Current Lab Members

Dr. Maria Ruggeri

Postdoc

I am a postdoc in the Weis Lab studying the nutritional exchanges between cnidarians and their algal partners. I am especially interested in symbiosis establishment and maintenance during cnidarian development. Aiptasia, a model organism for cnidarian-algae symbiosis, allows us to study how algal symbiont presence or identity affects the growth and development of asexual offspring produced through pedal laceration. I completed my Ph.D. at UC Irvine with Dr. Matthew Bracken where I studied the physiology and ecology of intertidal sea anemones in the genus Anthopleura. I enjoy designing aquariums for research, imaging on microscopes, and working in the field. My research background has been broad and includes ecological surveys, isotopic diet studies, behavioral studies, physiological measures, and cellular biology.

My name is Erick White and I’m a 5th year PhD candidate in the Weis Lab studying the effects of parental provisioning of nutrients in asexual offspring in corals. After receiving my Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology and Ancient History from Swarthmore College in 2015, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia where I was research technician working on cryptic genetic variation in C. elegans to study the effects of key genes in development at Georgia Institute of Technology. I then went on to Emory University as a research assistant where I worked on various projects related to SIV/HIV pathogenesis and how CD8 t-cells factor into long-term viral incubation and reactivation. Based on my past experiences, I became interested in how we use model systems to answer cellular and physiological questions. I particularly became interested in understanding the mechanisms of nutrition and metabolism, which I applied to my work here studying the cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis of corals. For my projects, I will use the model system Exaiptasia diaphana (Aiptasia) to examine the nutritional underpinnings of symbiosis at different life stages. For one of my projects, I will measure how nutritional provisioning in pedal lacerates is affected by the environmental and feeding conditions undergone by the parents. In another one of my projects, I will look to characterize the metabolome of pedal lacerates and examine which molecules are present and/or essential for development in pedal lacerates.

Erick White

Ph.D Candidate

Jun Cai

I am a third year PhD student in the Weis Lab and studying thermal stress on cnidarian-algal symbiosis. In 2016, I graduated from Emory University with a B.S. in Environmental Science and a secondary major in History. There I studied the transmission of West Nile virus from Culex mosquitoes in Atlanta, Georgia at Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec's lab. After undergraduate studies, I joined Teach for America and taught high school biology and middle school integrative science for four years in Stockton and Oakland, California. I became interested in cnidarian-algal symbiosis when I worked for a summer at John Pringle's lab in Stanford University. There I worked with Dr. Phillip Cleves on projects related to acclimation of Aiptasia to thermal stress and the genetic response of Aiptasia to light and dark treatments. For my research, I am interested in the effects of thermal stress on the breakdown of cnidarian-algal symbiosis (i.e., cnidarian bleaching) and the molecular and cellular mechanisms essential for heat tolerance and recovery. Two of my current projects look at the growth and development of pedal lacerate under heat stress and wound-healing and regeneration of tissues.

Ph.D Student

Olivia Burleigh

Ph.D Student

I am a second year PhD student in the Weis Lab and am studying the role of transforming growth factor-beta in the establishment and breakdown of cnidarian-algal symbiosis. I am also a PRAx interdisciplinary art-science fellow and am building a set of coral reef sculptures that will be on display in June 2024. In 2021, I graduated from Creighton University with a B.S. in Biology and minors in Environmental Sciences and Studio Art. During my undergraduate career and gap year, I studied the role of long non-coding RNAs in regulating inflammatory responses in mice.