Members of the Lab
Research Assistant Professor
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Michael Kio Ph.D. Cranfield University, United Kingdom (2015) Research Topics Dr Kio’s current research focuses on developing enhanced fouling release coating formulation. His research interests also include surface wettability and nanoparticle interaction with lipid bilayers for studies of drug delivery implementing molecular dynamics. |
Postdoctoral
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Min-Kang Hsieh Ph.D. Columbia University (2018) Research Topics Min-Kang's research focuses on two areas of interest. He is doing research on some COVID-19 associated proteins that form oligomers that are important for the virus infection and he is probing the mechanism and structure in collaboration with Dr. Berger's lab at UVA. Min-Kang is also doing work on lipid membrane asymmetry with a focus on the inner membrane of Gram Negative bacteria. |
Graduate Students
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Jessica Bodosa Ph.D. student at University of Maryland, College Park (Biophysics, 2020-) Research Topics
Jessica has been a Biophysics rotation student in the lab focusing on the dimerization of the EmrE protein. She will also be starting research on metal ion binding to cell membranes. |
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Joshua Lucker M.S./Ph.D. student at University of Maryland, College Park (Biophysics, 2020-) Research Topics
Joshua is working on extending the CHARMM36UAr model to sphingolipids and testing this force field with bilayer mixtures containing cholesterol. |
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Anthony Pane Ph.D. student at University of Maryland, College Park (Biophysics, 2021-) Research Topics
Anthony is co-Advised by Dr. Richard Pastor (NIH/NHLBI) and is working on optimizatation of the phosphoserine lipid force field as his first project. |
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Kinjal Mondal Ph.D. student at University of Maryland, College Park (Biophysics, 2022-) Research Topics
Kinjal started as a rotation student Fall 2022 and has joined the Klauda lab in Spring 2023. His work focuses on developing data on Lyase proteins to understand how these are involved in bacterial infections and how these can be used to reduce feed stock to produce chemicals. His work utilizes molecular simulation and machine learning for enzyme design. |
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Marlen Toktomamatov Ph.D. student at University of Maryland, College Park (Biochemistry, 2023-) Research Topics
Marlen started as a rotation student Spring 2024 and has joined the Klauda lab April 2024. His work currently focuses on determining the free energy of model peptide bindings to cellular membranes. |
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Evan Roetering M.S. University of Maryland (Bioengineering, 2025-) Research Topics
Evan started as a undergraduate researcher in the lab but is now a M.S. student in the Bioengineering department. His focus is on cell membrane modeling of cancer membranes. Specifically he has been looking at developing membrane models for leukemia and understanding their biophysical properties. More recently, he has also developed model membranes for pancreatic cancer. |
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Yiwei Wang Ph.D. University of Maryland (Biophysics, 2025-) Research Topics
Yiwei did two lab rotations in the Klauda lab before joining in Spring 2026. His research has been on antimicrobial peptides with machine learning and biophysical studies of a pH depended enzyme. He will continue this general area of research using molecular simulations and machine learning/artificial intelligence. |
Undergraduate Students
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Dai-Bao Van B.S. Chemistry (May 2021) Research Topics
Dai-Bao is working on modeling archeal membranes with ether-branched lipids as well as simulating AQP0 and its cataract forming mutants |
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Adam Teixeira Biochemistry Research Topics
Adam has been developing work on Alzheimer's Disease and oligomers of A-beta peptide with Cu ions. |
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Rohit Chintala Biochemistry & Mathematics Research Topics
Rohit is currently finishing up the training on membrane modeling and will be starting a project soon. |
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Anusha Sastry Public Health Research Topics
Anusha is currently finishing up the training on membrane modeling and will be starting a project soon. |
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Adarsh Ramamurthy The Charter School of Wilmington (Delaware) (Class of 2025)
Research Topics
Adarsh started his research in my lab as a high school student and has continued as an undergrad. Initially he been developed some pre-cell models to represent early life development. Then, focused on predicting the structure of an inhibitory peptide for CDK5 associated with Alzheimer's Disease. He is also working on modeling anammox bacteria cell membranes. |
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Eric Zhang Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Research Topics
Eric's research focuses on the gut microbiome and some unique bacteria. He is currently developing membrane models of these bacteria and eventually how this connects to immune health. |
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Tejasvi Subramanya Bioengineering Research Topics
Tejasvi's research focuses on studying peptide inhibitors and mutants to an enzyme (CDK5) connected to Alzheimer's disease. He is working with Marlen and Dr. Antonio Cardone on this work. |
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Eric Park Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Research Topics
Eric's research is focusing on modeling the peripheral myelin sheath. He is developing asymmetric membrane models and incorporating the P0 protein that is important for the myelin to form its layered structure around the nerve axon. |
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Amelia Ortero Lopez Cellular Biology & Molecular Genetics / Public Health Science (double major) Research Topics
Amelia's research is focused on a frog and insect peptides that act as antimicrobial peptides that are not membrane targets. Instead these peptides target important pathways for LPS transport. |
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Irem Gunduzhan Bioengineering Research Topics
Irem's research focuses on studying peptide inhibitors and mutants to an enzyme (CDK5) connected to Alzheimer's disease. He is working with Marlen and Dr. Antonio Cardone on this work. |
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Bach Pham Computer Science (Earlham College) Research Topics
Bach's research is in machine learning of enzymes and their kcat. He is working with Kinjal on this project. |
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Claire DeLuca Chemical Engineering Research Topics
Claire's research focuses on molecular modeling of the stratum corneum and its short periodicity phase (SPP). She works with Jessica Bodosa on this project. |
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Katie Kim Chemical Engineering Research Topics
Katie has been doing research associated with proteins binding to polystyrene polymers associated with women's health in collaboration with Dr. Zierden's lab (UMD/OSU). |
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Anna Kurtz Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics with Minor in Neuroscience Research Topics
Anna researches how a protein associated with neurons interacts and binds to cellular membranes (p35). She is using molecular simulations to probe membrane attachement with applications to Alzheimer's Disease. |
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Gabriela Poulose Bioengineering Research Topics
Gabriella researches how a protein associated with neurons interacts and binds to cellular membranes (p35). She is using molecular simulations to probe membrane attachement with applications to Alzheimer's Disease. |
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Marlo Minshew Cell Biology and Genetics Major Research Topics
Marlo is working on studying how PlexinA1 dimerizes focusing on the extracellular domain. This work is done in collaboration with Dai-Bao Van. |
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Samragyee Dhakal Computer Science Research Topics
Samragyee is working on cancer membrane modeling associated with her Nebula Fellowship (Fall 2026). This work is advised by Evan Roetering. |
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Somiron Kundu Chemical Engineering Research Topics
Som is studying snake venom toxin which is a protein that can pennetrate cell membranes. |
High School Students
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Aditri Maiti Centennial High School (Ellicot City, MD) (Class of 2026) Research Topics
Aditri is currently learning how to build cell membrane models. Future work will be on pre-cell modeling to represent early life development. |