OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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The OPA Board of Directors is an elected, volunteer group consisting of executive members and committee chairs from diverse departments and backgrounds.
We meet once a month to discuss various updates and needs related to our mission. All meetings are open to the postdoctoral community. Please email us for more information on the meeting schedule!
PresidentMichael A. Pitino, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Health
Michael completed his MSc (2018) and Ph.D (2023) in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Toronto, Canada. His current research is focused on maximizing the nutritional quality and bioactivity of donor human milk, to improve acute and long-term health outcomes in vulnerable preterm infants. Compared to traditional pasteurization, he is currently investigating whether novel non-thermal processing technologies applied to donor human milk better preserve biologically-active proteins in human milk and whether they remain functionally intact throughout digestion.
Vice President Amrapalli Garanaik, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Amrapalli received her PhD from Colorado State University, USA. She has a master's from Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur, India and a bachelor's degree from VSSUT, Odisha, India. She worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA as a postdoctoral researcher before joining Oregon State University. Her research interests are Fluid Dynamics, Turbulence, Ocean modeling and Earth Climate system. Other than research she enjoys hiking, tennis, badminton and painting.
SecretaryMd Abdul Wazed, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Health
Dr. Abdul is a postdoctoral scholar at Dallas Lab, School of Nutrition and Public Health. He is a food engineer and has expertise in food processing techniques and their impact on nutritional profile. He investigates how emerging technologies affect food proteins and bioactivity of peptides released in the gut of infants following digestion assay, proteomics and peptidomics. He is passionate about specialty dairy ingredients and New Product Development (NPD). He loves blending engineering approaches with food science.
Treasurer Rowan McLachlan, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Science & College of Agricultural Sciences
Rowan obtained her Ph.D in Earth Sciences from The Ohio State University in 2021. Rowan's research focuses on understanding the influence of the seawater environment on the phenotype of coral holobionts. Her current research focuses on the impact of global and local stressors such as ocean warming, ocean acidification, nutrient pollution, and over-fishing on coral physiology, morphology, and recently, the microbiome.
Professional Development Coordinator Claudio Guevara, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Forestry
Claudio received his PhD and master's degree from Oregon State University and a Bachelor of Science from Pontificia Universisad Catolica de Chile. His research focused on sustainable silviculture, reforestation, ecophysiology, and plant community dynamics to help Pacific Northwest forests become more resilient to climate change. His current work focuses on the ecocultural restoration of grasslands in partnership with Indegenous peoples from north central Montana and the Bureau of Land Management, aiming to improve the relationship between nature and culture.
Social Coordinator Léo Mahieu, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Léo is working at Buck Lab on metal speciation in the ocean, aiming to understand the processes linking the chemical, physical, and biological processes driving metal distribution in contemporary waters. He received his Ph. D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Liverpool (UK) in 2023, and his Masters in Chemistry of the Marine Environment form the Université de Bretagne Occidentale (France) in 2018. Contrasting with his professional focus on ocean, Léo's hobbies are playing music, travelling, hiking and camping.
Networking Coordinator Muhammad Hafez, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Agriculture
Muhammad obtained his Ph.D in Agricultural Insect and Pest Control from the College of Plant Science and Technology at Huazhong Agricultural University Wuhan, Hubei Province, P.R. China. Muhammad currently serves as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the USDA-ARS Horticultural Crops Research Unit, sponsored by Oregon State University. His research focus is on agricultural insects and pest control. Beyond his academic pursuits, Muhammad enjoys a variety of hobbies and fun activities including reading, vlogging, traveling, hiking, and cooking.
Membership Coordinator Sumandeep Kaur, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Engineering
Sumandeep received her Ph.D. from Punjab University in Chandigarh, India. Her research focuses on predicting the structure-property relationship in two-dimensional material employing state-of-the-art theoretical methods to explore their applications in energy-related areas. Presently, she is doing the computational analysis of heterogenous catalysis.
2022-2023 Board members
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Lindsey St. Mary, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology Lindsey received her PhD from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, master’s degree from North Carolina State University, and bachelor of science from Oregon State University.
Her current work as a NIEHS postdoctoral fellow consists of screening and categorizing 9,000 distinct chemicals found in the environment, consumer products, or used in manufacturing processes in order to assess phenotypic and transcriptional changes relevant to human disease. Additionally, she is collaborating with AsedaSciences to integrate their high throughput in vitro screening system (SYSTEMETRIC®) and the Tanguay Lab's zebrafish screening assay to predict chemical developmental/neurotoxicity. |
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Mareike Möller, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow (DFG Research Fellowship), Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. My research focuses on chromatin biology and genome stability in filamentous fungi. I am especially interested in how chromatin conformation impacts nuclear localization and DNA damage responses. |
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Ivan A. Titaley, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology Ivan obtained his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Oregon State University, Oregon, in 2017. Currently works as Research Associate, at Oregon State University in the Department of Environmental and Molecular His research interest focuses on 1) PACs in sealcoat and in soil, 2) Applications of computational predictions and chemometrics in environmental chemistry, and 3)Suspect screening and non-targeted analyses using GC-HRMS. |
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David Fifty Robert |
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Serhan Mermer |
Robert Alvarez-Quinto |
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Sai Sandeep Chitta, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Civil and Construction Engineering Sai completed his PhD at City University of Hong Kong in 2019 and then worked as Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oklahoma. He joined OSU in 2020. His current research focuses on experimental micromechanics, material models for DEM simulations, biomediated and bioinspired geotechnics. He is also serving as an instructor of Geotechnical Engineering at OSU. |
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Sumandeep Kaur, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, College of Engineering- Chemical Engineering Sumandeep received her Ph.D. from Punjab University in Chandigarh, India. Her research focuses on predicting the structure-property relationship in two-dimensional material employing state-of-the-art theoretical methods to explore their applications in energy-related areas. Presently, she is doing the computational analysis of heterogenous catalysis. |
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Priyadarshini Chakrabarti (Basu), Ph.D., Research Associate (Post Doc), College of Agriculture Science. "I am an entomologist working on honey bee nutrition, impacts of pesticides on honey bees and honey bee behavior and biology. I work on research related to pollination, insect nutrition, molecular ecology, neuroethology, insect ecotoxicology, insect physiology, chemical ecology etc. I am also interested in extending my expertise to studying pests." |
| Xi Zhang, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. Broadly, Xi’s research interests include: hydrologic processes in the vadose zone, soil water dynamics at different spatial and temporal scales, and climate-induced changes in soil structure and subsurface flow paths. Xi received Ph.D. in Soil Science from the University of Kentucky and M.S. in Environmental Engineering from Zhejiang University (China). |
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Mareike Möller, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow (DFG Research Fellowship), Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. My research focuses on chromatin biology and genome stability in filamentous fungi. I am especially interested in how chromatin conformation impacts nuclear localization and DNA damage responses. |
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Subham Dasgupta, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology |
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Dorukhan Ardağ, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. I obtained my Ph.D. from the University of Florida in Coastal and Oceanographic Engineering with a focus in wave physics and modeling. My main research at OSU involves using oceanographic measurements obtained via tagged cormorant birds and comparing this biologging derived data with results from a high-resolution coupled wave-current ocean model. This data will also be used for data assimilation in cases with uncertain model parameters. I received my B.S. from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey and M.S. from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida. |
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Radwan Elzein, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering. His current research interest related to surface electronics/chemistry of materials’ system which have impact on molecular electronic devices. He studied Nanotechnology and Nanoelectronic Devices at University of Surrey and worked at Merck, UK prior to receiving his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of South Florida, USA, where he conducted research related to physical electronic properties of 2D and 3D SURMOF thin films. |
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Samreen Siddiqui, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar, Costal Oregon Marine Experiment Station |
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Serhan Mermer, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Horticulture |
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Sampath Adusumilli, Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Scholar, MIME department I obtained my Ph.D. from Georgia institute of Technology in Aerospace Engineering. My research focused on understanding the combustion chemistry of aviation fuels at aircraft engine operating conditions. At OSU I aim to apply the knowledge of combustion to study wildfire propagation. To achieve this, I study tree scale burning with intention of enumerating firebrand/ember generation rates for different tree species. |
