Class Notes
Part of the motivation for launching the annual Plant & Microbial Biology newsletter is to bring our community together. We hope you will enjoy reading the notes from these PMB alumni and students, and even consider making a new connection with the contact information listed in each entry. To submit your update for a future issue of the newsletter, please use this form.
Bassem Al-Sady (PhD ’06)
Contact: bassem.al-sady@ucsf.edu
After PMB I pivoted from plant biology and did a postdoc with Geeta Narlikar in chromatin biochemistry. I started my own lab in 2013/2014 at the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at UCSF and am an associate professor there. My lab studies the dynamics of chromatin domain formation with single-cell sensors, genetics, biochemistry, and biophysics. You can find us at alsadylab.ucsf.edu or on X @ASadylab
Noah Gardner (BS ’16)
Contact: noahsark3292@gmail.com or GardneN@crc.losrios.edu
After completing a Master's in Plant Pathology at UC Davis, I'm now full-time biology faculty at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento. My primary job is the botany class that is taken by all biology majors at CRC. It is an AWESOME job with a lot of creative freedom and room for growth; I totally recommend community college teaching as a career for current students to consider. Recently I have been in touch with old PMB contacts (Dr. Chelsea Specht and Dorothy Kaplan) for advice and resources, so it is great to be carrying the torch from my time at Cal. I love teaching plants to new biology students!
Nikita Gounder (BS ’23)
Contact: LinkedIn or nikita.gounder@berkeley.edu
Since graduating, I joined full-time at the research lab, where I started working in undergrad because of SPUR. I have also started grad school at UCSF in the Health Data Science Program.
Kathleen McCowin (BA ’82)
Contact: kmccowin@berkeley.edu
I have worked as a patent attorney for 50 years with startups, UC Berkeley, national labs, and corporations. Now, I am in a wonderful FemTech startup. And I just became a grandmother for the first time!
Alexa Nicolas (PhD ’22)
Contact: amn2222@columbia.edu
I started a postdoc at Columbia University in Saeed Tavazoie's systems biology lab, where I am developing projects to establish new model soil microbiomes to interrogate microbe-microbe interactions using single-cell sequencing techniques. I also published a new paper in The ISME Journal (DOI: 10.1093/ismejo/wrae094), which was based on my PhD dissertation and includes other coauthors from the lab of Professor Michi Taga.
Jacob Rulison (BS ’23)
Contact: jrulison_@berkeley.edu
I am starting graduate school at Harvard’s Virology PhD program.
Karen Serrano (PhD ’24)
Contact: karen.serrano@bayer.com
I entered the agricultural biotechnology industry post-graduation and am working as a postdoctoral scientist at Bayer Crop Science in St. Louis.
Julia Sherman (BS ’21)
Contact: LinkedIn or juliasherman27@gmail.com
After graduating in 2021, I simultaneously managed two Integrative Biology labs at UC Berkeley for almost two years. After the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, this extra time on campus provided me with opportunities to publish after graduation, explore more of Berkeley without the restrictions of lockdown, and continue to build my Bay Area network.
In April of 2023, I decided to transition away from campus and travel the world. I had the privilege of experiencing some of the most richly biodiverse regions in the world: including the Amazon in Brazil, Sumatran jungles in Indonesia, and parts of Malaysian Borneo. A true dream come true for a plant biologist!
Upon my return to Berkeley in September of 2023, I started to expand my horizons and look for work in applied plant science extending beyond the Bay Area. In March of 2024, I started working for a seed production company in Davis, called HM.CLAUSE, that uses plant breeding and marker assisted selection to develop new varieties of fruits and vegetables. It has been incredible to learn more about our global system of agriculture, to address real world problems, and to be inspired by the scale of industrial plant science!
Tomo Yoshino (BS ’23)
Contact: tyoshino@mit.edu
This fall, I will be starting a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT. I am planning to study how climate stress affects the expression of nitrogen-cycling genes in plants and their microbiome. My research advisor will be Professor Dave Des Marais who is also a Cal alum (IB, ’00).
I took a gap year to visit my paternal family in Matsumoto, Japan. I've learned a lot about local cultural traditions and my 500-year family history from daily conversations with my grandmother. My grandmother's stories of growing up as a farmer during World War II have especially strengthened my resolve to secure our food resources in order to protect the diversity and beauty of traditional culture.