Meet Our Team

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

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CYNTHIA SILVEIRA

​Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
University of Miami
+1 305 284 6220
[email protected]
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JORDAN WALKER

POSTDOC

Jordan has a B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University at Galveston, as well as a B.B.A from the University of St. Thomas - Houston. At Texas A&M, Jordan studied the impact of extreme weather on virus-host interactions in estuaries, oysters, and freshwater lakes. His work in the Silveira lab focuses on how bacteriophages affect the metabolisms of purple and green sulfur bacteria.
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ALLIE STIFFLER

PHD CANDIDATE

Allie has a B.S in Genetics and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Purdue University. As an undergrad, she was awarded the prestigious Goldwater Fellowship. At the University of Miami, Allie is an NSF GRFP Fellow investigating the viruses and bacteria that live associated with the brown algae Sargassum.
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BAILEY WALLACE

PHD CANDIDATE

Bailey completed her B.S. in Conservation Biology and Environmental Studies at UW-Madison. She is now an NSF GRFP Fellow studying coral-associated viruses in the Silveira Lab. Bailey is an avid scuba diver and is passionate about ocean conservation. 
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ANNA GOLIKOVA

PHD STUDENT

Anna completed her B.S. in Biology at the University of Miami. She joined Silveira Lab as an undergrad to study viruses infecting coral-associated bacteria. Her research focuses on viral genomics and the effects of viral auxiliary metabolic genes on bacterial hosts.
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HARRISON TRETHOWAN

PHD STUDENT

Harry has a B.A./B.Sc. in Human Biology from Macquarie University, Australia and a M.S. from New York University, USA. He is currently a Dean’s Fellow at the University of Miami in the Silveira Lab. He studies the effect of viruses on the metabolisms of ancient autotrophs through a combination of bioinformatics and culture-based approaches.

JADEN HANSEN

PHD STUDENT

Jaden earned a B.S. in Microbiology with a minor in Environmental Sciences from California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo. He is currently researching coral-associated bacteria and their viruses in the Silveira Lab as an Interdisciplinary Research Fellow.

MAYANNE FREITAS

VISITING PHD CANDIDATE

MARISSA SCHMIDT

UNDERGRADUATE

TONY ZHANG

​UNDERGRADUATE

Alumni

Postdocs
Poppy Hesketh-Best, PhD (Researcher at IGTP Institut German Trias i Pujol, Spain)
Dani Cox, PhD 

PhD Students
Natascha Varona, PhD (Postdoc at UC Berkeley)

Undergraduates
​Ashley Zagame
Julianna Mullinax
​Sofia Garcia (PhD student at Dartmouth)
​Orissa Symmonett
Coryn Ferguson
Jacques Calixte
​Jialin Wu (PhD student at Yale)
Grabriela Denny

Research Assistant
Kathryn Forcone (FBI)