People

Current members

Stephanie Ceman, PhD

Professor Stephanie Ceman received a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Bacteriology, a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Genetics. She was a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago in Immunology and a Postdoctoral fellow at Emory University in Atlanta, where she began her work on Fragile X syndrome. She was promoted to research assistant professor at Emory University.

She was hired as an assistant professor in the department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2003. She is an associate professor with affiliations with the Neuroscience Program, Beckman Institute, and the Institute for Genomic Biology. Her research is focused on understanding how protein translation regulation in the brain participates in learning and memory.

Temirlan shilikbay

B.S. Biology, Nazarbayev University

Graduate student in Cell and Developmental Biology

Project: Increased fear memory and abnormal dendritic arborization in RNA helicase MOV10 brain knockout mouse.

Outside of Lab: hanging out with friends, playing badminton and soccer, climbing, watching a lot of Netflix and YouTube, and playing guitar.

Aatiqa Nawaz

M.S. Biology, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)

Graduate student in Cell and Developmental Biology

Project:  Serine 970 of RNA helicase MOV10 is phosphorylated and controls unfolding activity and fate of mRNAs targeted for AGO2-mediated silencing

Outside of Lab:  eating (rising cereal killer), binge-watching anime, sleeping (like a lot), hanging out with friends, and listening to music.

MEGAN DOON

Joined: Fall 2023.

Project:  MOV10’s role in fear memory extinction and neuronal firing.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, Projected Graduation: May 2025.

Outside of Lab: Always listening to music, rewatching Star Wars: ROTS, watering my 20 plants, drinking a coffee and hanging out with friends.

Past members
PhilLip Kenny, phd

B.S. Chemistry/ Biochemistry, University of Arizona
Ph.D. Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Currently a manufacturing scientist at Takeda

Armando Barajas
Monica C. Lannom, PhD

Currently a senior consultant at SSI Strategy

Radhe Parikh
Geena Skariah, PhD

Currently a scientist at Johnson & Johnson

Miri Kim, MD, PhD

Currently a senior resident, Neurological Surgery, Loyola Medicine

Joshua Nielsen

Currently a graduate student at the University of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill