IISAGE fosters interdisciplinary science by bringing together experts from diverse biological fields, such as genetics, physiology, and evolutionary biology. Through collaborative efforts, IISAGE promotes cross-disciplinary research, organizes workshops at national conferences, and engages with the broader scientific community. By facilitating partnerships across institutions and supporting outreach programs, IISAGE integrates multiple perspectives to advance understanding of how sex influences aging across species and biological systems. Meet the scientists who make our institute possible:
Lead Investigator
Dr. Nicole Riddle, PhD | Institute Director, UAB
Dr. Nicole Riddle is a Professor and the Associate Chair for Research and Facilities at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Research in her lab focuses on how differences in genomic architecture, such as genome size and heterochromatin content, impact sex differences in aging using Drosophila Melanogaster (fruit fly) as a model. Currently, her lab is manipulating genome content, heterochromatin amount, DNA repair pathways, and more to define their role in sex-specific aging. Dr. Riddle serves as our Institute Director and co-lead of our research division.
Principal Investigators
Dr. Anne Bronikowski, PhD | Co-PI, Michigan State University
Dr. Anne Bronikowski is an evolutionary biologist and Professor for the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on understanding the macroevolutionary patterns of sex-specific aging. Her research is conducted on species with varying sex chromosomes, sex determination, and sex-specific lifespans such as squamates, turtles, and archosaurs. Dr. Bronikowski serves as co-lead of our research division.
Dr. Peggy Biga, PhD | Co-PI, UAB
Dr. Peggy Biga is a comparative endocrine physiologist and Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). In her lab, she studies the genetic, epigenetic, and physiological differences between old/young male and female populations in fish species such as Danio rerio (zebrafish). Dr. Biga is also the director of our outreach division which focuses on integrating broader communities into IISAGE scientific efforts through citizen science targeted at pet hobbyists (see SNAP), after-school programs, and museum visitors.
Dr. Gerald Wilkinson, PhD | Co-PI, University of Maryland
Dr. Gerald Wilkinson is an evolutionary geneticist and Professor at the University of Maryland. His research focuses on sex-specific differences in several species of bat such as Eptesicus fuscus (big brown bats). In doing this, his lab samples wild bat populations along thermal clines to determine if certain environmental conditions alter sex differences in aging among these species. Dr. Wilkinson is also the director of our Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, a paid summer internship that provides first hand research training for undergraduate students.
Dr. Erica Larschan, PhD | Co-PI, Brown University
Dr. Erica Larschan is an Associate Professor of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown University. Her research manipulates dosage compensation in the species Drosophila Melanogaster (fruit flies) to investigate their aging phenotypes in comparison to wild-type animal populations. Our Training division is also led by Dr. Larschan, who oversees programs such as our Leadership & Professional Development Academy, REU program, and mentor training.
Dr. Ritambhara Singh, PhD | Co-PI, Brown University
Dr. Ritambhara Singh is an Associate Professor of the Computer Science and Data Science institute at Brown University. Her lab implements machine learning (ML) approaches to develop hypotheses for which cellular pathways drive sex differences in aging. As co-director of our Interlaboratory Travel Fellowship program, Dr. Singh provides short-term travel grants for trainees to participate in cross-disciplinary training in our various IISAGE laboratories across the US.
Dr. Ashley Webb, PhD | Co-PI, The Buck Institute for Research on Aging
Dr. Ashley Webb is a brain aging expert and Associate Professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Her research investigates the transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms that underlie sex differences in brain aging in mammals. As co-director of our Interlaboratory Travel Fellowship program, Dr. Webb provides short-term travel grants for trainees to participate in cross-disciplinary training in our various IISAGE laboratories across the US.
Dr. Ellie Duan, PhD | Co-PI, Cornell University
Dr. Ellie Duan is an Assistant Professor of Functional Genomics at Cornell University. Her lab conducts comparative transcriptomic analysis of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) among cattle, humans, and mice. The results of these analyses will feed into a machine learning (ML) system to identify evolutionarily conserved and taxon-specific drivers of sex-specific aging. Dr. Duan is also the co-director of our Technology Infrastructure division, which supervises all data sharing within our institute as well as managing our sample database.
Dr. Richard Meisel, PhD | Co-PI, University of Houston
Dr. Richard Meisel is an Associate Professor for the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Houston. A key component of his research is the study of how sex chromosomes affect sex differences in aging, including comparing Y chromosome differences in species such as Musca domestica (housefly).
Dr. Tony Gamble, PhD | Co-PI, Marquette University
Dr. Tony Gamble is an Associate Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Marquette University. His research investigates how genome differences among species, e.g. sex chromosomes and DNA methylation, impact sex differences in aging using the species Hemidactylus turcicus (house geckos) as a model. Dr. Gamble is also the co-director of our Technology Infrastructure division, which supervises all data sharing within our institute as well as managing our sample database.
Dr. Jamie Walters, PhD | Co-PI, University of Kansas
Dr. Jamie Walters is an Assistant Professor of Evolutionary Genomics Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Kansas. His research investigates the sex-specific differences in aging in various species of Lepidoptera (moths).
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Jamie Marks, PhD | Postdoctoral Researcher
Jamie Marks is a postdoctoral research associate in Dr. Anne Bronikowski’s lab at Michigan State University. Currently, she is studying sex-based differences in mitochondrial function between turtles and geckos of various ages.
Dr. Martina Dalikova, PhD | Postdoctoral Researcher
Martina Dalikova is a postdoctoral research associate in Dr. Jamie Walter’s lab at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on the differences in aging between sexes in selected moth species and butterfly species, namely differences in the expression and regulation of protein-coding genes and transposable elements.
Dr. Jack Rayner, PhD | Postdoctoral Researcher
Jack Rayner is a postdoctoral research associate in Dr. Gerald Wilkinson‘s lab at the University of Maryland. Currently, he is identifying differentially expressed genes with age and sex in greater spear-nosed bats.
Dr. Eric Randolph, PhD | Postdoctoral Researcher
Eric Randolph is a postdoctoral research associate in Dr. Peggy Biga’s lab and Dr. Nicole Riddle’s lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is currently investigating commonalities in sex-specific transcriptional changes related to aging between the species Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) and fish species such as Xiphophorus.
Dr. Gunjan Singh, PhD | Postdoctoral Researcher
Gunjan Singh is a postdoctoral research associate in Dr. Ritambhara Singh’s lab at Brown University. She is currently looking into sex-specific differences during aging and neurodegeneration in fruit flies. She has a PhD in Cancer Biology from Banaras Hindu University, where she studied the molecular mechanisms of tumor suppression and stress response in Drosophila.
Dr. Kaitlyn Hajdarovic, PhD | Postdoctoral Researcher
Kaitlyn Hajdarovic is a postdoctoral research associate in Dr. Ashley Webb’s lab at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Currently, she is developing a new cell reprogramming platform to study aging in the hypothalamus.
Dr. Louis Paul Decena, PhD | Postdoctoral Researcher
Louis Paul Decena a postdoctoral research associate in the Dr. Bronikowski lab at KBS, MSU. He is working in understanding how chromatin accessibility changes through aging and the differences between the sexes of two populations of garter snakes.
Dr. Yesbol Manat, PhD | Postdoctoral Researcher
Yesbol Manat is a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Richard Meisel’s lab at the University of Houston. He studies sex chromosomes and sex differences in aging in house flies. More specifically, he investigates how genotype (e.g., sex chromosome) and environmental factors (e.g., temperature, mating, interactions) jointly affect sex-specific aging.
Dr. Samantha Bock, PhD | Postdoctoral Researcher
Samantha Bock is a post-doctoral researcher in Dr. Anne Bronikowski’s lab at Michigan State University. Her research is focused on understanding the genomic, endocrine, and environmental contributions to sex-specific aging in reptiles (e.g., turtles) with different modes of sex determination. She is especially interested in the mechanisms by which sex-specific life histories emerge in species with environmental sex determination.
Graduate Students
Yifei Fang | PhD Student
Yifei Fang is a PhD student in Dr. Ellie Duan’s lab at Cornell University. She is currently conducting cross-species comparative transcriptomic analysis of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) among cattle, humans, and mice across different pluripotency levels. Through this, her lab has been able to identify both shared gene expression patterns and unique variations specific to each species.
Guangsheng Li | PhD Student
Guangsheng Li is a PhD student in Dr. Ellie Duan’s lab at Cornell University. His research focuses on functional genomics in dairy cows, including transcriptome regulation under heat stress and during early embryo development.
Ananya Pavuluri | PhD Student
Ananya Pavuluri is a PhD student in Dr. Erica Larschan’s lab and Dr. Ritambhara Singh’s lab at Brown University. She is currently using a machine learning (ML) model to investigate sex-specific hypothalamic aging in young/old mice.
Doudou Yu | PhD Student
Doudou Yu is a PhD student at Brown University and is a visiting student in Dr. Ashley Webb’s lab at The Buck Institute. Currently, she is using single-cell omics and computational approaches to investigate how the hypothalamus alters with brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease.
Ryan Cook | PhD Student
Ryan Cook is a PhD student in Dr. Tony Gamble’s lab at Marquette University. He is currently using comparative phylogenetic methods, such as phylogenetic generalized least squares analysis, to identify the processes that govern the evolution of sex-specific aging.
Sohana Al Sanjee | PhD Student
Sohana Al Sanjee is a PhD student in Meisel lab at University of Houston. She is studying sex differences in aging in house flies and their microbiomes.
Calvin Belton | PhD Student
Calvin Belton is a PhD student in James Walter’s lab at the University of Kansas (KU). His research pertains to studying the effects heterogametic sex chromosomes have on the aging process, using study species within the Lepidopteran order. This research will increase our understanding of how sex and sex chromosomes impact the aging process within all organisms.
Kaitlyn Cortez | PhD Student
Kaitlyn Cortez is a PhD student in Erica Larschan’s lab at Brown University. Her research involves investigating the role of dosage compensation throughout development and aging in Drosophila.
Esra Taner | PhD student
Esra Taner is a PhD student in Erica Larschan’s laboratory at Brown University. Her research involves creating bioinformatics pipelines to characterize sex-based differences in models of tauopathy in Drosophila.
Denise Horner | Master’s Student and Lab Tech
Denise Horner is a graduate student and lab technician in Dr. Nicole Riddle’s lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is currently working on studying sex differences in aging and how the body responds during gene knockdown of SOD1, SOD2, and p53 using Drosophila melanogaster. She also maintains and cares for the lab’s stock inventory, provides support for the lab’s functionality, as well as assisting in other projects.
Tristan Young | Master’s Student
Tristan Young is a graduate student in Dr. Nicole Riddle’s lab at UAB. He is currently studying how sex-specific aging responds to altered heterochromatin differences between the sexes in the species Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies).
Hailey Romero | Master’s Student
Hailey Romero is a graduate student in Dr. Erica Larschan’s lab at Brown University. She is currently investigating the role of dosage compensation in sex-specific aging of the brain alongside Dr. Gunjan Singh.
AJ Lonski | Master’s Student
AJ Lonski is a graduate student in Dr. Erica Larschan’s lab at Brown University.
Noor Yousuf | Master’s Student
Noor Yousuf is a graduate student in Dr. Peggy Biga’s lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is working on determining sex-specific epigenetic aging in Danio rerio and Xiphophorus multilineatus using methyl-seq, ATAC-seq, and RNA-seq.
Abby Quimby | Master’s Student
Abby Quimby is a graduate student in Dr. Peggy Biga’s lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is working on fish in Xiphophorus species to compare growth type across sex and evaluating this by tracking the expression of Pax3 and Pax7 in skeletal muscle.
Undergraduate Students
Addesyn Aderogba | Undergraduate Researcher
Addesyn Aderogba is an undergraduate trainee in Dr. Peggy Biga’s lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is currently analyzing sex and age specific metabolic differences in Danio rerio (zebrafish).
Rachel Ferris | Undergraduate Researcher
Rachel Ferris is an undergraduate trainee in Dr. Nicole Riddle’s lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is currently studying the role of the Polycomb system in aging in the species Drosophila Melanogaster (fruit fly).
Alex Sills | Undergraduate Researcher
Alex Sills is an undergraduate trainee in Dr. Anne Bronikowski’s lab at Michigan State University.
Cailin Kessen | Undergraduate Researcher
Cailin Kessen is an undergraduate trainee in Dr. Jamie Walter’s lab at The University of Kansas. She is currently working with Dr. Walters on Lepidoptera biology to determine whether male or female moths live longer.
Nate Nigrin | Undergraduate Researcher
Nate Nigrin is an undergraduate trainee in Dr. Erica Larschan’s lab at Brown University. His work is currently focused on dosage compensation and the genetic basis of sex-based aging differences in male and female Drosophila.
Abigail Fox | Undergraduate Researcher
Abigail Fox is an undergraduate trainee in Dr. Nicole Riddle’s lab. They are currently performing a cross-species comparison of Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila virilis to investigate the effects of genome size and composition in sex-specific aging in Drosophila.
Technicians
Tru Hubbard | Lab Technician, Marquette University
Tru Hubbard is a laboratory technician in Dr. Tony Gamble’s lab at Marquette University.
Administrative Team
Jordan Favors | Program Manager
Jordan Favors serves as the institutes Program Manager. She works closely with the Principal Investigators (PIs) and the Executive Committee to implement the training, outreach, and research programs of the institute. She provides support for the organization of workshops, arranges travel for participants, advertises events and training programs, processes applications, and assists with the administration of the IISAGE website.
Dr. Rose Shaw | External Evaluator
Dr. Rose Shaw serves as the external evaluator for IISAGE. She works closely with our institute’s leaders to develop assessment metrics for our training and outreach efforts. By conducting these evaluations, Dr. Shaw provides valuable feedback to project leaders, helping them identify strengths, areas for improvement, and any necessary adjustments to achieve our institutes’ objectives.
