Events

We gathered at Emily’s house on the Saturday before Thanksgiving for a potluck. An abundance of delicious food was shared amongst our lab members, as well as some members from our neighboring labs, the Pasquinelli lab and Perry lab.

Diana Lopez Cantu (Ackerman lab), Max Strul, Ke Gao (Perry lab), Hannah Lewack (rotation student), Ian Nicastro (Pasquinelli lab), Antoine Donati (Perry lab), Tyler Bechtel, Emelliah Vaught (Pasquinelli lab), Eilish Murphy, Marisa Tsunoda, Joshua Joseph, James Tirtorahardjo

For our lab outing, we participated in an improv class at Finest City Improv. We had fun thinking outside of the box with “yes, and!”

James Tirtorahardjo, Max Strul, Marisa Tsunoda, Skylar (from Finest City Improv), Lakshmi Batachari, Tyler Bechtel, Joshua Joseph

Thanks to Mario for his many contributions to the lab 2019-2024, including all his very hard work as lab manager!

Max Strul, James Tirtorahardjo, Eilish Murphy, Katie Li, Nicole Wernet, Lakshmi Batachari, Emily Troemel, Mario Bardan Sarmiento

Three current lab members (Emily, Max and Lakshmi) got together with four lab alumni (Robert, Eillen, Vladimir and Jessica), all of whom have gone onto their own independent faculty positions. We shared deep-fried cheese curds at State Street Brats!

From left: Robert Luallen, Emily Troemel, Eillen Tecle, Max Strul, Vladimir Lazetic, Jessica Sowa, Lakshmi Batachari

Liberty Station outing with the lab to tap into our creative sides.

Max Strul, Aundrea Koger, Deevya Raman, Katie Li, Nicole Wernet, Lakshmi Batachari and Mario Bardan Sarmiento

We gathered together to have a white elephant gift exchange at Emily’s house… focused on plants!

Emily, Diana, Max, Mario, Lakshmi, Yating, Deevya, Nicole, Aundrea, Valentin

A few weeks ago, we gathered at Emily’s house for a brunch to recognize current postdocs Vladimir and Spencer’s time with the lab, and to wish them well in their newly acquired faculty appointments!

To celebrate, members of the lab brought various baked goods—

— the most elaborate of which was this anatomically detailed (and delicious!) worm cake labeled with myo-2p::mCherry and pals-5p::GFP, as well as accompanying L1s, prepared by Nicole.

Spencer had his official last day with the lab on June 20th, where we saw him off with a lab coffee break. Vladimir’s final day with the lab was on July 14th, and we commemorated it by making a Friday evening lab beach trip after we wrapped up experiments for the day.

Though we are sad to see them go, we wish both Spencer and Vladimir good luck as they prepare for their new faculty positions at Colorado College and at George Washington University, respectively!