​Knights  Lab

Dr. DAN KNIGHTS, Principal Investigator

Curriculum vitae

Dr. Dan Knights is a computational microbiologist. He is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Biotechnology Institute at the University of Minnesota. Dan received his B.A. from Middlebury College, and his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, both in Computer Science, followed by completing a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard. His research uses data mining and machine learning to study the microbiome in human disease. Dan has co-authored numerous articles in top multidisciplinary journals. In 2015, he was named a McKnight Land-Grant Professor by the University of Minnesota.

BEN HILLMAN, Ph.D. Candidate

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Ben is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science in the Knights Lab, where he researches machine learning and software engineering in computational biology. He recently took a break from his studies to be a data scientist at the trucking logistics company C.H. Robinson, where he implemented and maintained geospatial dynamic pricing software. Before joining the Knights Lab he was a software engineer at Kipsu. He received his B.A from Macalester College in Saint Paul. He is most well known for having Jupyter kernels randomly walking with wild Pandas.

SUZIE HOOPS, Ph.D. Candidate

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Suzie is a staff researcher who assists with various projects, including the MAGIC study, where she explores the maturation of the infant gut microbiome. She is also a Computer Science Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota. She is interested in dimensionality reduction techniques and machine learning applications in microbiome analysis. Prior to joining the lab, Suzie conducted data visualization research and taught English in Linz, Austria as part of a Fulbright Award. Suzie received her B.A. in Mathematics from St. Olaf College.

SHANNON ZHOU, Lab Manager

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Shannon is the Lab Manager, whose work consists of a mixture of lab management and a wide array of other tasks. She is interested in the relationship between the microbiome and migration and learning bioinformatic analysis techniques. She is also a Medical Assistant and plans to pursue a career in medicine. She received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Minnesota. 

Postdoctoral Associates

Dr. ABBY JOHNSON - Abby is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Dr. JONATHAN CLAYTON - Jonathan is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska.

Dr. CHRISTOPHER McKINLAY - Chris is a Principal Engineer on the Flight Controls Team at Kitty Hawk.

Dr. EMMANUEL MONTASSIER - Emmanuel is now an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Nantes, France.

Dr. ROBIN SHIELDS-CUTLER - Robin is an Assistant Professor at Macalester College.

Dr. TONYA WARD - Tonya is now Director of Data Science & Bioinformatics at Diversigen.

Doctoral Students

Dr. GABRIEL AL-GHALITH - Gabe is now working at Johnson and Johnson and completing a post-doc fellowship with Dan Knights' mentor, Rob Knight.

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Dr. PAJAU (PJ) VANGAY - Pajau is currently a Scientific Community Engagement Manager for the National Microbiome Data Collaborative.

Undergraduates

MAX ABRAMSON -  now in the Pathmaker Internship with Palomar Health and preparing to apply for medical school

RAWDA AHMAD

JORDAN AKERS

KAIWEI ANG

VANESSA BRADFISH

ERICA ELLINGSON

LUKE FEELEY

ANDREW GRUESEN

JESSICA HALVERSON

PATRICK JOHNSON - now working in biotechnology at Takeda Pharmaceuticals

KAYLEE KANGAS

AUSTIN KIM - now at NIH

GRANT KIM - performing research at HCMC

CARTER LINHARDT

VARUN MANGALICK

JEREMY MEULEMANS

NICK PERINOVIC

KELSEY PORTER - now working with EXPLO, doing Exploration-based learning with youth groups

NURUL QURATULAINI ABD SALIM NAST

LUTFE-E-NOOR RAHMAN

GITANJALI RAMAN

TIMOTHY RENIER

DOMINIQUE SABAS

ANNA SABOE

DIMITRI SIDIROPOULOS - now in the Cellular and Molecular Medicine PhD Program at Johns Hopkins

MADELINE SMITH

ARZENG SYED

SANGEITHA THAYALAN

Plants

CHLORO-FIGHTER, the spider plant - deceased