Meet the PI

Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Biophysics

Email

Ph.D. (2000) Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich,Germany

Curriculum Vitae

Education and Positions

1995:  Dipl. Biol. (equivalent of M.S.) in Biology, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany

1996-2000: Ph.D. study in Biology, Ludwig Maximilians University and Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry, Munich, Germany

2000-2001: Postdoctoral research in Structural Biology with Dr. Wolfgang Baumeister, MPI for Biochemistry, Munich, Germany

2001-2006: Postdoctoral research in Structural Cell Biology with Dr. Richard J. McIntosh, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder

2006-2013:  Assistant Professor of Biology, Brandeis University, Massachusetts

2013-2015: Associate Professor of Biology, Brandeis University, Massachusetts

2015 July - present: Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Biophysics, UT Southwestern

Honors

1996-1998: Graduate scholarship for Junior Scientists, Ludwig Maximilians University and Bavaria, Germany.

1998-2000: Graduate scholarship, Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, Germany.

2000-2001: Postdoctoral scholarship, Max Planck Society, Germany.

2007-2011: Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences

2008: Strage Award for Aspiring Young Science Faculty

2008: WM Keck Foundation Research Excellence Award

2008 - present: LAS (Local Affiliated Societies) tour speaker for the Microscopy Society of America

2009 - 2012: W.M. Keck Foundation Science and Engineering Research Grants Award

2014: Keith R. Porter Fellow

2015: "Rising Star" scholarship from the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT)

2016: Leadership Emerging in Academic Departments (LEAD): 1-year leadership program, capstone project was selected for presentation to the UTSW leadership and has been implemented institutionally. 

2020: WICB Mid-Career Aware for Excellence in Research by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB)

2020: Pew Innovation Fund Investigator

Other Experience and Professional Memberships

Editorial Board member: Cytoskeleton

Reviewer of grant proposals: National Science Foundation

Reviewer for journals: Journal of Structural Biology, Journal of Molecular Biology, Nature, PNAS, Cytoskeleton

Membership: American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), Microscopy Society of America (MSA)

Conference Session Chairs: Tomography Session at the Microscopy and Microanalysis Conference, San Antonio, TX (2003); “Isolated Proteins and Filaments” at the GRC on 3D Electron Microscopy, New London, NH (2007); Tomography Session at the Microscopy and Microanalysis Conference, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida (2007); Mini-symposium on “Molecular Motors: Alone and in Groups” at the 47th Annual Meeting of the ASCB (2007); Tomography session at the GRC on 3D Electron Microscopy, Lucca, Italy (2008); Chair of Tomography Session at the Microscopy and Microanalysis Conference, Phoenix, AZ (2012); Session chair at the 7th International Electron Tomography Conference, Cancun, Mexico (2014); Chair of the Motility Session at the FASEB meeting: “Biology of Cilia”, Snowmass, CO (2015); Chair of the “Motor Assemblies” Session at the GRC meeting: “Muscle and molecular motors”, Mt Snow, VT (2016); Session chair at the Gordon Research Conference on Three Dimensional Electron Microscopy, Diablerets, Switzerland (June 2017); Co-chair of the GRC Connects (Gordon Research Conference) for Three Dimensional Electron Microscopy (Sept. 2020) [virtual meeting due to COVID-19]; Co-chair (2021) of the Gordon Research Conference on Three Dimensional Electron Microscopy, Waterville Valley, NH; Chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Three Dimensional Electron Microscopy, Spain (6/2022); Program Planning Committee for the Protein Society 2023 meeting, Boston, MA

Invited Speaker Events: International Conference of Molecular and Cell Biology, Jena, Germany (2000); Tomography Colloquium, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2001); European Conference on Crystallography, Krakow, Poland (2001); Gordon Conference on Three Dimensional Electron Microscopy, Bristol, RI (2001); 15th International Congress on Electron Microscopy, Durban, South Africa (2002); XIX–Congresso da Sociedade Brasileira de Microscopia e Microanalise, Caxambu, Brasil (2003); Gordon Conference on Three Dimensional Electron Microscopy, New London, NH (2003); Electron Tomography Workshop at the EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany (2003); Third International Congress on Electron Tomography, Rensselaerville, NY (2004); International Workshop on Structural Analysis of Supramolecular Assemblies By Hybrid Methods, Lake Tahoe, CA (2004); American Society for Cell Biology Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2005); International Workshop Dynein, Kobe, Japan (2005); Microscopy & Microanalysis Conference, Honolulu, HI (2005); High-pressure freezing conference in Dresden, Germany (2006); Microscopy & Microanalysis Conference (3 talks & 1 tutorial), Chicago, IL (2006); Mini-Symposium on Molecular Machines, Albany, NY (2007); FASEB Summer meeting “The Biology of Cilia & Flagella” (2007); Annual Symposium of the Protein Society; San Diego (2008); Pew Meeting for Biomedical Scholars (2008); 2nd International Symposium on Bio-Nano-Systems, Tokyo, Japan (2008); Carolina Biophysics Symposium, Chapel Hill, NC (2008); Gordon Research Conference on Cilia, Mucus, and Mucociliary Interactions, Italy (2009); Invited Attendee of the Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium organized by the National Academy of Sciences (2009); Microscopy & Microanalysis Conference, Richmond, Virginia (2009); DZG Tagung, Regensburg, Germany (2009); International workshop “Dynein 2009: Molecular mechanisms of axonemal and cytoplasmic dyneins,” in Kobe, Japan (2009); Ringberg Symposium (Kuehlbrand), Schloss Ringberg, Germany (2010); FASEB Summer Meeting “The Biology of Cilia & Flagella” (2010); Microscopy & Microanalysis Conference, Portland, OR (2010); Iowa Microscopy Society Fall Meeting, Iowa City, Iowa (2010); Pew Meeting for Biomedical Scholars (2011); Gordon Research Conference on Cilia, Mucus, and Mucociliary Interactions, Ventura, CA (2011); Emory BCMB Cilia Symposium, Atlanta, Georgia (2011); Sixth International Congress on Electron Tomography, Heidelberg, Germany (2011); Southeastern Microscopy Society Annual Meeting, Decatur, Georgia (2011); Gordon Research Conference on Three Dimensional Electron Microscopy, New London, NH (2011); Satir Symposium, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY (2011); EMBO Meeting “Microtubules: Structure, Regulation and Functions”, Heidelberg, Germany (2012); Michigan Microscopy & Microanalysis Meeting, MI (Nov. 2012); New England Society for Microscopy, Boston, MA (Febr. 2013); Southern California Society for Microscopy & Microanalysis, Los Angeles, CA (March 2013); American Chemical Society Meeting, New Orleans (April 2013); 2nd International CAESAR Conference, Bonn, Germany (May 2013); FASEB Meeting “Biology of Cilia & Flagella”, NY (June 2013); Plenary lecture at the DZG (German Zoological Society) Annual Meeting, Munich, Germany (Sept. 2013); International workshop “Dynein 2013” in Kobe, Japan (Nov. 2013); World Conference on Electron Tomography in Cancun, Mexico (Nov. 2014); Gordon Research Conference on Cilia, Mucus, and Mucociliary Interactions, Galveston, TX (Feb. 2015); American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Annual Meeting 2015 in Boston, MA (March 2015); Gordon Research Conference on Three Dimensional Electron Microscopy, New London, NH (June 2015); FASEB Meeting “Biology of Cilia & Flagella”, NY (July 2015); 5th International CAESAR Conference, Bonn, Germany (Oct. 2015); Australian Conference on Microscopy and Microanalysis (Feb. 2016); 2016 Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, CA (Feb. 2016); 2016 Gordon Research Conference on “Muscle & Molecular Motors”, West Dover, VT (July 2016); 2016 Oklahoma Microscopy Society fall meeting, Tulsa, OK (Nov. 2016); 2016 EMBO Conference “Molecular Machines: Integrative Structural and Molecular Biology” (Nov. 2016); Invited talk at the symposium “Cilia and Centrosomes: current advances and future directions” at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe (Nov. 2016); Keynote session speaker, Gordon Research Conference on Cilia, Mucus, and Mucociliary Interactions, Galveston, TX (Feb. 2017); Keynote speaker, 25th annual Texas Protein Folding & Function meeting, Retreat Artesian, TX (April 2017).; Invited symposium speaker:The future of integrative structural biology, Clemson University, SC (April 2017); Invited speaker at the 22nd Structural Biology Symposium 2017 at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, TX (May 2017); Invited speaker at the 16th annual Saltiel Life Sciences Symposium at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (Sep. 2017); International workshop Dynein 2017, Awaji Island, Japan (Oct. 2017); Invited speaker at the 2018 Keystone Symposia on Cryo-EM from Cells to Molecules: Multi-Scale Visualization of Biological Systems; at Granlibakken, Tahoe, California (Feb. 2018); Invited speaker at the 53rd meeting of the Texas Society for Microscopy in Denton. TX (Feb. 2018); Third Coast Workshop on Biological Cryo-EM, Chicago, IL (May 2018); Gordon Research Conference on Three Dimensional Electron Microscopy, Newport, RI (June 2018); Princeton-Nature Conference: Frontiers in Electron Microscopy for the Physical and Life Sciences, Princeton, NJ (July 2018); Invited speaker at the 8th International Conference on Electron Tomography, Les Diablerets, Switzerland (Sept. 2018); Invited speaker at the Symposium on Advances in Cryo-Electron Microscopy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN (Nov. 2018); Invited speaker at the Heraeus seminar on the "Physics and the physiology of cilia", Bad Honnef, Germany (Jan. 2019); Invited speaker at the Royal Society Theo Murphy meeting on "Unity and diversity of ciliary systems in locomotion and transport”, Chicheley, UK (March 2019); Invited speaker at the annual meeting of Chinese Society of Cell Biology, Beijing, China (April 2019); Invited speaker at the Gordon Research Conference on Fertilization and Activation of Development, Holderness, NH (July 2019); Invited speaker at FASEB Conference “The Biology of Cilia and Flagella”, Snowmass, CO (August 2019); Invited speaker at the UT Austin MBS Symposium 2019 "Keeping it Cool in Austin: Cryo-EM Comes to UT" (August 2019); Invited speaker in the session “Recent Developments in Structural Biology” at the 2019 ACS National Meeting, San Diego, CA (August 2019); Invited speaker at the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting (virtual, Dec. 2020); Invited speaker at the George Witman Symposium (virtual, Jan. 2021); Invited speaker in the 2021 Keystone Symposia on Frontiers in Cryo-Electron Microscopy (virtual, Feb. 2021); HIV Structural Biology Virtual Meeting (NIAID) (virtual, June 2021); Invited speaker at the Win Sale Symposium at Emory University, Atlanta GA (March 2022); Invited speaker at the 6th Annual Symposium of The Protein Society, San Francisco, CA (July 2022); Invited speaker at the 9th International Conference on Electron Tomography, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands (September 2022); Invited speaker at the EMBO Cilia 2022, Cologne, Germany (Oct. 2022); Invited speaker at the 58th meeting of the Texas Society for Microscopy (March 2023)

Departmental Seminars: NIAMS/NIH, Bethesda, MD (2000); Zoological Colloquium, Munich, Germany (2000); National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, San Diego, CA (2001); Boulder Laboratory for 3-Dimensional Electron Microscopy of Cells, Boulder, CO (2001); Wadsworth Center, Albany, NY (2001); EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany (2003); Brandeis University, Boston, MA (2003); University of California at Berkeley, CA (2004); MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK (2005); University of Texas Medical School, Houston, TX (2005); University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX (2005); University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada (2006); Brandeis University, Boston, MA (2006); Boston University, Boston, MA (2007); University of Minnesota, MN (2008);Osborn Lecture at the University of Connecticut Health Center, CT (2008); Rudolf Virchow Center, University of Wuerzburg, Germany (2009); University of Wisconsin – Madison, WI (2009); University of Massachusetts Medical School – Worcester, MA (2010); Rocky Mountain Laboratories/NIAID/NIH, Hamilton, MT (2011); Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO (2011); Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD (2011); University of Pennsylvania – Philadelphia, PA (2012); Pulmonary Center at Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA (2013); Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR (2013); University of Vermont, VT (2013); Seminar at HHMI Janelia Farm (2013); Seminar at Purdue, IN (2014); Seminar at University of Pennsylvania – Philadelphia, PA (May 2014); Seminar at University of Texas South Western Medical Center, TX (2014); Seminar at University of Colorado in Boulder; Seminar at University of Georgia, Atlanta, GA (September 2014); Seminar in the Cellular Dynamics seminar series, Harvard, MA (March 2015); Invited speaker at the inaugural symposium of the cryo-EM facility at UTSW (April 2016); Seminar at the Cell Biology Physiology Center at the NIH, Bethesda, MD (May 2016); Invited speaker at the inaugural symposium of the cryo-EM facility at UMass (Oct. 2016); Seminar at University of Illinois, Chicago (January 2017); Seminar at University of Vienna, Austria (June 2017); Seminar at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Microbiology Dept., TX (Sept. 2017); Seminar at the University of Freiburg, Germany (Jan. 2018); Seminar at the ETH Zuerich, Switzerland (Jan. 2018); Seminar at Yale University, New Haven, CT (Oct. 2018); Seminar at the Texas Woman’s University, Biology Department, Denton TX (Nov. 2018); Seminar at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Green Center for Systems Biology, Dallas, TX (Febr. 2019); Seminar at the School of Life Sciences at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (April 2019); Seminar at the Florida State University, Department of Biological Science, Tallahassee, FL (Febr. 2020); Seminar at the Rosalind Franklin Institute, Harwell, UK (virtual, Oct. 2021); President's Lecture at UT Southwestern (virtual, Oct. 2021); Seminar at University of Massachusetts (virtual, Nov. 2021); Seminar at Harvard Medical School, BCMP Department, Boston, MA (virtual, Nov. 2021); Seminar at Columbia University, New York, NY (virtual, Feb. 2022); Seminar at IGBMC, Illkirch, France (Oct. 2022); Invited David Mitchell Endowed Lecture, SUNY, Upstate Medical University, MY (May 2023)

Instructional activities: IMOD workshop, Boulder, Colorado (2003, 2004); Cryo-EM Workshops at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California (2003); Guest lecturer at Cold-Spring Harbor Laboratories (2006); Workshop Speaker at the CBS/Imaging Center and MRSEC at the University of Minnesota (2008); EMBO electron tomography workshop in Leiden, Netherlands (2009); Workshop on 3D Solutions in Cryo-Electron Microscopy in Barcelona, Spain (2013)