholarship, Mario’s work in the Pfeifer Lab investigated the evolutionary and selective forces that shaped the genomes of Andean populations historically exposed to arsenic-contaminated water in the Atacama desert. Mario is currently a postdoc at the University of Helsinki.
Undergraduate Researchers
Devangana Shah (2025–2026) – Devangana’s honors thesis focused on the demographic and selective processes shaping the evolution of the X chromosome in non-human primates. For her academic excellence, Devangana was awarded the ASU School of Life Sciences Outstanding Graduate Senior Award in 2026.
Sarah Weiss (2020–2023) – Sarah’s honors thesis, funded by a National Merit Scholarship, focused on recombination rate estimation in rhesus macaques. For her academic excellence, Sarah was awarded ASU’s 2023 Dean’s Medal.
Maria Kowal (2022–2023) – Maria’s honors thesis focused on explaining the evolution and genetics of bacteriophages to K12 students.
Ravneet Johal (2020–2022) – Ravneet’s honors thesis focused on the estimation of crossover and non-crossover rates from pedigree data.
Sydney Fikse (2019–2020) (co-advised by Beckett Sterner) – Sydney’s honors thesis focused on anthropogenic factors that have impacted animal evolution. Additional details can be found on her website.
Undergraduate (Research): Makena Sy (2022-2024); Jillian Murray (2022–2023); Jueliet Menolascino (2021–2022); Tiana Hua (2021); Daniel Kelly (2021); Daniel Sackett (2021); Sage Wackett (2021); Aman Garg (2020–2022); Bruno La Rosa (2020–2022); Samantha Sabbara (2020–2021); Minerva So (2020–2023); Phil Desmet (2025)
Undergraduate (Laboratory Asst.): Akarshi Brar (2023); Gabriella Cerna (2023); Elaine Chaffee (2023); Madison Blanco (2022); Aman Garg (2022); Jackelyn Lobatos (2022); Corinne Mitra (2022); Maria Strasser (2022); Saige Munig (2022); Zeel Patel (2022); Minerva So (2022); Makena Sy (2022); Sarah Weiss (2022); Rithik Mehta (2021); Daniel Sackett (2021); Garett Maag (2020); Angelica Urquidez Negrete (2020); Jade Porche (2020)