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Dr. Sihan Bu Sihan is a Research Associate/Postdoc in the lab working on the 16s libraries preparations on Kenai fish gut samples and microbial community analyses. She earned a Ph.D. in Human Nutrition from Michigan State University in 2023. She investigated the mediating role of infant gut microbiota in the relationship between infant feeding patterns and infant neurodevelopmental outcomes during her PhD study. Dr. Bu earned a M.S. in Human Nutrition from Michigan State University and a B.S. in Food Hygiene and Nutrition from Jilin Medical University, China. |
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Holly Valentine
Holly Valentine is the manager of the Stickleback Stock Center. |
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Nataly Vargas
Nataly joined the lab in September 2024 as a Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureate (RaMP) student. She worked with Dr. Sihan Bu on the assembly, analysis, and comparison of three Aeromonas veronii strains from Alaskan freshwater and anadromous threespine stickleback fishes. She earned a B.S in General Biology with a minor in Health Professions from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in May 2024. Nataly currently works as a lab manager and research technician, focusing on trout microbiome dynamics. |
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Devan Chancey
Devan joined the lab in January of 2026 and is a PhD student from south-central Pennsylvania. She earned her bachelor's degree in microbiology from Pennsylvania State University in Spring of 2025. In her undergraduate career, she studied the rhizobia-legume symbiosis focusing on the co-inhabitation of alfalfa nodule with two different genera of rhizobia. She also worked on functional genomic projects with rhizobia to understand their molecular and morphological characteristics. Continuing her interests in environmental microbiology, Devan’s doctoral work will focus on microbe-microbe interactions in the Rainbow Trout (Oncorhyncus mykiss) that inhibit common trout pathogens, and mechanism of inhibition. |
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Maria Lovallo
Maria is a PhD student from central Pennsylvania. She earned her bachelor's degree in Microbiology with a minor in Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology from the Pennsylvania State University in Spring of 2025. As an undergraduate, she developed and led a project investigating the role of the microbiome in flight performance of Drosophila melanogaster. Promoting her interests in host-microbiome interactions in the context of disease, Maria’s doctoral work will focus on microbiome-mediated immunity in Rainbow Trout (Oncorhyncus mykiss), and the roles of environment and ecology in this symbiotic system. |
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Sarah Pasqualetti
Sarah is a PhD Candidate who joined the lab in December 2021. She is interested in studying whether microbes from the threespine stickleback gut can degrade plastics and how microbial interactions influence degradation processes. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Molecular and Cell Biology, with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Connecticut in 2021. Before attending UConn, Sarah worked at Essilor of America, where she worked with the global engineering department to develop polar laminates for eyeglasses by assessing color stability and material integrity throughout the production process.
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Megan Teigen
Megan joined the lab in January 2024. She earned her B.S. in Biology from Saint Martin’s University and her M.S. in Biology from Cal Poly Humboldt. Her previous research used the carnivorous plant Darlingtonia californica as a model to study microbial community assembly, successional dynamics, and microbiome–nutrient processing interactions in rare California flora. For her doctoral work, she has shifted to a host–microbe animal system, using threespine stickleback to investigate how gut microbiome assembly, composition, and function intersect with host immune activity. |
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Caroline Vieira Da Silva Caroline was born in Brazil and earned her B.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of Tampa in 2020. As an undergraduate, she received both SURF and URI research grants, through which she investigated exosomes derived from umbilical cord stem cells. She is now a Ph.D. candidate in the Molecular and Cell Biology Department at UConn, concentrating in Microbiology. Continuing her passion for extracellular vesicle biology, her doctoral research focuses on characterizing bacterial extracellular vesicles and the role of a surface layer protein as a potential colonization factor in Aeromonas veronii strain Hv21.
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| Ayla Goldstein
Ayla is a senior undergraduate student from Connecticut and joined the lab in January 2025. She is majoring in Animal Science, minoring in Molecular and Cell Biology, and is on the pre-veterinary track. In her last semester, under Carol’s mentorship, Ayla will investigate the presence and characteristics of the aerolysin gene in Aeromoas veronii to better understand the impact the gene has on biofilm formation. |
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| Grace Harkins
Grace is a sophomore undergraduate from Connecticut. She is majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology and minoring in Political Science. She joined the lab in September 2025 and is excited to learn more about host-microbiome interactions. |
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Kaya Patel
Kaya is a sophomore undergraduate student from Connecticut. She is majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology, minoring in Physiology and Neurobiology, and is on the pre-med track. She joined the lab in September 2025, and this semester will be helping Sihan investigate and write about gut microbiota in threespine stickleback as well as use R analysis to further examine data from current projects.
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| Victoria Rosario Victoria Rosario has been with the lab since 2025. She is working with graduate student Sarah Pasqualetti, studying how microbes that can break down plastics interact with each other. She plans on graduating in May of 2026 |
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Dr. Kat Milligan-McClellan, Principal Investigator Dr. Kat has broad expertise in microbiology, including pathogenic and symbiotic microbes. As an undergrad and as a lab technician, she helped describe environmental and genetic factors that regulate toxin production in Staphylococcus aureus. For her PhD thesis she identified and characterized genes and their products necessary for an obligate intracellular parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, to establish infections in host brains. She expanded her exploration of host-microbe interactions during her postdoctoral training at the University of Oregon, where, working with a team of talented research associates, undergraduate students, and fellow postdoctoral fellows, she established stickleback as a model to examine how host genetic background contributes to host immune responses to intestinal microbiota. She was trained in host immune response to microbes, and examined how the host background contributes to the ability of the host to shape the intestinal microbiota. During these studies, she built collaborations across two institutions and three universities, and mentored ten undergraduate and graduate students.Dr. Kat’s long term career goal is to combine the experiences she had as an Inupiaq earning a PhD and the expertise she gained in multiple research fields into a flourishing career as a mentor and professor. Kat was raised in a remote community above the Arctic Circle that was 80% Alaskan Native. She was the first person in her village to earn a PhD in biological sciences and the first Indigenous student at UW-Madison to earn a PhD in Microbiology. While in school, she was struck by the scarcity of females and people from historically excluded backgrounds in science. As a result, she is committed to making the academic research field a welcoming environment for minorities.Dr. Kat is an active member in both scientific and Native communities. She taught Alaskan Native games to students and community members at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Oregon (UO). At UW-Madison she was active in the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) and Wunk Sheek. At UO she was active in the Native American Strategies group, a group of faculty, staff and students that shaped Indigenous issues on campus. She worked extensively with the Diversity Director and the UO Native American community, staff, students and faculty to develop a new program for recruiting Alaska Natives and Native Americans (AN/NA) into science (Alaska Oregon Research Training Alliance, AORTA). She collaborated with Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon to support an intense college preparation summer program (Bridge of the Gods Summer Academy, BOGSA). As an instructor for BOSGA, she taught Native American high school students Introduction to Microbiology for two weeks every summer to prepare them for the rigors of college and to show them that they can be successful in science classes. Dr. Kat continued to build relationships between the University of Oregon and the University of Alaska Anchorage, and between the UAA and the Alaskan Native/Native American community to recruit and support AN/NA students in science, technology, engineering and mathematical fields through ANSEP, Della Keats Health Sciences Summer Program, and UAA STEM day. Dr. Kat joined UConn in the midst of the pandemic, which has affected her ability to do outreach. However, she is active in the Native community on campus and is a member of the Native American Indigenous Studies within the Department of Social and Critical Inquiry. She teaches a class on Historically Excluded and Underrepresented Scientists in the fall and Host Associated Microbes in the spring.Dr. Kat’s ResearchgateDr. Kat’s SciENcv |