Lab Alumni

Brandon Moeller, BSc (Hons)

Brandon joined the lab in Sept 2017 as our lab’s very first undergraduate student! He first joined as a research experience student, and then completed a 12 month co-op project and an Honour’s thesis project with us. He helped set up many of the assays we now routinely use in the lab.

He is now a Registered Nurse. The avocado plant he left Lisa when he left Victoria is still going strong!

Courtney Gauthier, BSc (Hons)

Courtney joined our lab in May 2019, and completed a 12 month co-op undergraduate project with us. Her work focused on the role of eosinophils during homeostatic conditions, and on interactions between the microbiota and eosinophils.

Courtney is now a graduate student in Dr. Chris Nelson’s lab at UVic, which luckily for us, means we can still occasionally work with her on collaborative projects!

Andrew Robinson, BSc

Andrew joined our lab in January 2020 to complete a Directed Studies undergraduate project with us.

During his time in the lab Andrew contributed to our work to develop a neonatal model of oral tolerance. He is now a medical student.

Dongju (Peter) Shin, BSc

Dongju worked with us as an undergraduate research experience student from Sept 2019-April 2020. During this time he assisted with several ongoing projects in our lab, in particular helping with experiments to understand how the presence of helminths influences susceptibility to co-infection with bacterial pathogens.

Kate Lawrence, BSc

Kate was the first research technician in our lab, and so was instrumental in getting us fully up, running, and organized! She was in the lab from August 2018- August 2020, and kept the lab running smoothly while also working on research projects.

Kate now works at the BC Cancer Agency, Victoria.

Mia Kennedy, BSc (Hons)

Mia joined the lab in September 2018 as a research experience undergraduate student, and then completed an 8 month co-op and an Honour’s thesis project with us. After completing her undergraduate degree she then worked with us as a Research Technician until April 2021. 

Mia is now a medical student.

Kate Conway, BSc (Hons)

Kate joined our lab in September 2019 to complete her Honour’s thesis project with us. She then worked with us as a co-op student for a year on a collaborative project between our lab and Dr. Caroline Cameron’s laboratory. Her project investigated the potential for Treponema pallidum proteins to modulate host (human) immune responses.

Kate is now a medical student.

Dr. Tara Brosschot, BSc, MSc, PhD

Tara was the very first member of the Reynolds lab (except for Lisa), and the first PhD student to graduate from our lab! Tara joined the lab in 2017, and graduated in 2021. Tara was key to setting up the first research projects in the Reynolds lab. Her main focus in the lab was on understanding the mechanisms by which helminths can affect susceptibility to enteric bacterial infection.

Tara is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut Cochin, Paris, France.

Mariah Zafarullah

Mariah worked in our lab as a research experience undergraduate student from September 2021-April 2022. During this time she helped with several of our ongoing projects.

Jon Noone, BSc (Hons)

Jon joined our lab in May 2021 as an undergraduate co-op student, and then completed an Honour’s thesis project in our lab.

His work in our lab investigated the role of eosinophils during infection with the bacterial pathogen Salmonella.

Richard Cartwright

Richard joined our lab as an undergraduate co-op student in January 2022. During his time in our lab he contributed to two projects: one which aimed to understand the mechanisms of oral tolerance development during early life, and another which investigated the role of eosinophils during infection with the bacterial pathogen Salmonella.

Richard is now a dental student.

Kristina Anderson

Kristina worked with us between Sep 2021 and April 2022 as a work study undergraduate student, helping us to keep the lab organized and assisting with several of our ongoing experiments. She then completed a Directed Studies project with us in Fall 2022, where she was working to develop an in vitro model of helminth-bacteria coinfection.

Vicka Pluzhnikova

Vicka worked with us between September 2021 and June 2023, and held a variety of positions during that time.  Vicka first joined our team as a research experience undergraduate student, and then completed a 4 month co-op position and completed her Honour’s thesis project in our lab. She then became our lab technician, helping to keep the lab organized while continuing her research projects.

Vicka’s main research project while in our lab was investigating how a metabolite we have found to be present in high abundance during helminth infection (isovalerate), affects the small intestinal epithelium.

Vicka is now a medical student.

Isabella Kroker Kimber

Isabella worked with us between Summer 2022 and Summer 2023, first as a research experience student, then as an Honour’s thesis student, and then as a full time summer co-op student, supported by an NSERC award. 

Isabella’s main focus during her time in the lab was working on a project to understand the effects of microbiota perturbations during pregnancy on neonates.  She also did a lot of work collecting preliminary data for various other projects in our lab, too!

Isabella is now a medical student.

Braden Kersey

Braden joined our lab in the Summer 2023 as a Research Experience student, and continued on working with us as a Directed Studies student in Fall 2023, where he worked to test whether certain metabolites impact the circadian rhythms of gut immune responses.

Braden is starting graduate studies at UBC in Fall 2024.

Chloe Hand

Chloe joined our lab in the Summer 2023 as an undergraduate co-op student, supported by a TRIANGLE CONNECT award (TRIANGLE program). Chloe then completed her Honours Thesis with us from Fall 2023-Spring 2024.

Her work in our lab aimed to understand how helminth infection changes the availability of immunomodulatory metabolites in the gut; working to define effects mediated by the helminth itself, and effects mediated by a helminth-modified bacterial microbiota.

Liam Hoogewerf

Liam joined our team in the Summer 2023 to complete a Directed Studies project with us, and continued on to completed his Honours Thesis with us from Fall 2023-Spring 2024.

His project investigated the cell types and mechanisms involved in controlling T cell development during postnatal development.

Mareya Valeva

Mareya completed a collaborative Honours Thesis project with our lab and with Dr. Leigh Anne Swayne’s lab, from Fall 2023-Spring 2024.

Mareya’s work aimed to understand how exposure to microbes early in life impacts brain development.

Erik Jensen

Erik worked with us as our lab technician between Summer 2023 and 2024.  

He helped with several of our ongoing research projects, alongside keeping our lab organized and running smoothly.