Katie Li
Master’s defense: Fall 2024
Katie studied a gene with an F-box
With results showing us a paradox
She knocked out this gene
While staying serene
Her knowledge of genetics, it rocks
Katie’s work studied heat shock resistance
Her efforts required persistence
In scoring live dead
She narrowed the spread
And showed that she can go the distance
Deevya Raman
PhD defense: Summer 2024
Deevya was studying infection
With assays requiring inspection
she did lots of reps
with multiple steps
And gave us a cool new direction
Theresa Bui
Master’s defense: May 2020
Theresa studied pals genes in pairs
with Vladimir this project she shares
despite covid-19
she probed pals-17
her persistence shows how much she cares
Theresa has a chill, sweet persona
And kept calm during the time of corona
after PCR lysis
stopped short by this crisis
She persisted and will thrive in Arizona
Keir Balla
PhD defense: September 2016
Keir studied worms that were Hawaiian
to show what had kept them from dyin’
Keir’s steely persistence
revealed their resistance
was due to young larvae still thrivin’
After invading just one single cell
N. parisii causes such hell
creating syncytia
crossing walls like militia
Keir showed us this drama so well
Robert Luallen
PhD defense: Augiust 2016
Robert’s finding was causing some chatter
A microbe that tears worms to tatters
Robert had a great thirst
to show how worms burst
and for polar tubes, he found that size matters
An infection that spread far and wide
From Robert the microbe couldn’t hide
He found it in France
Through hard work and chance
His achievements, they fill me with pride
Suzy Szumowski
PhD defense: January 2015
Suzy’s passion was never in doubt
to determine how spores can get out
with small GTPases
she found spores can go places
through an exocytosis-based route
Suzy studied how spores traffic thru
the intestine and then out in the poo
she imaged so well
the nematode cells
without her who knows what we’ll do
Tiffany Dunbar
PhD defense: May 2013
She had passion that always was showing
Her knowledge continually growing
She kept right on track
She’ll never look back
‘Cuz if you’re going through hell, keep on going
Her paper is based on a screen
She found worms aberrantly green
Pseudomonas attack
Made the worms fight right back
And it helped us understand, “What does it mean?”
