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 | Thesis Mentor | Thesis | Thesis Defense Date | First Post-Graduate Position |
| Rahul Garg, Ph.D. | Ron Yu, Ph.D. | Neural Logic of Attention Allocation in Sensory Processing | August 2024 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio |
| Kaelan Brennan, Ph.D. | Julia Zeitlinger, Ph.D. | Decoding the cis-regulatory rules for chromatin accessibility during zygotic genome activation | August 2024 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford, Stanford, CA |
| Augusto Ortego Granillo, Ph.D. | Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Ph.D. | The Role of Amputation Position in Vertebrate Appendage Regeneration | May 2024 | Postdoctoral Researcher, POL, TU Dresden and Max Planck Institute CBG Dresden, Germany |
| Kyle Patton, Ph.D. | Kausik Si, Ph.D. | A J-domain chaperone mediated amyloid assembly enhances memory in Drosophila | May 2024 | Unknown |
| Kai Zhang, Ph.D. | Kausik Si, Ph.D. | Sculpting Tissue Identity: The Role of Protein Pleiomorphism and Selective Use of Protein Quality Control Systems | April 2024 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY |
| Julia Peloggia, Ph.D. | Tatjana Piotrowski, Ph.D. | Physiological plasticity maintains zebrafish sensory organ function during environmental changes | March 2024 | Postdoctoral Researcher, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA |
| Sharien Fitriasari, Ph.D. | Paul Trainor, Ph.D. | Gene-environment interactions and contributions of the DNA damage response pathway in the pathogenesis of craniofacial anomalies | February 2024 | Postgraduate Researcher, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO |
| Emma Moore, Ph.D. | Paul Trainor, Ph.D. | Novel mechanisms regulating early neural crest cell development | December 2023 | Postgraduate Researcher, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO |
| Alex Rodriguez Gama, Ph.D. | Randal Halfmann, Ph.D. | Functional protein supersaturation enables innate immune cell fate determination | September 2022 | Postdoctoral Fellow, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL |
| Viraj Doddihal, Ph.D. | Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Ph.D. | Functional integration of body axes during animal regeneration | August 2022 | Postgraduate Researcher, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO |
| Ahmet Karabulut, Ph.D. | Matthew Gibson, Ph.D. | Molecular genetic analysis of cnidocyte development and function in the sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis | June 2022 | Postgraduate Researcher, Stowers Institute, Kansas City, MO |
| Qiushuang Wu, Ph.D. | Ariel Bazzini, Ph.D. | Function of ribosome to regulate gene expression in vertebrates | May 2022 | Postdoctoral Researcher, |
| José López Hernández, Ph.D. | SaraH Zanders, Ph.D. | Spread and extinction of poison- antidote wtf meiotic drivers | May 2022 | Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL |
| Wei-Ting Yueh, Ph.D. | Jennifer Gerton, Ph.D. | The role of Cohesin in genome maintenance in oocytes and early embryonic development | December 2021 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA |
| Karla Terrazas, Ph.D. | Paul Trainor, Ph.D. | RNA Polymerase I mediated rRNA transcription is tissue-specifically required and regulated during mammalian craniofacial development and disease | September 2021 | Life Sciences Project Manager, Skilled KC, Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, MO |
| Yanfeng He, Ph.D. | Joan Conaway, Ph.D. and Ron Conaway, Ph.D. | Elongin functions as a loading factor for Mediator at ATFα-regulated ER stress response genes | August 2021 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA |
| Soon-Keat Ooi, Ph.D. | Joan Conaway, Ph.D. and Ron Conaway, Ph.D. | Multiple roles for PARP1 in ALC1 dependent nucleosome remodeling | May 2021 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA |
| Zachary Lee, Ph.D. | Matthew Gibson, Ph.D. | In vivo phosphoproteomics uncovers novel requirements for proteins in epithelial growth and division | December 2020 | Scientist, Biologics, Catalent, Kansas City, MO |
| Shuonan He, Ph.D. | Matthew Gibson, Ph.D. | A cnidarian perspective on the evolution of body segmentation and segment polarity | May 2021 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA |
| Irina Pushel, Ph.D. | Robb Krumlauf, Ph.D. | The role of Hoxa2 in specifying the axial identity of mouse cranial neural crest cells | March 2021 | Senior Bioinformatic Scientist, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO |
| Darrick Hansen, Ph.D. | Linheng Li, Ph.D. | Characterization of the stem cell niche and reserve stem cells in the intestinal epithelium | December 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher, |
| Cheng-Yi Chen, Ph.D. | Matthew Gibson, Ph.D. | The involvement of Hh signaling,vasa and nanos in germline development of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis | December 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Farrell Lab, NIH/NICHD, Bethesda, MD |
| Xingyu Liu, Ph.D. | Jerry Workman, Ph.D. | A novel affinity purification Method for Mass Spectrometry Based Protein Complexes Studies: Serial Capture Affinity Purification (SCAP) | November 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Washington University, St. Louis, MO |
| Cassandra Kempf, Ph.D. | Michael Washburn, Ph.D. and Jerry Workman, Ph.D. | Characterization of MHAP1 as a novel component of MIER1 histone deacetylase complexes | November 2020 | Scientist LCMS, Catalent, Kansas City, MO |
| Dayebgadoh Gerald, Ph.D. | Jerry Workman, Ph.D. | Quantitative interaction proteomic strategies for WDR76 and HP1 annotation | October 2020 | Postdoctoral Fellow, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN |
| Nicole Nuckolls, Ph.D. | SaraH Zanders, Ph.D. | Characterization of the ultra-selfish wtf meiotic drivers | August 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Julia Cooper Lab, University of Colorado, Aurora, CO |
| Elisabeth Bauerly, Ph.D. | Matthew Gibson, Ph.D. | Deciphering the interplay between | June 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Prachee Avasthi Lab, Dartmouth, Hanover, NH |
| Jelly Soffers, Ph.D. | Jerry Workman, Ph.D. | A characterization of the composition and gene-regulatory functions of SAGA -related complexes during Drosophila development | June 2020 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA |
| María Angélica Bravo Núñez, Ph.D. | SaraH Zanders, Ph.D. | The role of meiotic drivers on infertility and the evolution of the chromosome segregation machinery | March 2020 | Postdoctoral Fellow, Andrew Murray’s Lab, Harvard University, Boston, MA |
| Joaquín Navajas Acedo, Ph.D. | Tatjana Piotrowski, Ph.D. | Dissecting the role of the Planar Cell Polarity (PCP) and Wnt signaling pathways during the establishment of hair cell orientation in zebrafish. | December 2019 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Alexander F. Schier Lab, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland |
| Raquel Barajas Azpeleta, Ph.D. | Kausik Si, Ph.D. | Modulation of nervous system functions: A surprising role for antimicrobial peptides | October 2019 | Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Ribeiro Lab, Champalimaud Center for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal |
| Amanda Bonner, Ph.D. | R. Scott Hawley, Ph.D. | The evolution and function of matrimony, a meiotic regulator of polo kinase | May 2019 | Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Singh Lab, University of Oregon Eugene, OR |
| Melvin Noé González, Ph.D. | Joan Conaway, Ph.D. and Ron Conaway, Ph.D. | Through bubbles, scaffolds and cassettes: Reconstituting the link between Pol II transcription and RNA capping | May 2019 | Postdoctoral Training Fellow, Francis Crick Institute, London, England |
| Christine Smoyer, Ph.D. | Sue Jaspersen, Ph.D. | Analysis of inner nuclear membrane composition by SPLIT-GFP | October 2018 | Postdoctoral Scholar, Dept of Molecular and Cellular Biology, UC Davis, Davis, CA |
| Wanqing Shao, Ph.D. | Julia Zeitlinger, Ph.D. | The interplay between transcription initiation, RNA polymerase II pausing and core promoter elements: A genomics perspective | July 2018 | Postdoctoral Research Associate, Genetics Department, Washington University, St. Louis, MO |
| Cori Cahoon, Ph.D. | R. Scott Hawley, Ph.D. | Understanding the structure and function of the Drosophila synaptonemal complex in female meiosis | April 2016 | Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR |
| Kobe Yuen, Ph.D. | Jennifer Gerton, Ph.D. | Structural maintenance proteins - Roles in chromatin organization and gene expression | December 2016 | Postdoctoral Researcher, Genentech, San Francisco CA |
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.
Camila Behrensen
Pablo Guzmán Palma
