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Benjamin Wolfe, Associate Professor
Benjamin joined the Department of Biology at Tufts as an assistant professor in September 2014. He conducted his post-doctoral research with Dr. Rachel Dutton the Center for Systems Biology at Harvard. Research in the Wolfe lab explores the ecology and evolution of microbial communities in food systems. For more information on his past work, please see his full CV here.
Ph.D. Students
Julia Hershelman
Julia joined the lab in September 2023. Julia received her bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is studying the ecology and evolution of antibiotic resistance in microbiomes.
Umaojo Ojogbane
Umaojo Ojogbane joined the lab in September 2023. Umaojo received her bachelor’s degree from the Federal University of Agriculture Makurdi. She is studying the genomics and ecology of spoilage fungi in food microbiomes.
Nick D’Arrigo
Nick received his BA in Biology from Vassar College in 2023. He hopes to study stability and invasion mechanisms
Nicolas Louw
Nicolas joined the lab in September 2021 after completing his master’s degree in Plant Biology from the University of Georgia. He hopes to explore the evolutionary mechanisms that influence microbial community dynamics in the cheese rind microbiome.
Kasturi Lele
Kasturi joined the lab in September 2021 after completing a BS-MS dual degree from IISER, Pune. She wants to understand how microbial communities assemble and evolve using both modelling and experimental approaches.
Undergraduate Researchers
Annika Ruda
Audrey Peel
Will Rubin
Charlotte Ravage
Justin Forde
Sara Dolan
Alyashanti Green
Laura Childs
Annie de Castro
Harp Sandman
Fre Tachbele
Former Lab Members
Megan Biango-Daniels (post-doc, now working at Mori)
Emily Putnam (post-doc, now a Visiting Assistant Professor at Middlebury College)
Freddy Lee (post-doc, now working at Invaio Sciences)
Brittany Niccum (post-doc, now working at Beckman Coulter)
Ruby Ye (PhD student)
Casey Cosetta (PhD student, now working at Prolacta Bioscience)
Liz Landis (PhD student, now working at Concentric by Ginkgo)
Esther Miller (PhD student)
Noelani Kamelamela (Research Technician, now working at MIT Genome Technology Core)
Robert May (Tufts undergrad, now at Institute for Protein Innovation)
Andrew Boylan
Axel Ladd
Chris Tomo (Tufts undergrad, now at Powerade)
Dillon Arrigan (Tufts undergrad, now in Chisholm lab at MIT)
Kate Williams (Research Technician, now in DVM/PhD program at Colorado State)
JJ Wheeler (Tufts undergrad, now at Arana)
Shayna Wagner (Tufts undergrad)
Matthew Podniesinski (Tufts undergrad)
Leslie Spencer (Tufts undergrad)
Daman Singh (Tufts undergrad)
Robert Nardella (Tufts undergrad)
Anna Morreale (Tufts undergrad)
Victor Paredes (Tufts undergrad)
Jonah O‘Mara Schwartz (Tufts undergrad, now at Broad Institute)
Ishaan Brar (Tufts Summer Research Experience student)
Lavendar Wang (Tufts Summer Research Experience student)
Adelaide Fierti (Tufts undergrad)
Alexa Ornstein (Tufts undergrad, now at Kula Bio)
Otilia Popa (Tufts undergrad)
Eleanor Shi(Tufts undergrad)
Mira Guha (Tufts undergrad)
Kinsey Drake, (Tufts undergrad, now at Perfect Day)
Shravya Sakunala (Tufts undergrad)
Jake Jiler (Tufts undergrad, now a research technician at Rockefeller University)
Charles Bunnell (Tufts undergrad)
Kaite Zhang (Tufts undergrad, now a research technician in the Lander Lab at the Broad Institute)
Ina Bodinaku, (Tufts undergrad, now a medical student at Tufts University School of Medicine)
Josh Norville (Tufts undergrad, now a research technician atTufts University School of Medicine)
Jason Shaffer, (Tufts undergrad, now a medical student at UMass)
Liam Easton-Calabria, (Tufts undergrad)
Lucas Brown, (Tufts undergrad)
Claire Walter, (Tufts undergrad)
Emily Van Doren, (Tufts undergrad)
Tom Ollerhead, (Tufts undergrad)
Maria Ordovas-Montanes, (Tufts undergrad)
Maddi D’Aquila, (Tufts undergrad)
Rachel Odillia, (Colby-Sawyer College, REU student)
Michael Zalesne, (Tufts undergrad)