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Stowers Institute

Ph.D. Program Alumni

Our Alumni are Scientific Leaders

Graduate School alumni are achieving great success in the field of biology around the world as they pursue careers in academia, research, and industry.

Alumni Voices

Kobe Yuen

2016 Graduate

“

The Stowers Graduate School was instrumental in preparing for my position at Genentech. I gained skills in bioinformatics and genomics analysis, which greatly facilitated the transition into my postdoc position in which I am analyzing a large amount of genomic data to study disease mechanisms and drug responses.

”

What makes Stowers special?

"The thing that's very special about Stowers, is it's people."

Click here to learn more from our Alumni about why they chose Stowers Graduate School.

Graduate School Alumni

Name Aubrey Kent, Ph.D.

Thesis More than a passing phase: How agat+ cells contribute to regeneration in the planarian Schmidtea mediterranea

Thesis Defense Date April 2025

First Post-Graduate Position Postgraduate Researcher, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO

Name Augusto Ortego Granillo, Ph.D.

Thesis The Role of Amputation Position in Vertebrate Appendage Regeneration

Thesis Defense Date May 2024

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, POL, TU Dresden and Max Planck Institute CBG, Dresden, Germany

Name Viraj Doddihal, Ph.D.

Thesis Functional integration of body axes during animal regeneration

Thesis Defense Date August 2022

First Post-Graduate Position Postgraduate Researcher, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO

Name Luciana Castellano, Ph.D.

Thesis A Code Beyond the Genetic Code: A Tale of Codon Choices

Thesis Defense Date February 2025

First Post-Graduate Position Associate Scientist I, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO

Name Qiushuang Wu, Ph.D.

Thesis Function of ribosome to regulate gene expression in vertebrates

Thesis Defense Date May 2022

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Rockefeller University, New York, NY

Name Yanfeng He, Ph.D.

Thesis Elongin functions as a loading factor for Mediator at ATFα regulated ER stress response genes

Thesis Defense Date August 2021

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA

Name Soon-Keat Ooi, Ph.D.

Thesis Multiple roles for PARP1 in ALC1 dependent nucleosome remodeling

Thesis Defense Date May 2021

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA

Name Melvin Noé González, Ph.D.

Thesis Through bubbles, scaffolds and cassettes: Reconstituting the link between Pol II transcription and RNA capping

Thesis Defense Date May 2019

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Training Fellow, Francis Crick Institute, London, England

Name Wei-Ting Yueh, Ph.D.

Thesis The role of Cohesin in genome maintenance in oocytes and early embryonic development

Thesis Defense Date December 2021

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA

Name Kobe Yuen, Ph.D.

Thesis Structural maintenance proteins - Roles in chromatin organization and gene expression

Thesis Defense Date December 2016

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Genentech, San Francisco CA

Name Ahmet Karabulut, Ph.D.

Thesis Molecular genetic analysis of cnidocyte development and function in the sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis

Thesis Defense Date June 2022

First Post-Graduate Position Postgraduate Researcher, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO

Name Zachary Lee, Ph.D.

Thesis In vivo phosphoproteomics uncovers novel requirements for proteins in epithelial growth and division

Thesis Defense Date December 2020

First Post-Graduate Position Scientist, Biologics, Catalent, Kansas City, MO

Name Shuonan He, Ph.D.

Thesis A cnidarian perspective on the evolution of body segmentation and segment polarity

Thesis Defense Date May 2021

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Name Cheng-Yi Chen, Ph.D.

Thesis The involvement of Hh signaling, vasa and nanos in germline development of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis

Thesis Defense Date December 2020

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Farrell Lab, NIH/NICHD, Bethesda, MD

Name Elisabeth Bauerly, Ph.D.

Thesis Deciphering the interplay between ciliogenesis and cellular development using microtubule associated proteins during spermatogenesis

Thesis Defense Date June 2020

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Prachee Avasthi Lab, Dartmouth, Hanover, NH

Name Alex Rodriguez Gama, Ph.D.

Thesis Functional protein supersaturation enables innate immune cell fate determination

Thesis Defense Date September 2022

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL

Name Amanda Bonner, Ph.D.

Thesis The evolution and function of matrimony, a meiotic regulator of polo kinase

Thesis Defense Date May 2019

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Singh Lab, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR

Name Cori Cahoon, Ph.D.

Thesis Understanding the structure and function of the Drosophila synaptonemal complex in female meiosis

Thesis Defense Date April 2016

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR

Name Christine Smoyer, Ph.D.

Thesis Analysis of inner nuclear membrane composition by SPLIT-GFP

Thesis Defense Date October 2018

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Scholar, Dept of Molecular and Cellular Biology, UC Davis, Davis, CA

Name Irina Pushel, Ph.D.

Thesis The role of Hoxa2 in specifying the axial identity of mouse cranial neural crest cells

Thesis Defense Date March 2021

First Post-Graduate Position Senior Bioinformatic Scientist, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO

Name Darrick Hansen, Ph.D.

Thesis Characterization of the stem cell niche and reserve stem cells in the intestinal epithelium

Thesis Defense Date December 2020

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Geneva, Switzerland

Name Julia Peloggia, Ph.D.

Thesis Physiological plasticity maintains zebrafish sensory organ function during environmental changes

Thesis Defense Date March 2024

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA

Name Joaquín Navajas Acedo, Ph.D.

Thesis Dissecting the role of the Planar Cell Polarity (PCP) and Wnt signaling pathways during the establishment of hair cell orientation in zebrafish.

Thesis Defense Date December 2019

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Alexander F. Schier Lab, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

Name Raktim Roy, Ph.D.

Thesis Function and Regulation of Intron Retention in Drosophila melanogaster

Thesis Defense Date November 2024

First Post-Graduate Position Postgraduate Researcher, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO

Name Kyle Patton, Ph.D.

Thesis A J-domain chaperone mediated amyloid assembly enhances memory in Drosophila

Thesis Defense Date May 2024

First Post-Graduate Position Unknown

Name Kai Zhang, Ph.D.

Thesis Sculpting Tissue Identity: The Role of Protein Pleiomorphism and Selective Use of Protein Quality Control Systems

Thesis Defense Date April 2024

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY

Name Raquel Barajas Azpeleta, Ph.D.

Thesis Modulation of nervous system functions: A surprising role for antimicrobial peptides

Thesis Defense Date October 2019

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Ribeiro Lab, Champalimaud Center for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal

Name Sharien Fitriasari, Ph.D.

Thesis Gene-environment interactions and contributions of the DNA damage response pathway in the pathogenesis of craniofacial anomalies

Thesis Defense Date February 2024

First Post-Graduate Position Postgraduate Researcher, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO

Name Emma Moore, Ph.D.

Thesis Novel mechanisms regulating early neural crest cell development

Thesis Defense Date December 2023

First Post-Graduate Position Postgraduate Researcher, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO

Name Karla Terrazas, Ph.D.

Thesis RNA Polymerase I mediated rRNA transcription is tissue-specifically required and regulated during mammalian craniofacial development and disease

Thesis Defense Date September 2021

First Post-Graduate Position Life Sciences Project Manager, Skilled KC, Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, MO

Name Cassandra Kempf, Ph.D.

Thesis Characterization of MHAP1 as a novel component of MIER1 histone deacetylase complexes

Thesis Defense Date November 2020

First Post-Graduate Position Scientist LCMS, Catalent, Kansas City, MO

Name Xingyu Liu, Ph.D.

Thesis A novel affinity purification Method for Mass Spectrometry Based Protein Complexes Studies: Serial Capture Affinity Purification (SCAP)

Thesis Defense Date November 2020

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Washington University, St. Louis, MO

Name Dayebgadoh Gerald, Ph.D.

Thesis Quantitative interaction proteomic strategies for WDR76 and HP1 annotation

Thesis Defense Date October 2020

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Fellow, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN

Name Jelly Soffers, Ph.D.

Thesis A characterization of the composition and gene-regulatory functions of SAGA-related complexes during Drosophila development

Thesis Defense Date June 2020

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Name Rahul Garg, Ph.D.

Thesis Neural Logic of Attention Allocation in Sensory Processing

Thesis Defense Date August 2024

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio

Name José López Hernández, Ph.D.

Thesis Spread and extinction of poison-antidote wtf meiotic drivers

Thesis Defense Date May 2022

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Name Nicole Nuckolls, Ph.D.

Thesis Characterization of the ultra-selfish wtf meiotic drivers

Thesis Defense Date August 2020

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Julia Cooper Lab, University of Colorado, Aurora, CO

Name María Angélica Bravo Núñez, Ph.D.

Thesis The role of meiotic drivers on infertility and the evolution of the chromosome segregation 
machinery

Thesis Defense Date March 2020

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Fellow, Andrew Murray’s Lab, Harvard University, Boston, MA

Name Kaelan Brennan, Ph.D.

Thesis Decoding the cis-regulatory rules for chromatin accessibility during zygotic genome activation

Thesis Defense Date August 2024

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford, Stanford, CA

Name Wanqing Shao, Ph.D.

Thesis The interplay between transcription initiation, RNA polymerase II pausing and core promoter elements: A genomics perspective

Thesis Defense Date July 2018

First Post-Graduate Position Postdoctoral Research Associate, Genetics Department, Washington University, St. Louis, MO

In Memoriam

In 2022, the Stowers Graduate School and the Stowers Institute were devastated by the loss of two exceptional predoctoral researchers, Camila Behrensen and Pablo Guzmán Palma. Camila and Pablo each radiated joy, optimism, and a love for knowledge that will be profoundly missed. They cared deeply for their science and their colleagues, and both were destined to make important contributions to the understanding of biology and humanity.

Portrait of Camila Behrensen

Camila Behrensen

Portrait of Pablo Guzman Palma

Pablo Guzmán Palma

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