The group

Peter Kasson – ringleader.

Peter obtained his initial scientific training with Harden McConnell.  He then worked with Axel Brunger, completing his PhD/MD in Stanford’s MSTP program.  After a postdoctoral fellowship with Vijay Pande, he started his independent group at the University of Virginia in 2010.  Peter became a Wallenberg Academy Fellow at Uppsala University in 2016 and was awarded a renewal in 2020.  He also became a Professor of Chemistry&Biochemistry and Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech in 2024, moving our US operations there.

Oyin Adenekan

Oyin has recently joined the lab as a Biomedical Engineering PhD student, with an interest in machine learning and bacterial membrane homeostasis!

Jamel Simpson

Jamel joined the lab as a Biophysics PhD student with an interest in computational design.  Read his preprint on designing chimeric antigens!

Marcos Cervantes

Marcos joined the lab as a Biomedical Engineering PhD student with an interest in viral entry and optical imaging.  He has led much of our work on SARS-CoV-2 entry and receptor engagement, highlighted in his 2023 Chemical Science paper.

Toby Hess

Toby joined the lab as a Biomedical Engineering PhD student with an interest in viral entry and DNA-tethering.  He completed his undergraduate degree at UC Santa Barbara.  He works on the entry of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses as well as developing platforms for measuring viral entry and its inhibition.

Ana Villamil Giraldo – Membrane requirements of influenza viral fusion

Ana completed her PhD at the University of Buenos Aires, where she worked on measuring protein-membrane interactions and the stability of membrane proteins.  After postdoctoral training at the University of Montréal and Linköping University, she joined the group as a senior research scientist.

E. Joseph Jordan – Building interfaces for flexible and extensible molecular dynamics simulation

Joe completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania and a postdoc at Stockholm University working on GROMACS software development.  He has extensive experience both in molecular simulation itself and in building APIs for performative simulation, working at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden as well as industry.  Joe is building software and interfaces for adaptive molecular dynamics simulation.

Steinar Mannsverk – viral entry in endosomes

Steinar completed his undergraduate at the University of York and a master’s in Infection Biology at Uppsala University. He gained expertise both in the avian influenza research unit and the SARS-CoV-2 clinical sequencing unit. He then joined our team as a PhD student, and we’re happy to have him with us!

Diogo Filipe – Single-virus fusion kinetics

Diogo recently completed his Master’s degree at Uppsala University with experience in structural biology and virology.  He has joined our single-virus team in Uppsala and is helping expand our study of viral entry to new and exciting viruses.

Satyan Sharma – Simulations of viral membrane fusion

Satyan joined the group in fall 2021.  He is an experienced researcher in membrane simulation, having completed his PhD at the University of Oulu and worked as a postdoctoral research scientist at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, where he studied SNARE-mediated membrane fusion.  He is bringing his skills to join our team on viral entry simulation.

Caroline Davis – Simulations of viral glycoproteins

Caroline is a Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science undergraduate student. She is studying the conformational equilibria of viral spike glycoproteins and their functional consequences.

Recent lab alumni:

Eric Irrgang – Postdoctoral scholar 2016-2019 and research scientist 2020-2023, Building interfaces for flexible and extensible molecular dynamics simulation

Eric completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Texas, Austin and his PhD in Materials Science & Engineering with Sharon Glotzer at the University of Michigan before joining the group as a postdoctoral fellow.  Eric believes strongly in proper software engineering design and flexible simulation interfaces but keeps a soft spot in his heart for Monte Carlo methods.  Eric is a former MolSSI Software Fellow and is now a software scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Labs.

Anjali Sengar – Postdoctoral scholar, 2020-2022.  Single-virus fusion kinetics

Anjali completed her PhD in Physics at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, working on DNA quadruplexes via NMR spectroscopy and single-molecule FRET microscopy.  She joined the group in April and first studied the process of antibiotic uptake and drug resistance in gram-negative bacteria.  More recently, Anjali has turned to single-virus fusion experiments.  Anjali spearheaded our experimental efforts on SARS-CoV-2 in spring 2020 and helped establish this work in the group.  She now works at Scripps Institute Florida.

Alžběta Türková – Postdoctoral Scholar 2021-2022. Simulations of influenza membrane fusion

Alžběta completed her PhD at the University of Vienna.  She joined the group working on simulations of influenza viral fusion and is now working in industry doing cheminformatics for drug discovery.

Ricardo Ferreira – Postdoctoral scholar 2017-2020.  Simulations of antibiotic uptake by gram-negative bacteria

Ricardo completed his PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Lisbon in 2017.  He joined the lab as a postdoctoral researcher seeking to understand how antibiotics enter gram-negative bacteria and to use this understanding to combat antimicrobial resistance.  Ricardo is now head of computational chemistry for Red Glead Drug Discovery.

Jennifer Hays, PhD 2019. Simulation-guided spectroscopy and flexible molecular recognition

Jennifer trained as a physicist, completing her undergraduate degree at William and Mary, before joining the group as a graduate student.  She uses molecular dynamics simulations to both guide and incorporate spectroscopic measurements to understand flexible conformational ensembles.  Jennifer has previously received Blue Waters and ARCS graduate fellowships as well as a MolSSI Software Fellowship.

Ania Pabis – postdoctoral scholar 2018-2020. Simulations of influenza membrane fusion

Ania completed her PhD in Chemistry at Lodz University of Technology, Poland.  She subsequently received a Wenner-Gren postdoctoral fellowship working on bio-organic chemistry of enzymatic catalysis with Lynn Kamerlin.  Ania joined the group in May 2018 and brought her computational chemistry skills to the study of influenza membrane fusion mechanisms.  Anna now works for LINK medical research.

Sourav Haldar – postdoctoral scholar 2019-2020. Experiments on influenza fusion mechanism

Sourav completed his PhD at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad and a postdoctoral fellowship at the NIH with Joshua Zimmerberg before joining our group.  Sourav is now an assistant professor at Gandhi Institute of Technology and Management.

Giorgio Morbioli – microfluidic approaches to single-virus fusion

Giorgio completed his PhD at Georgia Tech in 2020 and joined our group shortly after.  He brought expertise in microfluidic design to our single-virus fusion experiments.  Giorgio is now completing a second postdoc at Tufts University.

Emily Boland – undergraduate student 2020-2021

Emily is a Biomedical Engineering undergraduate student. She studied new methods to refine multi-structured proteins using spectroscopic data.  Now finishing her undergraduate degree and applying to medical school.

Kenta Okamoto, postdoctoral scholar 2017-2018.  Influenza virus-cell interactions.  Now an independent PI at Uppsala University.

Isabel Goronzy, BS 2018 (joint with Steven Boxer).  Experimental physical chemistry of viral entry.  Now an MSTP student at Caltech.

Cara Broshkevitch, BS 2017, MS 2018.  Multiscale modeling of influenza binding.  Now an epidemiology PhD student at UNC-Chapel Hill.

George Cortina, PhD 2017.  Antibiotic resistance in gram-negative bacteria.  After completing his MD/PhD, George is now a resident physician at Duke.

Robert Rawle, postdoctoral fellow 2014-2017.  Experimental physical chemistry of viral entry.  Now an assistant professor at Williams.

Katarzyna Zawada, research specialist 2015-2017.  Biophysical experiments on membrane composition and influenza entry.  

Malgorzata Latallo, MS student, 2014-2016.  Structures and kinetics of beta-lactamase enzymes with increased drug resistance.  After completing her PhD at Johns Hopkins, Malgorzata now works for Vertex.

Per Larsson, postdoctoral fellow 2011-2014.  Simulations of viral fusion peptides.  Now a tenured associoate professor at Uppsala University.

Marta Domanska, postdoctoral fellow 2011-2014.  Influenza viral fusion.  Now a drug safety researcher at PRA Health Sciences.

Matt Eckler, master’s student 2013-2015, now at IBM.

Marta Jeleń, visiting graduate student 2016-2017.

Sander Pronk, postdoctoral fellow joint with Erik Lindahl 2010-2013, now researcher/developer, Oxford Asset Management.

Rich Salaway, postdoctoral fellow 2014-2015, currently Data Scientist, IST Research.

Dominik Wrona, visiting graduate student 2012-2013, went on to receive his PhD from University of Zurich.