Huijben lab Spring 2022
Past staff, post-docs, and grad students
Sergio Serrato – PhD candidate
Sergio is a Biology PhD Candidate in the School of Life Sciences. His research interests are 2-fold: #1) Understand how parasites regulate their growth rate when starting at different densities and #2) Investigate the impact antimalarial drug usage has on the competitive interactions between drug resistant and susceptible malaria parasites. The main goal of these projects is to improve our understanding of parasite biology and determine whether resistant management strategies can suppress the spread of resistant parasites.
Ashlyn Maag – Laboratory technician
Ashlyn has been in the lab since Fall 2023 as an undergraduate student, joining while taking the CURE course. She works with Don Ward, previously assisting with the rearing of field-caught Culex mosquitoes, and performing DNA extractions and PCR on Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. After graduation, we were lucky enough that she wanted to stay in the lab as a technician, where she now helps with our molecular research and being an overall amazing help whereever needed.
Mackenna Berg – MSc student (graduated 2026)
Since the summer of 2022, Mackenna has been working as an undergraduate researcher in the lab. Her project focuses on assessing insecticide resistance in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Maricopa County by detecting kdr mutations, specifically focusing on the V1016I and F1534C loci. Now, as an accelerated Master’s student, she obtained a PacVec training grant to expand her research to investigate insecticide resistance in Culex tarsalis.
Brook Jensen – PhD candidate (graduated 2024)
Brook explores the phenotypic trade-offs of insecticide (knock down) resistance within Aedes aegypti through resistance profiling (using topical bioassay application) and life history trait measurements. Additionally, she is comparing the efficacy of resistance management strategies (i.e., low-dose and high-dose-refugee vs. no dose and high-dose) across multiple generations. Collectively, her work can be used to improve insecticide resistance modeling and inform future resistance management strategies.
Xyonane Segovia – PhD candidate (graduated 2024)
Xyonane investigates the complex dynamics of malaria infections through an ecological lens. She aims to understand these ecological interactions within malaria infections as this knowledge could lead to effective strategies to manage antimalarial resistance. She examines within host parasite dynamics (through animal model data), explores the impacts of competition (through in vitro work), and elucidates the significance of a fitness cost (through extensive literature research).
Sarah Rydberg – Research specialist
Sarah supervises day-to-day activity in the mosquito insectary facility and molecular laboratory. She is an Arizona State University undergraduate alumni currently also working on her Masters degree. Sarah spends most of her time rearing numerous laboratory strains of Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus for ongoing research, training and assisting personnel, and performing other essential managerial tasks in-lab. Her current MSc research aims to examine whether insecticide resistance reversal in Aedes aegypti can be observed in the absence of insecticide pressure.
Rachel Althoff – MSc student (graduated 2022)
Rachel is an insect fanatic through and through and self-proclaimed to have taken care of beetles in her barbie house as a kid. Her MSc work focused on comparing CDC bottle assays, WHO tube tests and topical application bioassays and she graduated with an impressive two peer-reviewed publications from the lab.
Rebecca Smith Aguasca Laboratory manager
Rebecca is the savior of the lab. She has been the one doing all the heavy lifting of getting us started at ASU. Rebecca is responsible for the day-to-day smooth sailing of the lab, performs a large variety of molecular assays in the lab and in addition is heading a project on novel antimalarial resistance surveillance tools.
Smita Das Post-doc (co-supervised by Krijn Paaijmans)
Smita holds the dubious honor of first post-doc in the Huijben lab. She is a field work veteran. Smita currently works on the heterogeneity of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes in southern Mozambique.
Alice Namias
MSc student – Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris
Alice has been the lab’s pioneer in exploring our new field site in Guyana. In her master project she is working on insecticide resistance surveillance in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Georgetown, Guyana as well as analyzing the meaning of insecticide bioassays for intervention programs. Currently doing her PhD in Montpellier!
Mara Maquina Junior entomologist, CISM
Mara is our insecticide resistance expert overseas. She carries out all insecticide resistance bioassays for mosquitoes from both Magude and Manhiça districts (southern Mozambique), using WHO tube assays and the CDC bottle assays.