Current Lab Members
Liz Cooper Assoc. Professor & Principal Investigator
Dr. Cooper joined the Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics at UNC Charlotte in 2018. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California in 2011, then worked as a post-doc at the University of Miami from 2011 to 2014. She subsequently became a research associate at Clemson University, which is where she first became interested in applying her background in evolutionary biology and genomics to agricultural systems.
Isabella Zuluaga Yusti PhD Student
Isabella is an international doctoral student from Colombia pursuing her Ph.D. in Bioinformatics at UNC Charlotte. She received her bachelor’s degree in Biology at the Javeriana Cali University in 2024, where she developed interests in genetics, plant biology, and computational approaches to biological research. She is working on a project focused on the transcriptional profiling of contrasting sorghum genotypes to characterize the mechanisms underlying zeaxanthin bioaccessibility. Her research integrates transcriptomic analyses and comparative genomics approaches to better understand the genetic and molecular basis of nutritional trait variation in sorghum.
Jakes Njuguna MS Student
Jakes Njuguna is pursuing his Master’s in Bioinformatics at UNC Charlotte, after earning his B.S. in Biology from UNC Asheville. Under the guidance of Dr. Cooper, he is exploring whether sorghum underwent two independent domestication events. His research uses a variant calling pipeline and deleterious load analyses to uncover how domestication has shaped the sorghum genome.
Jayson Sanchez MS Student
Jayson Sanchez is a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte pursuing a master’s degree in bioinformatics. He received his bachelor’s degrees in biochemistry and in biology (with a concentration in human biology) from North Carolina State University. He aims to investigate the demographic history of wild sorghum to better understand why it bears a higher deleterious load than domesticated sorghum, offering insight into its divergence from the domestication-cost hypothesis. His project uses variant calling and PSMC analysis to explore whether past population bottlenecks account for the higher deleterious load found in wild sorghum.
Hannah Swygert MS Student
Hannah Swygert is a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, pursuing a master's degree in bioinformatics. She received her bachelor's degree in biology, with a concentration in human biology, from North Carolina State University. She is investigating various statistical re-sampling methods coupled with PSMC analysis to infer the amount of variance in demographic history estimation using sorghum crops and their wild ancestors.
