Britt Koskella is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. She received her PhD in 2008 from the department of Biology at Indiana University, and then did her postdoctoral work (first as an NSF International Research Fellow, then as a UK NERC Research Fellow) at Oxford University, UC Santa Cruz, and then the University of Exeter. She joined UC Berkeley in 2015.

Kate Ennis joined the lab in 2020 as a UC Berkeley President’s postdoctoral Fellow, and NSF Postdoctoral fellow. She is collaborating with Steve Lindow on a project exploring the floral microbiome and the role phages play in structuring these communities.

Tiffany Batarseh joined the lab in 2022 as an NSF Postdoctoral fellow from the Gaut lab at UC Irvine. Tiffany has a background in microbial evolution and adaptation using experimental and bioinformatic tools. Tiffany joined the Koskella lab to work on the evolution and ecology of microbial communities associated with the phyllosphere.

Milo Johnson joined the lab in 2022 as an NSF Postdoctoral fellow from the Desai lab at Harvard. He is collaborating with Drs. Adam Arkin and Adam Deutschbauer on a project exploring the ecology and evolution of Erwinia tracheiphila, a pathogen of cucurbits. He plans to use DNA barcoding technologies to observe both population dynamics and evolutionary processes over the course of infection.

Claire Evensen joined the lab in 2021 and is co-advised by Prof Mike Boots. She is broadly interested in coevolution in complex communities. Her projects utilize both wet-lab and dry-lab tools from community ecology, microbiology, epidemiology, and network theory to explore how community diversity is established and maintained.

Asa Conover is a PhD student in Integrative Biology and Berkeley Fellow excited to study the ecology of plant-associated bacterial and fungal communities and how these communities shape plant fitness.

Darian Doakes is a PhD student in the Plant and Microbial Biology program co-advised by Prof Mike Boots. Darian started in 2022 and is interested in adaptive fitness of horizontal gene transfer in bacterial communities. Darian’s research focuses on dynamics of mobile genetic elements such as bacteriophage.

Bri Baumbach is a PhD student, NSF GRFP fellow, and Chancellor’s fellow co-advised by Dr. Klara Scharnagl. Bri is fascinated by how symbiotic relationships in lichens and plant microbiomes form, break down, and shape adaptation. Inspired by an appreciation for natural history, Bri’s research explores how these interactions influence biodiversity and resilience under environmental stress.

Niko Darci-Maher is a PhD student and Berkeley Fellow who is puzzled and excited by the ways in which fungi and bacteria modulate the health of the plants they live on, especially in stressful environments. His work aims to connect genomic features to community traits in ecologically important plant microbiomes (and lichens). More musings on his website here!

Izaac Wilkinson joined the lab in 2025 as a junior specialist/lab manager working on the Pear Project. He is fascinated in the Great Oxidation Event and the role bacteriophages may have played in the origins of life.

Fiona Joy Wagner joined the lab in 2023 as an undergraduate working on tomato seedling phyllosphere micobiome evolution, and is currently a lab manager. She is fascinated in the evolution and interactions between microbial communities.

Thien Vu joined the lab in 2025 as a post-baccalaureate scholar through the RaMP program. She is broadly interested in the role of evolution in shaping microbial diversity. Her current work focuses on horizontal gene transfer. She is now transitioning to evolution experiments with mobile genetic elements

Lauren Holland joined the lab in 2023 and is currently in her final semester at UC Berkeley. She studies the successional microbiomes of the California Pitcher Plant (Darlingtonia californica), as well as a novel plant pathogen inflicting this carnivorous species. Her passions lie in searching for the many ways in which everything remains connected. She finds joy in pondering the complex webs of entwinement between organisms and the ecosystems they collectively forge.

Charlotte Jackson is studying Molecular Environmental Biology and Economics. In the Koskella Lab, she studies nectar microbiomes, focusing on how bacteriophages influence interactions between bacteria, yeast, and plant pathogens.

Jiya R Dharne is working in the pear phage project and joined Fall 2025. Jiya joined the pear phage project because she’s interested in microbial genetic evolution in terms of host pathogen interactions, and wants to learn more about the applications of phage therapy as an alternative to standard microbial treatments!

Chuyu Wang joined the lab in 2025 as a junior majoring in molecular environmental biology. She is participating in the project using tomato plants to study the protective role of phages against pathogens. She aims to explore the regulatory effects and interactions of phages on plant-associated microbes, seeking ways to protect ecosystems using microbiological techniques.

Rocelia Alvarez-Navarrete joined the lab in 2024 and is a 4th year majoring in Molecular Environmental Biology. She currently studies the microbiome of the tomato plant phyllosphere and is interested in the impact ecological interactions have on beneficial plant-microbial interactions.

Fion Wu is a third-year student at UC Berkeley studying Microbial Biology and Data Science. Fion works with Darian in the Koskella Lab, where she studies phage–bacteria interactions, prophage induction, and microbial community dynamics. Fion is especially interested in integrating phage–host dynamics with synthetic biology frameworks to better understand and design microbial interactions at the genetic level.

Bonnie Chan is a third-year undergraduate student studying Microbial Biology. Under Darian Doakes’s mentorship, Bonnie is eager to explore the induction properties of bacteriophages and their roles in microbial ecology.

Kelly Hui is a fourth-year Microbial Biology student interested in coevolutionary dynamics within host-parasite systems. Kelly is currently working under Claire to quantify host resistance shifts in bacterial hosts when they are co-evolved with bacteriophages.

Alexis Tan is a third-year undergraduate researcher on the Pear team. She studies the changing dynamics between phage and bacteria in the pear trees around campus. She is currently working with Izaac to assay strains of Pseudomonas syringae against a bacteriophage library collected over the last 7 years.

Hallie Yamamura joined the lab in 2023 as a Molecular and Environmental Biology major. She has worked with Dominique, Kai, and Izaac as a member of the Pear Project to isolate and characterize bacteriophages. This past spring she focused on the effects of Pseudomonas syringae and Erwinia amylovora in a series of flower infection assays.