Guillermo A. Santillan (PhD candidate) He is doing his research on the synthesis of new ditopic heteroscorpionate ligands as well as develop different supramolecular coordination polymers by using coordination bond and non-covalent interactions such as  hydrogen bonding and π-π stacking.

Joined April 2004.

Shady A. Amin (PhD candidate) He investigates symbiotic relationships between phytoplankton and closely associated bacteria.  In specific, algal-associated bacteria have been shown to produce strong iron chelators (siderophores) that possess unique photochemical features.  Do bacteria share their iron via these unique siderophores in exchange for carbon-rich metabolites excreted by the phytoplankton?

Joined January 2004.

Sukhjinder Singh (Master's student) along with our collaborators at the University of Texas at Austin. Sukhjinder is studying genomic and protein differential expression of algal-associated marine bacteria as well as their algal partners in response to iron starvation using proteomics and qRT-PCR.  In addition, he is investigating a possible role for boron as a nutrient / signaling molecule in dinoflagellates using proteomics. Joined in October 2007.

Madhura Rane (Master's student) She works on the detection of marine algal-associated bacteria in environmental samples using a combination of fluorescence and microscopic techniques.  This information will be helpful in quantifying the distribution of specific clades of marine bacteria believed to be important in algal-bacterial interactions.

Joined in October 2007.

Andrew Drake (Undergraduate student) He isolates and characterizes marine siderophores from bacteria closely associated with dinoflagellates and coccolithophores using HPLC chromatography as well as various analytical techniques.

Joined in April 2008. 

Adam Mark (Undergraduate student) He works on isolating proteins from dinoflagellates in search for possible iron storage proteins. 

Joined in September 2008.

Ariel Romano (Undergraduate student) Using various analytical techniques, our newest lab member will be studying iron coordination chemistry of siderophores.. 

Joined in February 2009.