Kurt Lienau is a PhD student at NYU interested in the evolution of infectious disease. He is currently involved in a genome sequencing effort  aimed at understanding the evolution of a “pathogenicity island” found in the genomes of several disease – causing bacteria. He received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Cornell University and spent three years working at a research associate for Eppendorf 5 Prime, as biotechnology company devoted to DNA and RNA purification products. He is currently listed as a co-inventor on a patent-pending nucleic acid purification process. Besides doing science, Kurt enjoys skiing, fly fishing golf and creative writing.

Martine Zilversmit recently completed her Biology MS degree at NYU studying the molecular evolution and systematics of Drosophila.  She is currently pursuing her doctorate at Harvard studying the co-evolution of malaria pathogens and their human hosts. Before beginning her graduate work Martine received her BA in Anthropology from Oberlin College where she studied paleoanthropology and paleopathology.  She continued this research
for four years afterwards working in the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History.   From this position she began to do research in the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology at AMNH on small mammal evolution, and then came to the Molecular Systematics Laboratory where she did her Master’s research.

Daniela Calcagnotto is a post doctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History working with a group of Brazilian fishes that comprise the carnivorous piranhas and fruit eating fishes. Daniela received her PhD from the University of São Paulo (Brazil) working with fish population genetics. During the first year as a post doctoral fellow she developed a microsatellite library to further assess the population structure of a Brazilian fish species. Currently she is involved in a collaboration project with the AMNH Ichthyology department to study the phylogenetic relationships of a group of fishes distributed in Africa and in the Neotropics. Daniela is also interested in molecular evolution and in biogeography.