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

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)