People

Principal Investigator

Dr. Christine Elsik

Dr. Elsik's research is focused in three areas centered around molecular evolution. First, genome sequence analysis and annotation: applying concepts of molecular evolution to infer function, as well as using bioinformatics approaches to understand genome evolution. Second, the development of statistical models and algorithms to better classify proteins, which in turn serve serve as tools for molecular evolution and annotation. And third, the development of databases that allow others to benefit from ours and the work of a very active research community engaged in genome analysis and annotation.

Education

  • B.S. Biochemistry, Virginia Tech
  • M.S. Forestry, Texas A&M University
  • Ph.D. Genetics, Texas A&M University
  • Alfred P. Sloan Foundation/Department of Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship in Computational Molecular Biology, University of Virginia

Appointments

  • Professor, Division of Animal Sciences, Division of Plant Science & Technology, MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2019-present
  • Associate Professor, Divisions of Animal & Plant Sciences and MU Informatics Institute, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2012-2019
  • Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, Georgetown University , 2011-2012
  • Associate Professor, Biology Department, Georgetown University, 2010-2012
  • Assistant Professor, Biology Department, Georgetown University, 2007-2010 
  • Assistant Professor, Animal Science Department, Texas A&M University, 2002-2007
 

 

Research Scientist

Jack Gardiner joined the Elsik lab in 2016 as a Research Scientist. He earned a B.S. in Biochemistry, an M.S. in Biology, and a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and he was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biology at the University of Iowa. His research focuses on Zea mays (maize) genetics and genomics. 
Prior to joining Elsik lab, Dr. Gardiner worked in a wide range of capacities from field and laboratory researcher, to NSF project manager. In 2010 he began working for MaizeGDB, the maize genetics and genomics database, as a biocurator with an emphasis in gene expression and epigenetic data. Currently, he is a Biological Data Curator for MaizeMine, MaizeGDB's data mining warehouse, which enables researchers without scripting skills to integrate their data with publicly available data and perform meta-analysis. His role is to identify and recruit high value maize data sets for MaizeMine that best serves the maize research community.

Lead Programmer

Amy Walsh joined the Elsik Lab in 2019 and works as a developer for the databases and websites in addition to performing system administration tasks. She graduated from James Madison University with a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics and earned an M.S. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Connecticut. Prior to joining the lab, she worked as an Applied Research Mathematician for the Department of Defense and a Database Programmer/Analyst for the Missouri Transect project at the University of Missouri.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Johnny Konvalina joined the Elsik Lab in 2023, and is working on the annotation of salmonid genomes to create a pan-genome. He received his PhD in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Central Florida.

 

Former Lab Members

Staff

Christopher Childers 
Kevin Childs 
Colin Diesh 
Darren Hagen 
Justin Le Tourneau 
Natalia Milshina 
Monica Munoz-Torres 
R. Shreyas Murthi 
Monica Poelchau 
Justin Reese 
Christina Roberts 
Md Shamimuzzaman 
Jaideep Sundaram 
Aditi Tayal 
Deborah Triant 
Deepak Unni 
Donald Vile

Graduate Students

Juan Anzola 
Kyounghwa Bae 
Anna Bennett Childers
C. Michael Dickens 
Marianne Emery 
Hung Nguyen 
Libing (Steve) Shen 
Shu Tao 
Anand Venkatraman 
Zixiao Zhao

Undergraduate Students

Genevieve Brandt 
Micah Fletcher 
Katharina Frank 
Catherine Jamis 
Sari Khalil 
Teni Ogunsan 
Jack Schoelz