Team

Abby

Abby (Abigail) Buchwalter, Ph.D. (she/her)

Assistant Professor

Biohub Investigator

Email / Twitter / CV

Abby received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Hope College in 2005, and her PhD in biochemistry with Phyllis Hanson at Washington University in St. Louis in 2011. She completed postdoctoral training with Martin Hetzer at the Salk Institute in 2018, and joined the faculty at UCSF CVRI in the fall of 2018. Inside the lab, Abby is happiest on the microscope with a podcast. Outside the lab, you can find her knitting or running.
Yewande
Yewande Alabi

Graduate Student (Biomedical Sciences)

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Yewande joined the lab in April 2019. Yewande graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz before joining the Biomedical Sciences graduate program.
Harold
Harold Marin

Graduate Student (Tetrad)

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Harold joined the lab in June 2019. Harold graduated from UC Davis and worked as a research assistant in David Toczyski’s lab at UCSF before joining the Tetrad graduate program.
Katie
Katie Augspurger

Graduate Student (Tetrad)

Katie joined the lab in June 2019 and is co-mentored by Barbara Panning (Biochemistry). Katie graduated from the University of Minnesota before joining the Tetrad graduate program.
JESS
Jessica Mella

Graduate Student (Tetrad)

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Jess joined the lab in June 2020. Jess graduated from the University of Utah and worked as a research assistant in Jullie Hollien’s lab before joining the Tetrad graduate program.
Tracy
Tracy Knight

Graduate Student (Tetrad)

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Tracy joined the lab in June 2022. Tracy graduated from Brown University and worked as a research assistant in David Breslow’s lab at Yale University before joining the Tetrad graduate program.
Charlie
Charlie Allen (they/them)

Junior Specialist

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Charlie joined the lab in August 2021. Charlie obtained their bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from UC Davis and later joined the biotechnology program at CCSF where they completed an internship in the Marcucio Lab at UCSF and a CIRM Bridges internship in the Buchwalter Lab. Following the completion of their internship in the Buchwalter Lab, Charlie stayed with the lab to continue to investigate the role of the nuclear lamina in shaping gene expression during differentiation and its influence on early development.
Eric
 
Eric Martin (he/him)

Postdoctoral Fellow

Eric is a joint postdoctoral fellow in our lab and the lab of Bassem Al-Sady and is a member of UCSF’s NIH IRACDA fellowship program. Eric joined us in July 2022 after completing his Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz with Camilla Forsberg. Outside the lab, you can find Eric skiing, biking, attempting to bake new recipes, and trying to find new hiding spots for games of hide and seek with his family. The box was not a good spot.
Valeria
 
Valeria Virrueta

Junior Specialist

Valeria joined the lab in September 2023 after obtaining a B.S. in Microbiology at the University of Texas, El Paso. 

ALUMNI

MEDHA
Medha Somayaji

undergraduate, UC Berkeley

Medha joined us as an intern in the 2019 QB3 summer internship program when she was a rising senior at UC Berkeley. In collaboration with Shalin Mehta at the CZ Biohub, Medha applied new imaging tools to the nucleolus.
John
John Hasper, M.S.

Staff Research Associate II

John was our lab manager from 2018-2022. Originally from New York state, John received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Saint Bonaventure University in 2011. At the State University of New York at Fredonia, he completed a bachelor’s degree in molecular genetics in 2014 and a master’s degree in biology in 2016. In the Buchwalter lab, he led a project focused on nuclear protein homeostasis.
Emmy
Emmy Delaney (she/her)

Graduate Rotation Student (Tetrad)

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Emmy rotated in the lab during Fall 2021. She attended UC Davis for her B.S. where she studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and did undergraduate research in Dr. Jodi Nunnari’s Lab. After graduating, she did her Fulbright Fellowship in Dr. Thomas Langer’s Lab at the MPI for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany. When not in lab, you can usually find Emmy hiking, on the hunt for new and delicious flavors of ice cream, or snuggled up with a good book and her cat.
Yana
 
Yana Blokhina, Ph.D. (she/her)

Postdoctoral Scholar

Yana was a member of the lab from 2019-2022. In the Buchwalter lab, she explored mechanisms of rDNA hypermethylation during mammalian aging. She recently joined New Limit as a scientist, where she focuses on applications of epigenetic reprogramming to healthspan. 

Kenzi
Kenzi Fernholz

Junior Specialist

Kenzi worked in the lab from 2022-2023 after obtaining a B.S. in Biochemistry and a B.A. in Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. She is now a Junior Specialist in the Rose lab at the University of California, Davis.