Jeremy Cooper

Hi, my name is Jeremy Cooper and I joined the physiology and biophysics department as a graduate student in the fall of 2002. I grew up in Kirkland (a small suburb of Seattle) and still have many ties to this area. I moved to the eastern portion of the state during my undergraduate years at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. While studying mechanical engineering at Gonzaga, I worked part time at a small company called Itronix where I helped design and build “ruggedized” laptop computers for field service crews. I loved my time at Gonzaga but after graduation I was drawn back to my home in Seattle. Soon after moving back, I went to work for Boeing as an engineer. During this time, I took classes part-time in the University of Washington physics department. One of my classes was an introduction to biophysics taught by a student in the physiology and biophysics (P-BIO) department. I was quickly convinced that I wanted to study biophysics, so the following year I applied to the P-BIO department. After being accepted, I finished my masters in physics and quit my job at Boeing so that I could be a full time graduate student. I found the transition to be challenging but very rewarding. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here so far as a P-BIO grad student and I am very excited about continuing in this field of scientific research.

 

Miranda Roth

Hi my name is Miranda Roth.  I grew up in Atlanta, GA and from there, attended college at Carleton College in Northfield, MN.  Being a small liberal arts college, Carleton allowed me to gain a very diverse education and make my own special major in Neuroscience - I primarily took courses in psychology, chemistry and biology.  The summer between my junior and senior years at Carleton, I came out to Seattle to take part in the summer undergraduate research program provided by the PBIO department.  This was a wonderful experience in which I rotated through the Binder Lab, attended many useful talks and presentations and met many amazing people in the department.  In addition to the location, reptuation and strength of the PBIO department, this summer program greatly inspired me to go to graduate school in general and to join the PBIO department in particular.  I came here directly after graduation and rotated through the Binder, Santana and Poolos Labs finally choosing the Poolos Lab as my thesis lab.  My research focuses on defining the mechansim of action of anti-epileptic drugs on kinases and ion channels in the hopes that we will be able to find novel targets for future drug design as well as gaining a stronger understanding of the general underlying molecular causes and effects of epilepsy.  To study this, I use electrophysiology and biochemistry in our lab, located in the Harborview Research and Training Building downtown.  During my time, here I very much enjoyed my coursework and found a particular love for teaching while being a teaching assistant for the nursing and dental schools' physiology classes.
In my spare time outside of the lab, I play a lot of ultimate frisbee - I captain Seattle's elite women's team Seattle Riot (seattleriot.org) and coach the University of Washington's women's team Element and a high school co-ed club team Moho (discnw.org).  I also enjoy cooking and eating, particularly all the local produce and seafood seattle has to offer!

 

Mackenzie Howard

If you’re reading my student profile, chances are pretty good that you’re one of the following: 1) looking a graduate program to join and considering the UW Department of Physiology and Biophysics (PBIO); 2) already in the PBIO program and surfing around our website just to see what your fellow students had to say about themselves. If the former is true, welcome, this is a darn good place to be. If the latter is true, don’t you have experiments to do or something?

I followed a roundabout route to Seattle, growing up in central Oregon, getting my BA in Biology at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, and then doing a bit of research at OHSU, University of Miami, and University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. When the time came to find a new place to be to actually get through grad school PBIO was an easy choice. Being an amateur musician and a (semi-pro) scientist, I have always been interested in how the brain decodes information from the environment, particularly how the auditory system translates sound waves into electrical signals, then extracts information from the flow of neural signals coming from the ear into the brain. If you’re interested in auditory neuroscience there are few places in the world that can come close to the Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center at UW. On top of that, you’re surrounded by some of the world’s best physiologists in a well-run department in the middle of one of the country’s best cities.

I had the good fortune to land in the lab of Ed Rubel, and have been studying how the physiological properties of auditory neurons in the brainstem allow them to do just that. The first part of my project examined how developmental changes in the voltage-dependent properties of cochlear nucleus neurons altered the way they integrate excitatory and inhibitory information. More recently I’ve been looking at how the voltage-dependent properties interact to control spike generation in these neurons.

Aside from the research Seattle is a great place to join a soccer team, go to concerts, drink microbrews and eat good food (living in Fremont I’m required to have at least 4 Thai meals a week). So there.

Sonya Schuh

Being a California native, graduate of a small liberal arts college and a true naturalist, I was not quite sure if the University of Washington School of Medicine would be a good fit for me. However, upon further research I found that several of the faculty members piqued my interest and I was impressed by how many interesting and diverse professors were in Physiology & Biophysics.

Once I came to the PBio Interviews, I was hooked. Right away I felt a sense of comfort, friendliness and collegiality among the faculty, students, and administrative staff. I was very impressed not only by the high-caliber faculty and research, but that almost everybody I talked with had interesting lives inside and outside of science. I met professors that kayaked in the same beautiful rivers and oceansides I did marine mammal research in as an undergraduate. Other professors shared similar fascinations with life and the interplay between animals and their environment. Still others were musicians, artists, outdoorsmen, birders, and beekeepers, and several had happy families and children.

With the UW Population Center for Reproductive Biology and several great labs pursuing research in reproductive topics, I realized that my love and interest in reproductive physiology could be furthered here in the Physiology Department. I am now a third year graduate student in Bertil Hille’s lab and I am investigating signaling pathways in mammalian sperm and modulation of sperm motility in preparation for fertilization. In my first year here, I also had two other amazing research rotations with Robert Steiner and Linda Wordeman, where I gained valuable skills and perspectives, as well as wonderful friends and mentors. Serving as a Teaching Assistant for the Physiology 405 and 406 courses, and the Signaling Mechanisms Conjoint 531 course, has also been a very rewarding and beneficial teaching experience that has better equipped me for the academic world when I begin my career.

As I recognized when I first came to Seattle, the PBio Department truly cares about their students. We are involved in virtually every aspect of the department and are viewed as valuable contributing members of PBio. Ours is a fairly small department with a more personal feel than many other departments, which is also something that I have found very appealing. Since this department is affiliated with the School of Medicine and located near the main campus, it provides many exciting opportunities to work and interact with people in other departments, to take a variety of courses and attend a multitude of excellent seminars, spanning from zoological to very medical topics. PBio students have many terrific opportunities for close interaction with various renowned speakers at student lunches and meetings following the talks.

Being the only school outside of California to which I applied and the only school where the climate was rainy a large part of the year, I think says a lot about my selection of this school and how appealing I find this department. I have a family and a wonderful little 6-year-old daughter and so the surrounding city, schools, and environment were also big factors in my graduate school decision. I have gained so much in this past two years at UW and am so glad that I chose this great department and amazing city to carry out my graduate studies.