If you love science, have a passion for bacteria, and are excited to build with biology, you belong here. We are committed to a culture of inclusion and value our differences.
Principle Investigator
Bryan Davies, PhD
Bryan completed his BSc in Biochemistry at McMaster University, PhD in Molecular Biology/Microbiology at MIT, and postdoctoral fellowship in infectious diseases at Harvard Medical School. He is an Professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences. His research interests include antimicrobial protein discovery, bacteria-host interactions, and microbe engineering.
Research Scientist
Jennifer Parker, MSc
Jennifer completed her MSc in Environmental Health at the University of Washington. She has conducted research in diverse disciplines including environmental microbiology, plant pathology, and public health microbiology. Her current work is focused on discovering novel naturally-occurring antimicrobial peptides (microcins), elucidating their role in modulating the host microbiome, and engineering bacterial delivery systems to provide microcin-based therapeutics.
Graduate Students
Kyra Groover
Kyra received her BSc in Biology from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Her research interests broadly include developing novel therapeutics targeting infectious diseases. In the Davies Lab, her focus will be centered around developing and implementing novel antimicrobials.
Angela O’Donnell
Co-advised with Howard Ochman. Angela graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She is broadly interested in discovering and engineering new antimicrobials. She is also interested in exploring how the study of antimicrobial evolution can inform and guide research. Co-advised with Howard Ochman.
Mady Telford
Mady Telford completed her undergraduate education at Brigham Young University where she majored in Microbiology and minored in Chemistry. Mady loves to learn about the many ways that microbes have evolved to survive in their environments. She will be exploring how to utilize naturally occurring bacterial secretion systems to secrete a variety of peptides.
Rita Ousterhout
Rita received her BS in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology from University of California, Santa Cruz. In between her undergraduate degree and joining the Davies lab she worked in San Francisco as a Research Associate in the biotech industry. She is broadly interested in developing novel therapeutics targeting the immune system.
Sarah Peabody
Sarah received her BS in Biochemistry from the University of Oregon. After finishing her degree she worked in pharmaceutical development in Bend, OR as a drug delivery scientist. Her research interests broadly include developing novel bacterial therapeutics and delivery systems.
Seo Young Kim
Seo Young received her B.S. in Biology from Iowa State University. Her research interests broadly include discovering novel antimicrobials and developing secretion systems.
Research Associates
Bethany Perez
Bethany completed her undergraduate at Louisiana Tech University in Biomedical Engineering. She is leading lab efforts to design approaches for in situ and intracellular delivery of proteins by bacteria.
Alexa Morton
Alexa received her BSc in Biochemistry from The University of Texas at Austin. She is interested in the community dynamics of mammalian microbiota and the translational potential of antimicrobial molecules found therein. She’s currently focused on testing antimicrobial peptides against Klebsiella and Xylella under the supervision of Jennifer Parker. She aims to attend graduate school for microbiology.
Undergraduate Assistants
Halimot Badmus
Halimot is an undergraduate Microbiology and Infectious Diseases student at UT Austin. Her current research involves microcins and their ability to target specific outer membrane receptors on bacteria. Her future goal is to attend graduate school to continue her research in microbiology.
Amelia Smith
Amelia is an undergraduate Biology student and is a part of the Dean’s Scholars honors program at UT. She is currently conducting research on the impacts of microcin secretion on the mouse gut microbial community. She is a pre-med student who hopes to one day work with infectious diseases on a clinical scale.
Taly Peralta
Ethan Arachchigedon