Tina Wang
Assistant Professor
B.S. 2009, California Institute of Technology
Ph.D. 2015, Yale University
Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University 2015-2019
Tina is a native of Rochester, NY and received her B.S. in chemistry at Caltech, where worked in the labs of Robert Grubbs and the late John D. Roberts. She completed her PhD at Yale University with David A. Spiegel, where she developed chemical tools to study protein glycation. She then joined David R. Liu’s lab at the Broad Institute for her postdoctoral studies, where she worked on developing phage-assisted continuous evolution methods for evolving proteins with improved soluble expression. Tina joined the Department of Chemistry at UW–Madison in the fall of 2019. In her spare time, Tina enjoys crossword puzzles and playing the guitar.
Dominic Mattock
Second Year Graduate Student
Dominic was born in St. John’s Newfoundland, Canada and grew up in Maryville Missouri. He attended Truman State University where he worked in a computational chemistry lab exploring drug bindings and mechanisms through docking and molecular dynamics simulations. In 2019 he graduated with a BS in chemistry and BA in Biology. Coming to UW Madison with an interest in protein folding and modification led him to Tina Wang’s lab where he works on modifying chaperone function to facilitate amyloid beta binding and disaggregation as well as exploring modifications to the M13 bacteriophage to expand their utility and function. In his free time Dominic enjoys photography, movies, comics, hiking, and camping.
Byung Uk Lee
Second Year Graduate Student
Byung Uk is originally from Incheon, South Korea. He graduated from Franklin and Marshall college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with a degree in Chemistry. Currently, he is very interested in protein folding and stability and works to rescue misfolded proteins. In his spare time, he enjoys golfing, playing computer games, and finding nice places to eat in town.
Alex Tetzloff
Second Year Graduate Student
Alex is from Greenville, Wisconsin, and completed his B.S in Chemical Engineering at Michigan Technological University. He then accepted a position as a Process Engineer at Appvion, where he worked for over three years before deciding to pursue graduate research at UW Madison in Fall of 2019. Alex’s research is broadly concerned with chaperones as a means of improving protein expression as well as utilizing directed evolution to improve protein efficiency. In his spare time Alex likes to compose music, roller blade, and play board games.
James Andon
First Year Graduate Student
James grew up in the suburbs outside of Boston, Massachusetts. He completed a BS and MS in biochemistry at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where his research focused on developing a new method for directed evolution in bacteria. In Worcester, he spent two summers running HPLC assays in the protein analytics department at AbbVie. His interests in biocatalysis and directed evolution lead him to a co-mentorship between the Wang Lab and Andrew Buller’s lab. While he was in New England, James enjoyed road tripping around the Northeast and is looking forward to exploring the Midwest. His hobbies also include golf, fishing, and video games.
Iurii Gurkov
First Year Graduate Student
Iurii grew up in Russia and moved to the USA to escape the cold. He completed his bachelors in biochemistry and computer science from Hunter College, University of New York. His research focuses on rubisco chaperone engineering. Throughout the undergrad he worked in different coffee shops around Manhattan and Brooklyn which translated into his love for coffee.
Lauren Fields
First Year Graduate Student
Lauren is a native of North Carolina and completed a BS in chemistry at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Here she developed methodology to understand the mechanism of action of antibiotics using high-throughput microscopy. With an interest in human health and bacterial diseases, Lauren joined the Wang Lab in 2020, where she aims to develop a library of genetically encodable sensors for use in mechanism of action studies, as well as antibiotic discovery. Outside of the lab Lauren enjoys hiking, baking, and playing with her dog.