People

Postdoctoral Researchers | Graduate Students | Undergraduate Researchers | Alumni

 

Postdoctoral Researchers

 

Xinhui Yu, Ph.D.
B.S. Chemistry with Engineering option, Oregon State University
Ph.D. Pharmaceutical Sciences, Oregon State University
Joined lab in 2025

Xinhui obtained her Ph.D. from Oregon State University in the McPhail Lab, where she worked as a natural products chemist. She integrated metabolomics and chemoinformatics techniques while studying  symbiosis chemistry in both marine and terrestrial environments.

 

Graduate Students

Rachel Hurrell
B.S. Chemistry, University of Indianapolis
Joined lab in 2021

Rachel conducted undergraduate research with Dr. Levi Mielke investigating the purity and quality of antibiotics using reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography. This project was in conjunction with the University of Notre Dame and the World Health Organization with the ultimate goal of identifying substandard and falsified pharmaceuticals distributed in developing nations. 

 

Mike Wallace
B.S. Biochemistry, University of Cincinnati
Joined lab in 2021

Mike performed undergraduate research in the Merino Lab at the University of Cincinnati, where he worked on the organic synthesis of chemical probes for use in anti-fungal drug development.

 

Katie Bates
B.S. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Georgia
M.B.A., University of Georgia
Joined lab in 2022

Katie performed undergraduate research with Dr. David Blum at the University of Georgia, where she worked to express and purify malarial drug target proteins using E. coli vectors. She then earned a Master of Business Administration for STEM majors through UGA's Terry College of Business before starting graduate school.

 

Tashi Liebergesell
B.S. Biochemistry, Gonzaga University
Joined lab in 2023

Tashi conducted undergraduate research in the Ross Lab at Gonzaga University, where she worked on using capillarity electrophoresis to study binding affinities of ion-ionophore complexes in lipid environments.

 

William McTaggart
B.S. Biochemistry, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
B.S. Chemistry, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Joined lab in 2023

Will conducted undergraduate research with Dr. Emily Fogle at Cal Poly, SLO, where he helped characterize acid phosphatase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and N-acetylglutamate synthase from Bacillus acidocaldarius. He then worked at ARUP Laboratories in Salt Lake City for 1.5 years before starting graduate school.

 

Iqra Ilyas
B.S. Chemistry, Govt. College University (GCU), Lahore
M.S. Organic Chemistry, Iowa State University
Joined lab in 2024

Iqra conducted her undergraduate research in the Nano Lab at GCU Lahore where she worked on optimization of reaction conditions for synthesis of nanocomposites and utilized them as catalysts in organic synthesis. As a master’s student at Iowa State University, she worked in the Zhao Lab on developing Molecularly Imprinted Nanoparticles (MINPs) as artificial catalysts for the Henry Reaction. 

 

Undergraduate Researchers

 

Samantha Morris
2024 UROP Scholar (2X)
Joined lab in 2022

 

Alumni