Current Lab Members

Liz Cooper Asst. 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 became interested in applying her background in evolutionary biology and genomics to agricultural systems.

William Voelker Ph.D. Student

William Voelker graduated from North Carolina State University with a B.S in Plant Biology in 2020. He is now working on earning his PhD in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Under the guidance of Dr. Elizabeth Cooper, he is currently studying structural variant analysis and genome assembly methods in sorghum.

Eric Liao Ph.D. Student

Eric (Yunfei) Liao is a PhD student in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He earned his B.S and M.S in Materials Engineering in Nanchang Hangkong University in China. He got his M.S in Information Technology at UNC Charlotte in 2019. Currently, he is forecasting West Nile Virus outbreaks using environmental, geographic, and mosquito genetic data under the guidance of Dr. Elizabeth Cooper.

Chinaza Nnamdi Research Assistant

Chinaza Nnamdi completed his Master's degree in Bioinformatics at UNC Charlotte in Spring 2025. He has worked on several projects in the Cooper Lab, including differential expression analysis, pan-genome construction, structural variant calling and genotyping. He has also developed pipelines for pan-transcriptomic analysis and variant annotation.

Former Lab Members

  • Rachel Bartolomeo (MS student, 2018-19)
  • Tuvani Ramnarine (BS student, 2019-20)
  • Cristian Ponce (HS student, 2019-20; now at CalTech)
  • Bailee Ku (Summer research intern, 2020; now at Florida State)
  • Kittikun Songsomboon (Postdoc, 2018-2020; now a postdoctoral researcher at University of Sydney)
  • Touhid Islam (MS student, 2020-21; now a PhD student at the University of Utah)
  • James Heuser (BS,MS student, 2018-21; now working for ASRT,inc. as a contractor for the CDC)
  • Shelvasha Burkes (Postdoc, 2020-21; now a Data Scientist at Syngenta)
  • Krishna Thakor (MS student, 2020-21; now an ORISE fellow at the CDC)
  • Lindsay Shields (Certificate student, 2021-22; now at the EPA in Athens, GA)
  • Sangeetha Vijayam (MS student, spring 2022)
  • Azita Alasvand Zarasvand (Certificate student, 2019-2022)
  • Krittika Krishnan (MS student, 2021-22; now an ORISE fellow at the CDC)
  • Samantha Taylor (MS student, 2021-22)
  • Louie Alexander (MS student, summer 2022)
  • Jade Takakuwa (MS student, 2022-23; now an ORISE fellow at the CDC)
  • Julian Aileru (MS Student, 2023)
  • Whitney Brannen (MS Student, Summer 2023
  • Lydia Holley (MS Student, 2023-24)
  • Jimmy Nguyen (MS Student, 2023-24)
  • Jenny Gilby (MS Student, 2023-24)
  • Addison Harris(BS student, 2023-24)
  • Waiz Khan (MS Student, Summer 2024)
  • Gail Brook (MS Student, Summer 2024)

Lab Photos

Cooper Lab in Big Basin Redwoods State Park, during the 2019 ASPB meeting in San Jose, CA

Wishing Lindsay a fond farewell at the Golden Owl in April 2022

Krittika and Jade's graduation in December 2022