Meet the Team
The CALeDNA program was founded by the UC Conservation Genomics Consortium that involved faculty from 6 UC Campuses. We have a Los Angeles headquarters as well as a Santa Cruz headquarters and are a partner of the UCSC Genomics Institute. We are a growing team and have open meetings on the second Friday of every month. See you there!
Dr. Rachel Meyer
CALeDNA Program Director, UCSC
Dr. Ariel Levi Simons
Community Web Tools Director, Postdoctoral Researcher, UCSC
Dr. Beth Shapiro
Professor and HHMI Investigator, UC Santa Cruz
Dr. Jen Quick-Cleveland
Research Scientist
Dr. Chloé Orland
Postdoctoral Researcher, UCSC
Dr. Kim Ballare
Postdoctoral Researcher, UCSC
Milagros Rivera
UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute RMI Fellow
Sean Johnson
CALeDNA Lab Manager
Madeline Slimp
UC Santa Cruz GRADUATE STUDENT
Dr. Dannise Ruiz Ramos
USGS Researcher
Ajith Serensinghe
CALeDNA Lab manager & CIB project lead
Dr. Lenore Pipes
Postdoctoral Scholar, UC Berkeley Nielsen lab
Dora Rasch
CALeDNA Lab Technician
Janvier Uwayezu
UC Santa Cruz GRADUATE STUDENT
Dr. Princess Gilbert
Assistant Professor, Monterey Peninsula College
Julien Pometta
CALeDNA Lab Technician
Meixi Lin
Doctoral Student, UCLA
Rachel Turba de Paula
PhD Candidate, UCLA
Maya Lemmon-Kishi
Doctoral Student, UC Berkeley Nielsen lab. Website: maya-lk.com
Sarah Stinson
PhD Candidate, UC Davis
Adam Wall
Director of Special Projects for NHMLA Diversity Initiative for the Southern California Ocean (DISCO) Project, and Collections Manager of Crustacea
Dr. Michael Dawson
Professor, UC Merced Professor
Dr. Maura Palacios Mejia
Formerly Postdoctoral Researcher, UCLA, now Assist. Prof of Biology, Mt. San Antonio College
Dr. Regina Wetzer
Curator, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Suzanne Lipton
Graduate Student, UCSC
Dr. Erin Hestir
Associate Professor, UC Merced
Dr. Tiara Moore
Director of Black in Marine Science, TNC
Jacob Nesslage
Graduate Student, UC Merced
Dr. Paul Barber
Professor, UCLA
Dr. Ana Garcia Vedrenne
Formerly Postdoctoral Researcher, UCLA, now Teaching Faculty UCLA
Colin Fairbairn
Research Intern, UCSC
Haylee Bregoff
UC Santa Cruz Research Intern
Alicia Gibbons
Research Intern, UCLA
Yuerong (May) Xiao
Research Intern, UCLA
Lauren Kim
Research Intern, UCLA
Dr. Jason Sexton
Professor, UC Merced
Dr. Bob Wayne
Professor, UCLA
Program founder, forever in our memories
Past Team Members
Dr. Sabrina Shirazi
Formerly Doctoral Student, UCSC
Dr. Jordan Moberg Parker
Formerly Director of Undergraduate Laboratory Curriculum and Assessment, UCLA
Miroslava Munguia Ramos
Formerly Project Manager, UCLA
Anna Worth
Formerly CALeDNA Laboratory Manager, UCSC
Hailey Nava
Formerly UC Santa Cruz Research Intern
Sam Rapp
Formerly Research Intern, UCSC
Eric Beraut
Formerly Research Intern, UCLA, Lab Manager UCSC
Cynthia Valadon
Formerly UCSC Research Intern / Lab Assistant
Dr. Emily Curd
Formerly Postdoctoral Researcher, UCLA
Now: Bioinformatics Analyst with Vermont Biomedical Research Network (University of Vermont)
Teia Schweizer
Formerly Laboratory Manager
Gaurav Kandlikar
Formerly Doctoral Student, UCLA
Dr. Zack Gold
Formerly Doctoral Student, UCLA
Max Ogden
Open Source Software Engineer
Jennifer Flores
Undergraduate Research Intern, UCSC
Amber DeVries
Formerly Research Intern, UCLA
Laura Rabichow
Research Intern, UCLA
Emily Soth
Formerly Research Intern, UCSC
Dr. Van Wishingrad
NPS-CALeDNA Postdoctoral Researcher, UCSC
Foundational Website Architects and Artists
Design by the UX Information Architecture team
Angela Cao, Ashley Miao, Faith Yu, Joyce Wang, Lucy Liao, Mickey Yin, Morgan Wofford, and Joanne Kwon. Professor: Lynn Boyden, Library Sciences, UCLA
Wai-Yin Kwan
Web Developer, Community Scientist
Maya Edelman
Artist, made all artwork images and animations