This year the Biology department was lucky to welcome twelve brilliant new graduate students to the PhD program! We’ll let them introduce themselves below, be sure to say hello when you see them around!

Emma Guerrini Romano

Hi! My name is Emma Guerrini Romano and I am a first year PhD student in the Durant Lab studying marine physiology. I am broadly interested in studying ion regulation in marine species in stressor conditions with application to integrated pest management. I am currently working on a project that utilizes sodium bicarbonate as a treatment for burrowing shrimp presence in oyster beds. This project has both physiological and behavioral focuses. I am originally from Santa Monica, CA and love to hike, camp, swim, and paint. I am Italian and am always excited to share my heritage and culture with others, especially around the holidays when I make hundreds of tortellini by hand. I also am a big fan of book clubs and am always looking for recommendations.

Emily Humphreys

Hello! My name is Emily (she/her). I’m originally from Massachusetts, but headed far to the west (as I thought at the time) to attend Oberlin College in Ohio. There, I studied phylogenetic relationships and niche evolution in the Four O’clock plant family. After graduating, I interned with the Forest Service in Michigan before heading to Philadelphia to conduct plant research and collections work. I’m interested in botanical evolutionary ecology, teaching for equity, science communication, and natural history collections. I also enjoy reading, art, hiking, tabletop role playing games, and chatting with my very talkative cat Clementine.

Elissa Khodikian

Hi! My name is Elissa Khodikian. I received my BSc and MSc from the University of Toronto in Canada. My (broad) research focus involves invertebrate physiology and the effects of climate change. During this time at UofT I was able to work at a marine sciences centre and am excited to be so close to the ocean in Seattle! I plan to continue similar work at UW with a focus on mosquitos where I hope to use molecular techniques to uncover physiological mechanisms related to osmo- and ion- regulation. In my free time I like to crochet, hike, and explore Seattle!

Marie-Pier Poulin

Hi! My name is Marie-Pier Poulin. I grew up in Québec, in eastern Canada, and moved to Seattle to join the Abrahms lab at UW! I am broadly interested in how group-living animals respond to changing environments, and will be exploring questions in that realm in African wild dogs for my PhD. I have my BSc in Biology from the Université du Québec à Rimouski, and I completed my MSc at the University of Wyoming in 2022. Before joining the Abrahms Lab, I worked on various behavioral and movement ecology projects across diverse ecosystems—from the high Arctic and the Canadian Rockies to the sagebrush steppe—studying whales, bison, arctic foxes, elk, bighorn sheep, and mule deer. When I am not sciencing, I enjoy spending time in the mountains, riding bikes, skiing on sunny winter days, and eating snacks on outdoor adventures!

Tori Armitage

Hi! My name is Tori (she/her). I’m originally from Colorado and completed my undergrad degree at Vassar College in New York. At Vassar, I studied the gene expression patterns that underlie phenotypic plasticity in hourglass treefrog tadpoles. In other words, depending on the predator present in their environment, these tadpoles can develop adaptive morphologies (isn’t plasticity the coolest?) and we were looking into the molecular basis of this phenomenon. This experience sparked my more general interest in using integrative approaches to see how animals sense and respond to their environment, which led me to UW. (I also spent 2 years in between working at Singular Genomics in San Diego and enjoying the sunlight in California.) I’m interested in exploring mosquito sensory physiology through a molecular lens and I plan to join the Durant lab. Outside of the lab I enjoy running, hiking, and going to concerts. I’m excited to get to know everyone and to work on some interesting projects!

Meredith A Honig

Hello! My name is Meredith and I am from Southern California. I am primarily interested in how species interactions contribute to wildlife population dynamics and especially in the implications of global climate change on these processes. At UW, I will be joining the Abrahms Lab and Center for Ecosystem Sentinels where I will be focusing my research on Magellanic penguins. I received a BS in Wildlife and Conservation Biology from the University of California, Davis in 2020. Before waddling into the world of penguins, my previous research has encompassed a variety of topics including shark social behavior, hummingbird disease ecology, and planktonic predator-prey interactions. In my free time, I enjoy birding, running, being outdoors, and attempting to teach my cat how to walk on a leash. I am excited to explore and experience all that the Pacific Northwest and UW have to offer!

Jo T Bùi

I grew up in Vietnam and moved to the US a few years ago for school. My passion for evo devo blossomed during my undergraduate research with Dr Karen Hicks at Kenyon College on land plant evolution. I worked on plants for 5 years, and am now finally and with great excitement branching out to other living systems. I dance and do various artsy crafts in my free time. Exploring the city with Oscar (pictured) has absolutely blown my mind how dog-friendly Seattle is!

Amy Moore

Hello! My name is Amy Moore (she/her). I did my undergrad at University of Minnesota, where I received my degree in Genetics and Plant Biology and studied the resilient plant immune signaling network in the Katagiri lab. I moved to Seattle shortly after graduating in 2022, where I worked in the Brewer-Raghuraman lab in the Genome Sciences department to study the timing of centromeric DNA replication in yeast. As a PhD student, I hope to combine my love of the yeast study system and my passion for understanding plants’ ability to respond to their environments in the Steinbrenner lab to study the specificity of recognition at the plasma membrane of all kinds of environmental cues, and to learn about how plants detect and respond to herbivory by pesky lepidopterans. In my free time I love outdoor activities, am way too into my recreational adult soccer team, and enjoy cooking elaborate dinners with my roommates in what some may describe as an urban commune 🙂

Nora Lee

Hi! My name is Nora Lee (She/They). I’m from Shenzhen, China. I received my bachelor degrees in Biology and Gender studies from the University of Washington. I started working at Dr. Rico-Guevara’s lab since sophomore year in college, and am starting my PhD in the same lab. My research interests center on avian coloration and visual systems, especially those of the hummingbird family. I have experience studying coloration and morphology of avian specimens in museums as well as in the field. In my spare time, I like hiking, offroading, and hanging out with my partner and pets (one corgi and one orange tabby).

Glorianna Gutierrez

¡Hola! My name is Glorianna Gutierrez. I grew up in Venezuela and I moved to Seattle during high school and got my bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from UW. I joined the Biology department to continue researching circadian rhythms especially to learn how different environmental factors entrain endogenous rhythms and the genetic and neuronal mechanisms that generate different biological cycles. I am also very excited to get involved with all of the great teaching that goes on at the Bio department and I am looking forward to improving my teaching skills. Outside of the lab I really enjoy spending time with my two cats Persephone and Possum, sewing and crocheting, listening to musicals, and exploring the coasts and mountains of Washington. I am also very excited to keep trying all the food in Seattle, especially new ramen restaurants.

The biology department also welcomes new graduate students PJ Jones and Samuel Opoku Darkah!