Peter graduated from Penn State in May 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in Biology. He then worked in the Ruvkun lab at Mass General in Boston for 11 years, starting as a lab technician and progressing into the lab manager. He assisted many postdocs with their interdisciplinary projects in C. elegans ranging from aging and metabolism, heterochrony, xenobiotics, and Mars DNA sequencing. Excited for a change, Peter accepted a position in Rob’s lab where he acts as the glue, advising undergraduates with their projects, assisting with CRISPR, and adding even more order and organization to the lab. He has truly charmed our worms with his kind-hearted spirit and his extreme enthusiasm, ultimately casting a spell on them to yield results. Without Peter’s thoughtful perspectives and truly encouraging demeanor, our lab would be void of ALL FUN. When he is not working, he enjoys baking new concoction that are tested by fellow lab members, reading the craziest sci-fi/fantasy novels, eating copious amounts of lobster, screaming at the TV when the Carolina Panthers are playing, and taking breaks to stroll around outside with his Carolina Panthers hat but only if the weather is below -80C. If seen in the wild, approach quietly and cautiously! This message was written by fellow, lovely lab members and approved by Peter Breen.
Rachel graduated from the University of Richmond in 2017 with a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Leadership Studies. While at Richmond she was a varsity Swimmer and lead her team to their 7th consecutive A10 Championship win as a captain her senior year. Rachel joined a research lab the Summer after second year and since then her passion for research has continued to grow. Rachel has worked with several different model systems exploring a variety of questions most of which have the common theme of building systems to study complex relationships between organisms. After graduating, Rachel worked in the Richmond area for two years before deciding to peruse graduate school and joining the 2019 Biomedical and Biological Sciences Program (BBSP) cohort here at UNC. As a BBSP student she rotated in the Duronio, Peifer and R. Dowen labs. Rachel ultimately chose to conduct her thesis work in the R. Dowen Lab and joined the Genetics and Molecular Biology PhD training program in the Spring of 2020. As part of the Rob Dowen lab Rachel studies how consumption of the microbial community found in the fermented tea Kombucha effects host metabolism and aging.
Rachel is passionate about mentoring and enjoys working with and advocating for students at all stages of their scientific journey. She is on the organizational committee of Women in Science Promoting Inclusion in Research Experiences a program that offers women identifying and non-binary high school students the opportunity to conduct hands on research at UNC-CH during the Summer. Rachel has completed the Effective Mentoring Training Program offered through the graduate school and her efforts were recently recognized as one of her mentees nominated her for the 2021-2022 Science Mentoring Award presented by the UNC office of Graduate Education. In addition to mentoring students one on one, Rachel is also dedicated to Scientific outreach actively participating in events such as NC DNAday, the local Teen Science Café and the 2022 Science Expo all hosted by Morehead Planetarium. Outside of lab Rachel enjoys gardening, art, cooking new plant-based recipes and attending UNC-CH sporting events (especially when they play the University of Richmond).
Kylie graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in May 2021 with her B.S. in Biology, but she is originally from a suburb an hour outside of Chicago. In undergrad, she was on a student-run dance team that she became the president of in her senior year, and she began research in her first year on plant hormonal signaling in Joe Kieber’s lab. She worked for a year in Jen Jen Yeh’s lab, studying pancreatic cancer therapeutic targets, and finished her last two years of undergrad in Zack Nimchuk’s lab, where she went back to her old friend Arabidopsis thaliana to study plant developmental genetics. She decided to pursue graduate school after discovering a love for research and genetics, and found that she loved UNC so much, she had to stay for 5+ more years! She joined UNC’s BBSP program in August of 2021 with research interests in the genetics and molecular pathways of human development and disease. After her first year, she decided to join the amazing world of worms in the Rob Dowen Lab and to join the Genetics and Molecular Biology PhD program. She is excited to get started and develop her thesis project to study genetic signaling pathways that contribute to metabolism and aging that are relevant to a human context. Outside of lab, Kylie loves to go to breweries and concerts with her friends, exercise and run, read thrillers, and spend time outside in the beautiful NC sun.
Sarah is an undergraduate student at UNC (Class of 2023) double-majoring in Biology (B.S.) and Medical Anthropology with a minor in Chemistry, and is originally from Annapolis, Maryland (where all good things come from — she didn’t make the rules). Interested in metabolic homeostasis and fat metabolism as it relates to human pathologies like Type 2 Diabetes, atherosclerosis, and obesity, her projects focus on the relationships between transcriptional regulators of metabolism and components of cellular pro-growth pathways that influence intercellular lipid transport in C. elegans. Sarah is currently preparing to complete a senior thesis and hopes to pursue graduate education in either an M.D. or Ph.D. program to further explore lipid metabolism as it relates to human health and connect bench science to clinical medicine. Outside of the lab, Sarah is a paramedic and is also Chief of UNC Campus EMS, but don’t call 911 for your dying C. elegans because she cannot resuscitate worms (only humans, and only sometimes)! She is also an Ambassador for the Office of Undergraduate Research, a Buckley Public Service Scholar, and a member of UNC’s oSTEM organization. She may seem small and harmless, but catch Sarah on a day without iced coffee and find out how scary all 5’0” of her can become.
