Lab Members

Brandon T. Sinn, Ph.D.

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​I am currently a visiting associate professor in the Faculty of Biology at the University of Latvia. I am an alumnus of the Freudenstein Lab at The Ohio State University, where I earned my Ph.D. in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology. Following my dissertation studies, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Stevenson Lab at the New York Botanical Garden where I contributed to the Plant Ontology. I later served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Barrett Lab at West Virginia University, where my research focused on comparative genomics and phylogenomics.

Google Scholar Profile

ResearchGate Profile

Katie Kirk (2021 - Present)

Katie is sequencing and characterizing mitochondrial genomes of Asarum, a genus of flowering plants in the Magnoliid clade. Katie's work will reveal whether our previous observations of genome instability in the plastid genomes of Asarum species is also true of the mitochondrial genome in these species.

Lea Wright (2021 - Present)

Lea is amplifying and sequencing lengthy, low complexity plastid genome regions, and characterizing their variability across the genus Asarum​. The plastid genomes in this group have experienced extreme microsatellite expansions and syntenic instability. Lea's research will help us to better understand how these regions have changed through time, and how their evolution might have influenced plastid genome instability.

Lab Alumni

Rachel Muti (2019 - 2021)

Rachel received a Postbaccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award and is conducting research at The NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute of Children's Health and Human Development. While in the Sinn Lab, Rachel used multi-tissue RNAseq to study transcription factor evolution and differential splicing, expression and exon usage in Corallorhiza, a genus of orchids comprising partial and full mycoheterophs. 

Jenna Howard (Fall 2019)

Jenna was interested in gaining some lab skills during her first semester. In that short time she was able to completely assemble the plastome of Asarum maximum and conduct a preliminary investigation of ISSR variation in Asarum rosei, a species endemic to a single gorge in North Carolina.