Current Lab Members

Tom Clandinin

Professor, Neurobiology

Jesse Isaacman-Beck

Postdoctoral Fellow

Jesse received his B.S. in Chemistry from Haverford College in 2004. After a brief stint teaching Chemistry with Peace Corps Tanzania, he worked with Dr. Ronald Collman at the University of Pennsylvania to define the cell and molecular mechanisms underlying HIV transmission and associated pathogenesis in the brain. In graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, he changed focus to work with Dr. Michael Granato to determine how nerves regenerate in vivo. He spent hours/days/weeks/years mesmerized in front of the microscope staring at larval zebrafish as their nerves (sometimes) regrew. In the Clandinin lab, Jesse currently uses the exquisite genetic tools available in Drosophila to define the molecular mechanisms governing neural circuit stability. Jesse also loves to teach and mentor, and he advocates for Stanford Postdocs with the Stanford Postdoc Association. When he needs to get away, he hops on his bicycle and tries to chase younger guys like John and older guys like Tom up mountains – usually he can’t keep up.

Kevin Mann

Postdoctoral Fellow

Kevin received his B.S. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2004. There he studied calcium regulation of Nitric Oxide Synthase under Dr. Susan Smith and Dr. John Salerno. He then switched fields and began studying Drosophila courtship behavior with Dr. Claudio Pikielny at Dartmouth. He performed his PhD research in the lab of Dr. Kristin Scott at UC Berkeley, where he worked on the regulation of feeding behavior and behavioral hierarchies in Drosophila. Kevin currently studies Drosophila magnetosensation and functional network architecture in the Drosophila brain in Dr. Thomas Clandinin’s lab. In his other life, he manages a team that builds and displays neural network-inspired art installations and blows stuff up.

Ashley Smart

Postdoctoral Fellow

Ashley received her B.A. in neuroscience from Pomona College in 2010. There, with Dr. Karl Johnson, she looked at fly embryos to figure out how glycoproteins help axons navigate through a constantly changing, developing organism to end up in the right location. After a few months in the lab she was so amazed with how something so complex could work that she decided to go to graduate school. In graduate school in neuroscience at UCSF she wanted to understand how caspases (the ultimate cell destroyers) could be active in neurons without killing them. She went deep into protein biology and engineered a light-activated Caspase-3 that she then used on Drosophila test subjects under the guidance of Dr. Jim Wells and Dr. Grae Davis. Now in the Clandinin lab, she is excited to be expanding out from molecules to work toward understanding the brain at a circuit level. 
Outside of lab she likes to spend some time drawing and painting, running, playing board games, and exploring. 

Max Turner

Postdoctoral Fellow

Max was an undergraduate at the University of Iowa, where he worked with Alan Kay to study the structure and function of the cerebral ventricles in zebrafish. He then entered the graduate program in Neuroscience at the University of Washington in Seattle. There he worked in Fred Rieke’s lab to study neural computation and coding in the vertebrate retina. His Ph.D. dissertation research focused on spatial processing of natural images by monkey retinal ganglion cells. In the Clandinin lab, Max is interested in exploring the neural circuit basis of complex visual receptive fields in Drosophila. Outside of the lab, Max likes to go on muddy hikes and look at the ocean.

Ryan York

Postdoctoral Fellow


Luke Brezovec

Graduate Student

Luke received his B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Penn State in 2015, and started his PhD in the Stanford Neurosciences program in 2016. He was attracted to neuroscience by its exciting molecular and cellular questions, and is now also exploring systems neuroscience. Currently, he hopes to use in vivo calcium imaging and virtual reality to ask questions about late stage visual processing in Drosophila. Luke's other passion is landscape and architecture photography; he earned a B.A. in Integrative Arts at Penn State and now enjoys photographing the California landscape.

Theresa Logan-Garbisch

Graduate Student

Theresa graduated from San Jose State University in Spring 2013 with a B.S. in Molecular Biology and started the Neuroscience PhD program at Stanford that fall. Her undergraduate work got her interested in the interplay of genetics and environment during development, which heavily influenced her choice of primary research project in the Clandinin lab. Theresa is looking at the effects of miniaturization on the nervous system - specifically, how does a brain with fewer and smaller cells get wired? 
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Michelle Pang

Graduate Student

Michelle is interested in understanding sensory processing at the cellular and molecular level. Currently, she is using in vivo two-photon imaging, genetically-encoded indicators of neural activity, and cell type-specific genetic manipulations to study neurons in the early Drosophila visual system. Prior to graduate school, Michelle received her B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology (Neurobiology track) and Linguistics from UC Berkeley in 2013, and she studied magnetotactic bacteria in Dr. Arash Komeili's lab at Berkeley. Outside of lab, Michelle likes learning new languages and working with kids.​

John Vaughen

Graduate Student

Birth and death, cooperation and competition, maintenance and decay— the unending cellular drama unfolding within us and all living things is truly spectacular to behold. John first fell into this microscopic world as an undergraduate researcher at Sally Horne-Badovinac’s lab (University of Chicago). He then fled the country for a 1.5-year research stint at Tatsushi Igaki’s lab (University of Kyoto) and identified genetic programs regulating cell-cell competition and cancer (see here). John is now captivated by neurons: how are post-mitotic, metabolically active cells maintained throughout life, and what underlies the seemingly inevitable decline of neuron function as we age? By studying genes critical to human neurodegeneration using flies, John hopes to identify fundamental genetic and cellular mechanisms of neuron homeostasis. Outside of lab, John works as an English and technical writing tutor through Stanford’s VPGE and TCP programs, respectively. John suffers from debilitating addictions to biking up mountains and flying back to his beloved Kyoto.

Carl Wienecke

Graduate Student

Carl joined the Clandinin lab in 2016. He uses in vivo, 2-photon imaging of genetically-encoded voltage and calcium indicators to study circuit mechanisms of direction selectivity in the Drosophila visual system. When he's not looking at flies looking, Carl likes to spend time with his wife and their dog, both of whom have visual systems. ​

Estela Stephenson

Lab Manager

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Leland Owens

Technician

Leland received his Bachelor of Science at the University California, Santa Cruz in 2013, majoring in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. He previously worked with Professor John Tamkun at UCSC, studying chromatin remodeler binding dynamics in Drosophila with confocal microscopy. After completing his undergraduate project, he joined the Clandinin lab in 2014 and is currently generating and characterizing new enhancer trap fly lines for the InSITE Project (Gohl et al. 2011). Outside of the lab, Leland enjoys playing basketball, gardening, and exploring the local music, hiking, and culinary scenes.

Kristine Paik

Technician

​Kristine graduated from Brandeis University in 2017 with a B.S. in Biology and minor in Chemistry. At Brandeis, she studied Drosophila olfactory learning and memory with regard to a specific set of dopaminergic neurons. Kristine is currently aiding with developing sparsening construct and recombinant flies.

Sabera Talukder

Undergraduate Researcher
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Sabera Talukder is a rising senior at Stanford University pursuing a double major with honors in electrical engineering and biochemistry.  She is culminating research on designing an electrostatic precipitator to reduce respiratory death in rural environments, and is currently working on how to implant visual memories into fruit flies. In the past, Sabera created the largest hardware model of the brain using neurogrid, and designed, built and deployed sub-$25, solar powered, water purification systems in daycares for street children in Dhaka. Sabera’s scientific explorations have afforded her the opportunity to be 1 of 5 international Google Science Fair finalists, to present her work to science icons like Vint Cerf, and to be a guest on Science Friday with Ira Flatow. Sabera also enjoys singing and dancing, and played the role of Nina in the musical production of In The Heights at Stanford in the spring, and was a part of Los Salseros de Stanford, the Stanford salsa dancing group, during her sophomore year.

David Zimmerman

Undergraduate Researcher

David is a physics major (with a minor in classics), and he intends to pursue a career in basic science. He is studying the transcriptional response to activity in the fly brain.