Joey Davis

Whitehead Assistant Professor of Biology

jhdavis[at]mit | CV

Having worked in Bob Sauer's group as a Ph.D. student, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to return to MIT to start my lab. After graduating, I was the first employee at Ginkgo BioWorks, a local synthetic biology startup company and later was a post-doc in San Diego where I was jointly advised by Jamie Williamson and Malene Hansen. I'm excited to be back in Boston and working on key problems at the intersection of biochemistry, structural biology, and macromolecular complex assembly!

Andrew Grassetti

setti[at]mit

As a graduate student in Scott Gerber’s lab at Dartmouth College, Andrew developed and applied proteomics techniques in order to better understand the mammalian cell cycle. Currently, he is investigating the role of protein phosphorylation in autophagy, both mechanistically, using biochemical and structural methods, and at a systems level, through the use of mass spectrometry based phosphoproteomics.

Danica CUI

dscui[at]mit

Danica obtained her PhD in chemistry from Yale University. As a graduate student in Pat Loria’s Lab, Danica employed biophysical tools such as NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography to study the structure-function relationship of PTP1B, an important regulator of insulin signaling. In the Davis lab, Danica is investigating the roles of selective autophagy cargo receptors in autophagy biogenesis and autophagy degradation pathways using structural approaches, biochemistry and SILAC-based mass spectrometry methods.  Danica is the recipient of the Life Sciences Research Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Alireza Ghanbarpour

alirezag[at]mit

Alireza did his Ph.D. in the chemistry department at Michigan State University. His work focused on protein engineering and protein crystallography of soluble proteins to generate new model systems and molecular tools. He then joined Yale University, department of cell biology, as an NRSA postdoc fellow to elucidate the mechanism of organelle biogenesis using membrane and soluble proteins involved in lipid transfer in autophagy. He is currently working as a joint postdoc between the Davis and Sauer labs to delineate the detailed mechanism of substrate processing by soluble and membrane AAA proteases using cryo-EM, mass spectrometry, and biochemistry.

Bertina Telusma

btelusma[at]mit

Bertina started her research career at MIT in the Bell lab as an HHMI EXROP student. In the Davis lab, Bertina is now working to measure autophagic flux using pulse-labeling mass spectrometry in yeast, and has applied this technique to understand the role of various proteostasis pathways in remodeling the proteome.

Samantha Webster

Sweb[at]mit

Sam completed her undergraduate training at CU Boulder in Rob Batey's group. When she's not backcountry skiing in Colorado, Sam applies structural approaches to understand bacterial ribosome assembly. Sam is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Laurel Kinman

Lkinman[at]mit

Laurel did her undergraduate research at Wellesley in Louise Darling's lab. Too much in love with New England autumns to consider leaving Boston, she came straight to MIT and the Davis lab, where she is now studying assembly of the autophagy initiation complex in yeast using pulse-labeling mass spec and cryo-EM. Laurel is also working on computational methods to analyze ensembles of highly heterogeneous cryo-EM structures, and is applying these methods to assembly of ribosomes and autophagosomes. Laurel is a recipient of the Hugh Hampton Young Graduate Fellowship.

Barrett Powell

bmp[at]mit

Barrett completed his undergraduate training at Swarthmore College in Liliya Yatsunyk’s lab. Barrett works to develop new software tools to analyze single particle cryoEM datasets, including extensions to cryoDRGN, and has a growing interest in tomographic approaches (both experimental and computational) to understanding protein complexes involved in autophagy.

April Lee

AprilLee[at]mit

April completed her undergraduate training at Cornell University in Joshua Chappie's group studying protein crystallography. In the Davis lab, she is currently working to understand the mechanisms behind selective autophagy of ferritin through structural and biochemical techniques. April uses both X-ray crystallographic and cryo-EM in analyzing her complexes.

Jen Kosmatka

kosmatka[at]mit

Jen completed her undergraduate training at UC Berkeley in Eva Nogales’s lab. Wanting to experience “seasons” she came to MIT and is a joint member of the Davis and Keating labs, where she is currently studying autophagic cargo selection via protein-peptide interactions using high-throughput cell-surface display and computational structure-based design.

Gabriella Lopez Perez

gslopez[at]mit

Gabriella completed her undergraduate degree at University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez and was an MSRP student at MIT in the Gehring lab and Lourido lab. Leaving the perfect warm weather of Puerto Rico, she joined MIT Biology Program and the Davis lab where she is studying the role of bacterial helicases in facilitating ribosome assembly.

Mira May

miramay@mit

​​Mira completed her undergraduate training at Pomona College in Clarissa Cheney’s group and was an MSRP student at MIT in the Drennan lab. Curious about the “other coast”, she came to MIT and is now studying the role of bacterial helicases in facilitating ribosome assembly. Mira is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Maria Ribeiro Vicente Perfeito Carreira

mariacar@mit

Maria completed her undergraduate studies in Biochemistry at University College London (UCL), where she worked in Dr. Elina Vladimirou’s lab on the effects of aberrant PI3K signaling on microtubule dynamics. Excited to move across the pond, Maria joined the MIT Biology program. In the Davis lab, she is working on new computational methods to further resolve conformational flexibility using cryo-EM.

Hana - Davis lab Mascot

RUFF[AT]JHDAVISLAB.ROCKS

Hana is primarily focused on carrots. And sticks. She loves sticks.