Members

Sabrina earned her PhD in Computational and Systems Biology from MIT in 2009. During her PhD, she worked in Peter Sorger's lab on non-genetic origins of cell-to-cell variability in apoptosis. She then pursued postdoctoral studies in Tobias Meyer's lab at Stanford University where she explored the molecular basis of the restriction point using live-cell microscopy. In August 2014, Sabrina became an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado - Boulder. In 2016, Sabrina was named a Searle Scholar, a Kimmel Scholar, a Beckman Young Investigator, a Boettcher Early Career Investigator, in 2017, a Pew-Stewart Scholar, in 2018, an American Cancer Society Research Scholar and an NIH Director's New Innovator, and in 2020, a Damon Runyon Rachleff Innovator and a Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Emerging Leader. She was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor in 2021.

Yao Rong is a first year student in the MCDB department. Yao obtained her Master of Engineering with an emphasis in Glycobiology at Jiangnan University, China, in June 2016. She studied the regulatory mechanisms of GPI-inositol deacylation of GPI-anchored proteins (GPI-APs) in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in Morihisa Fujita and Xiaodong Gao's lab. She joined the Spencer lab in May 2017. Yao graduated with her PhD in August 2023. She now...

Lotte completed her PhD in Cancer Biology at the University of Aberdeen in 2019 where she studied DNA replication stress and cell cycle control in mammalian cells in the Donaldson-Hiraga Lab. Lotte joined the Spencer Lab in December of 2020.

Brianna received her Bachelors of Science in Biochemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2019 where she worked as an undergraduate researcher in the lab of Dr. Jesse Zalatan engineering CRISPR-Cas9-mediated synthetic transcriptional regulation circuits. She joined the Spencer lab in Spring 2021 and now studies inflammation in single-cells during cell-cycle withdrawal.

Riley received his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from UC Santa Barbara where he performed research in inorganic synthetic chemistry. Following his undergrad, Riley spent three years working in cancer immunotherapy at The Salk Institute (San Diego, CA) before moving out to Boulder. Riley joined the Spencer lab in the summer of 2021, and now studies cancer drug resistance. When he's not in lab, you can usually find Riley climbing,...

Maxwell received his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Neuroscience from the University at Buffalo in May of 2022. During his undergraduate studies, he worked in the lab of Dr. Jennifer Surtees, where he investigated the contribution of DNA mismatch repair factors to trinucleotide repeat expansions. Maxwell joined the Spencer Lab in May of 2023.

Varuna received her BA in Neuroscience from Mount Holyoke College where she worked as an undergraduate researcher in Dr. Ken Colodner’s lab studying the role of tau protein in neurodegenerative diseases. Before coming to Colorado, she worked in Dr. Aaron Hata’s lab at Mass General Hospital, investigating genetic mechanisms of drug resistance in non-small cell lung cancer. Varuna joined the Spencer lab in the summer of 2021, and now studies...

Victor received his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara in May 2017. Before joining the Biochemistry graduate program at CU Boulder, he worked as a research specialist in the lab of Frederick Dahlquist for two years, where he studied the biophysical properties of bacterial CDI components. He joined the Spencer lab in May 2020.

Chance received his Bachelor of Science in Cell and Developmental Biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in June 2022. Before coming to Boulder, he worked in Dr. Jan van Deursen’s lab at the Mayo Clinic studying cellular senescence. Chance joined the Spencer Lab in May 2023.

Riley is an undergraduate working towards a Bachelors of Arts in Biochemistry and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology while receiving a certificate in Neuroscience. He plans to graduate in May and then continue working in the Spencer Lab as a Lab Technician prior to applying for graduate school in the fall. Riley joined the Spencer Lab in May of 2023 and currently works on the relationship between cell cycle withdrawal...

Nasreen graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Biochemistry and a minor in Philosophy from the University of Colorado Boulder in May 2023, and worked in Jeff Cameron's lab doing bacteria focused research. She began working as a research technician in the Spencer Lab during the fall of 2023 and is currently working on multiple CRISPR knock-in cell lines for various projects in the lab. She will be applying to...

Forrest completed his Master's in Veterinary Biomedical Science from Auburn University's College of Veterinary Medicine. He joined the Spencer lab in February 2021 to serve as the Lab Manager.

Claire received her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in May 2015, where she then worked as a research technician for two years before joining the Biochemistry program at CU Boulder. Claire graduated with her PhD from the Spencer Lab in December 2022 and now works as Scientist I at Bioloomics in Boulder, CO.

Mansi obtained her PhD at The Ohio State University in May 2014. For her graduate work, she examined the role of chromatin-associated ubiquitination in propagating transcriptional memory through mitosis. Her work resulted in the identification of a novel gene bookmarking mechanism that occurs via ubiquitination of chromatin-associated proteins. For her postdoctoral work, Mansi studied the single-cell variability in cellular response to various stress stimuli. Mansi currently works as a Scientist...

Humza received his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2017. Before coming to Boulder, he worked in the lab of Dr. Kai Zhang as an undergraduate researcher. For his undergraduate honors thesis, he applied optogenetic approaches to study how neuronal signaling pathways are disrupted in disease. He joined the Spencer lab in May 2018 and graduated with his PhD from the Spencer...

Dylan received his Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in May of 2014. During his undergraduate studies, Dylan was involved in research in a number of laboratories at both the University of Nebraska and at the University of Oregon. Dylan became a lab technician for the Spencer lab in October of 2014. Currently a PhD student in MCB at UC Berkeley - August 2015

Sara received her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering at Michigan Technological University in May 2008. She worked at Colorado State University since 2008 as a research associate in various laboratories. Sara became the lab manager for the Spencer Lab in September 2014. Sara is now a Professional Research Assistant at University of Colorado Denver.

Tim completed his PhD in molecular toxicology at Colorado State University, where he made use of flow cytometric techniques and developed multimethod computational models to understand heterogenous cellular states in response to different xenobiotics and in degenerative aging. Tim joined the Spencer Lab in June 2019 to delve deeper into single-cell quantifications and to investigate the various mechanisms and stress responses underlying proliferative cellular heterogeneity. Tim completed his post-doc in...

Alexandra received her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 2007 with an emphasis in Microbiology. In the Spencer lab, Alexandra investigated pharmacological inhibition of the cell cycle and cancer metabolisms using Matlab-based image analysis. Currently working in Alex Garcia's Lab.

Nikki joined the Spencer lab in April of 2018 and received her Bachelor degrees in Biochemistry and MCDB in 2019. She is currently working as a lab technician in the Spencer lab before beginning graduate school at UC Santa Barbara in the fall of 2020.

Iain received his Bachelor of Arts in May of 2015 from the University of Colorado Summa Cum Laude in Biochemistry and with distinction in Mathematics. In August of 2015 he started in the Spencer Lab as a lab technician, and a year later began medical school at the University of Colorado. Iain graduated from medicial school in May of 2020 and is completing his residency in Pathology at Stanford University.

Mingwei completed her PhD with Dr. Cath Lindon at the University of Cambridge, UK studying protein degradation when cells finish division and start to build new daughter cells. She has been fascinated with single cell biology since then. She recently studied the biochemistry of red cell differentiation at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Dan Finley. She is currently a Principal Investigator at the Guangzhou Regenerative Medicine and Health Laboratory in...

Justin received his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry with an emphasis in Biochemistry from Pomona College in May 2011. He worked as a research technician in a structural biology lab at Caltech for three years before entering the Biochemistry program at CU Boulder. He joined the Spencer Lab in May 2015 and defended his thesis on April 17, 2020. Following completion of his post-doctoral work in July 2021, Justin took...

Harsha received her Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics & Telecommunication at Mumbai University in June 2012 and a M.S in Electrical Computer & Energy Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder in August 2016. She worked as a programmer for Spencer lab helping with Image Processing & Signal Processing. She is currently working at MathWorks.

Jordan received his Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry and Psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2018. In June of 2018 he joined the Spencer Lab, studying the pathological inhibition of the cell cycle in eukaryotic cells using live-cell microscopy.

Chengzhe received his PhD in Biophysics at Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen in 2017. He joined the Spencer Lab in June 2017 to develop mathematical models as well as to learn more about experimental biology. He currently works as a Project Scientist at the Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Andrew received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics and Mathematics at CU Boulder in 1990. Andrew has worked at Raytheon (formerly Hughes Aircraft), the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Renewable Energy Lab. Andrew’s work includes image segmentation and time-series analysis. Andrew now works at Ball Aerospace.

Chen received her Master of Science in Microbial and Cellular Biology at Emporia State University in May 2014. During her graduate studies, she explored the numerous bioactivities of Oleanolic Acid (a phytochemical) and microRNA-26a and let-7a on human melanoma cells: cytotoxicity, apoptosis and autophagy induction, cell motility reduction, and cell cycle arrest. Chen became a graduate student for the Spencer lab in May of 2015. After graduating in , Chen...