Dr. Kimberley Seed, Associate Professor, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, UC Berkeley

Education and Training:

Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Molecular Biology & Microbiology, Tufts University School of Medicine

Ph.D. Microbiology and Biotechnology, University of Alberta

Tansu Bagdatli - Graduate Student

Tansu received a BS. in Molecular Biotechnology from the Technical University of Munich in Germany in 2018.

After graduation, she worked in the industry for sustainable biofuel manufacturing from cellulosic biomass (Clariant and REG Life Sciences). She then pursued a research technician position at Stanford University, investigating the role of noncoding variations in disease.

Tansu is fascinated by the arms race between phages and bacteria and is excited to pursue her Ph.D. thesis in the Seed Lab.

Ani Chouldjian - Graduate Student

Ani received a B.S. in Microbiology from UC Berkeley in 2021. After her studies, she worked on cancer research at Stanford University’s Gray Lab, where she studied SENP proteases as potential targets for cancer therapy. She decided to return to the microbial world by joining the Plant and Microbial Biology program at UC Berkeley in 2023. She is interested in studying V. cholerae phage defense systems and finding phage-encoded inhibitors of these systems as a member of the Seed Lab.

Emily Kibby - Postdoc

Emily received a B.A. in Biochemistry in 2019, then moved to Colorado to study bacterial defense systems in Aaron Whiteley’s lab at CU Boulder for her PhD. There she focused on understanding protein domains that mediate immune signaling in both bacteria and eukaryotes. Emily is excited to continue studying the biology of phage-host interactions in the Seed lab.

Yamini Mathur - Postdoc

Yamini studied the function and mechanism of enzymes involved in the anaerobic biosynthesis of vitamin B12 for her PhD at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune. She received her BS biochemistry from Jaipur National University with a strong emphasis on human health and nutrition.

Yamini is now keen to extend her biochemistry training into understanding the mechanisms of novel players in the Vibrio versus phage arms race.

Cierra Ord - Graduate Student

Cierra received a B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine where she studied the dissemination mechanisms and evolution of antibiotic resistance within environmental Gram-negative bacteria. Now she's a Microbiology PhD student at UCB interested in identifying novel phage defense mechanisms within Vibrio species.

Reid Oshiro - Postdoc

Reid studied the role of posttranscriptional regulation in governing synthesis of the flagellar filament protein in B. subtilis for his PhD at Indiana University – Bloomington.

He received a BS in Microbiology and Psychology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa where he studied heterocyst development in the filamentous cyanobacterium Anabaena.

Reid is interested in characterizing understudied phage defense systems in V. cholerae.

Emma Ramirez - Staff Research Associate

Coming soon…

Marize Rizkalla - Graduate Student

Marize received a B.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of California, Irvine where she researched the evolution and mobilization of antibiotic resistance genes and virulence factors in Gram-negative bacteria collected from the environment. After graduation, Marize joined the Infectious Diseases and Immunity program at UC Berkeley, where she’s pursuing her PhD in the Seed Lab. She is interested in studying the mechanisms employed by V. cholerae and its disease associated phages to target and resist each other during infection.