People

Lab photo Spring 2023

Amy Goldberg, PI

Amy is an Assistant Professor at Duke University. Before joining Duke in January 2019, she was a Miller Fellow at Berkeley working with Rasmus Nielsen. She completed her PhD with Noah Rosenberg at Stanford in 2017, and did her Bachelor's in Mathematics and Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Michigan (2012). Amy is faculty in the Departments of Evolutionary Anthropology, Biology, and Mathematics, and associated with the Center for Genomic and Computational Biology. She was awarded the Early Career Excellence Award by the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in 2023.

@AmyAGoldberg

amy [dot] goldberg [at] duke.edu

PhD Students

Bide (Peter) Chen, PhD student

Bide is a graduate student in the University Program in Genetics and Genomics. He graduated from Zhejiang University. Bide joined the lab in May 2022, and is currently working in primate genomics, evolution, and assemblies.

Cymfenee Dean-Phifer, PhD student

Cymfenee is a graduate student in the Department of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. She earned her BS in Computational and Systems Biology, with a concentration in Bioinformatics from UCLA in Spring 2021. Cymfenee is interested in how ancestry and genetics affect disease pathogenesis, especially for malaria. She joined the lab in September 2022.

Gabriel Kennedy, PhD student

Gabriel is a graduate student in the University Program in Genetics and Genomics. He received his BS from Tufts University in 2019. He is interested in modeling human ancestry changes and genomic trends across history. Gabriel joined the lab in June 2023.

Katherine McVay, PhD student

Katherine is a graduate student in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology. She earned her BS in Genetics and BA in Anthropology from North Carolina State University. She is interested in the impact of cultural change and interaction on parasite genetic adaptation. Katherine joined the lab in August 2021.

Postdocs

Adeola Oluwakemi Ayoola, Postdoctoral fellow

Adeola obtained her Ph.D. Genetics from Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Adeola is interested in primate and human ecology of infectious disease, especially malaria, as well as how it has influenced primate adaptation. She joined the lab in September 2022.

Shyamalika Gopalan, Postdoctoral fellow

Shyamalika joined the lab as a postdoctoral researcher in November 2020. She received her PhD from Stony Brook University.  Shyamalika has broad interests in evolutionary biology and anthropological genetics, and is studying how the spread of agriculture throughout the world has shaped the genetics and demography of human populations as well as malaria parasite population genetics.

Dashiell Massey, Postdoctoral fellow

Dashiell completed his Ph.D. in Genetics and Development with Amnon Koren at Cornell University and received a B.A. in Biology from Swarthmore College. Dashiell is interested in understanding how complex and long-term demographic trends shape observed genetic diversity at discrete (and often, sparsely-sampled) time points. He joined the lab in September 2022.

Staff

Erick Figueroa-Ildefonso, Research associate

Erick earned his BSc in Genetics and Biotechnology at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and his MSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, in Peru. He is interested in genetic adaptation of malaria parasites and their hosts, as well as the impact of admixed ancestry on adaptation. He joined the lab in September 2023.

Emily Hyatt, Lab manager/research associate

Emily is a Research Associate/Lab Manager in the Evolutionary Anthropology Department at Duke University. She received a PhD in Biology with the Marine Research Group at Loma Linda University shortly before joining the lab in September 2023.

You?

The Goldberg lab is currently recruiting students and postdocs, more information here.

Former lab members

Iman Hamid, PhD student, 2019-2022.

Krista Pipho, UPGG student, 2021-2022.

Jillian Grassia, undergraduate, 2020-2022.

Marina Voinson, postdoc, 2020-2022.

Katharine Korunes, NIH NRSA postdoc, 2019-2022.

Ratchanon (RP) Pornmongkolsuk, UPGG rotation student, spring 2022.

Shae Simpson, undergraduate, 2020-2021. 

Nicholas Pinto, undergraduate, fall 2020.

Rachel Keener, UPGG rotation student, fall 2019.

Katya Bobrek, undergraduate, summer 2018.

Stuart Castaneda, visiting Masters student, summer 2019.

Anjani Pradhananga, visiting Masters student, summer 2019.