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Our Research team: past and present

None of the work we have performed could have been achieved without our students and collaborators at WMU and beyond.  Over the past 20 years, undergraduate and graduate students have been both the hands in the lab generating data and minds designing experiments that have pushed our work forward.  Below you can find a list of our current and past graduate students.  Although we have not enumerated where all of our 34 undergraduate alumni researchers have gone to, we take great pride in their achievements at WMU and beyond.  Many of our alumni have gone on to careers in industry, education or governmental agencies or have continued their studies in graduate school.  We are currently seeking highly motivated students who want to push scientific frontiers forward and generate novel data.  Please contact us at todd.barkman@wmich.edu if you are interesting in joining our team. 

Current members

Todd J. Barkman (Professor, WMU 2000-present): 

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Peter Quakenbush (Ph.D. candidate):  Phylogenetics of Medinilla (Melastomataceae)

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Emily Catania (M.S. 2022-present):  Protein functional evolution in the SABATH family of methyltransferases

Past members

Jamie (S. H.) Lim (M.S. 2006): Associate Director Project Management at Pillar Bio, Boston, MA

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Pam Laureto (Ph.D. 2010): Retired Faculty from Grand Rapids Community College, Grand Rapids, MI

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Aida Shafreena Ahmad Puad (Ph.D. 2012):  Professor and Deputy Dean, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kuching, Malaysia

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Andrew O’Donnell (M.S. 2015):  Ph.D. student at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany

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Ruiqi Huang (M.S. 2012; Ph.D. 2017):  Research Fellow at Applied Biomedical Science Institute, San Diego, CA 

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Breck Davis (M.S. 2018):  Laboratory Researcher, Vestaron Corporation, Kalamazoo, MI

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Nicole Dubs (M.S. 2020):  Research Associate at Vestaron Corporation, Kalamazoo, MI

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