Current R-I Lab members

Please read more information on joining the lab and lab expectations.

Brenda Cameron
(she/her)

Brenda is the lab manager and czar. In addition to working with us, she manages the Bay, Grosberg and Stachowicz labs as well, and is an award-winning lab safety expert.

Yu Cao
(she/her)

Yu is a joint postdoc with our collaborator Ning Yang at HZAU. Yu is working on understanding the population and quantitative genetics of introgressed teosinte haplotypes in maize.

Vibha Chandrasekar
(they/she)

Vibha is a biochemistry major interested in computational biology. They are currently working with Natasha Dhamrait to understand the evolution of transposable elements in the maize genome.

Mackenzie Chun
(she/her)

Mackenzie is a 2nd-year Stats/Anthro double major, working with Paulo Magalang on genome evolution and genetic variation in maize.



Elli Cryan
(she/her)

Elli is a Plant Biology graduate student coadvised by Dan Kliebenstein, working on the evolution of gene networks and the evolution of cross-incompatibility loci.

Natasha Dhamrait
(she/her)

Natasha is a student in the Population Biology graduate group with interests including plant evolution, domestication, genome biology, and transposable elements.

Regina Fairbanks
(they/them)

Regina is a student in the Population Biology graduate group, currently working on the population genetics and archaeology of the maize domestication locus tga1.

Julia Harenčár
(she/her)

Julia is a CPB postdoc coadvised by Jen Funk and Jenny Gremer, working on climate adaptation and hybridization in California wild radishes.



Forrest Li
(he/him)

Forrest is a graduate student in Integrative Genetics and Genomics working on climate adaptation in maize as part of a large international collaboration led by CIMMYT. He is coadvised by Dan Runcie.

Beibei Liu
(she/her)

Beibei is a postdoc working on the evolution of transposable elements in maize and teosinte During her PhD she worked on epigenetics in maize.

Paulo Magalang
(he/him)

Paulo is a graduate student in Integrative Genetics and Genomics working on using whole genome assemblies to study allelic diversity and demography in maize.

Sowmya Mambakkam
(she/her)

Sowmya is a senior Genetics and Genomics major. She has worked on inversions, convergent evolution, and is now studying associations between genes in maize and indigenous language.

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra
(he/him)

Jeff is a Professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology and a faculty member of the Center for Population Biology and the Genome Center. He is also the Scientific Director of HPC@UCD

Samantha Snodgrass
(she/her)

Sam is an NSF Plant Genome postdoc working on the coevolution of humans and their domesticated plants. She is coadvised by Graham Coop.

Cristian Stark
(he/him)

Cristian is a Genomics Data Scientist at Bayer Vegetables R&D and a PhD graduate student in Integrative Genetics and Genomics working on genomic selection, pangenomes, and inbreeding depression in Zea. He is coadvised by Dan Runcie.


Lab Alumni

Fellow of the R-I Lab: for >500 hours of scholastic fellowship

Current Collaborators

Genetic diversity in maize and teosinte

Identifying environmentally adaptive alleles for breeding