Phelps Lab Members

Ed Phelps, PhD
Associate Professor
J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering
Position available!
Laboratory Manager
Fixer, organizer extraordinaire and experimentalist
Sandra Ferreira, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Role of the neurotransmitter GABA on islet hormone secretion
Alexandra Cuaycal, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
(joint w/ Mathews Lab)
Islet immune interface in living pancreas tissue slices
Charles Lazimi
PhD Student
Dynamic real-time sensing of pancreatic islet physiology
Austin Stis
PhD Student
Mechanisms of islet GABA secretion
Cameron Manson
PhD Student
Engineering local immune tolerance for beta cell replacement in type 1 diabetes
Aliyah Tate
PhD Student
Engineering immune cell – beta cell interactions
Chris Spencer
PhD Student
Pumin Sintara
PhD Student
Dylan Smurlick
MS Student
Abilene Roberts
Undergraduate
Leigh Baratta
Undergraduate
Arabella Readey
Undergraduate
Collin Klaus
Undergraduate
Grace Koch
Undergraduate
Siri Yarrapatni
Undergraduate
Ananya Ramanand
Undergraduate
Christian Gomez
Undergraduate

Lab Alumni

Ph.D. Students

  • Walker Hagan, PhD, Scientist II – NMJ Team Lead, Hesperos, Inc.
  • Matthew Becker, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Weaver Lab, Arizona State University and CTO at ImmunoShield Therapeutics
  • Jorge Santini-González, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Ross Lab, Cleveland Clinic, Port St. Lucie, FL
  • Mollie Huber, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Kulkarni Lab, Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School
  • Adrienne Widener, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Russ Lab, University of Florida Diabetes Institute

Medical Fellows

  • Kendra Sylvester-Armstrong, MD, private practice South Florida
  • Callie Reeder, MD, University of Tennessee Medical Center

Masters Students

  • Jennifer Simonovich – University of Florida, BME Ph.D. Program
  • Robert Dolan – Engineer at U.S. Food and Drug Administration
  • Sushain Kaul – University of Florida, APK PhD Program

Undergraduates

  • Yarelis Gonzales Vargas, BME PhD Program, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Mallika Bhatta, Medical Honors Program (joint BS, MD), University of Florida
  • Natalia Vallenilla, Clinical Specialist, Electrophysiology at Abbott
  • Kevin Ling, BME PhD Program, University of Rochester
  • Shabeen Raza, Technical Development Program Engineer at Edwards Lifesciences
  • Rebecca Erwin, Hydrogen Shot Fellow at DOE
  • Maryum Salim, Commissioning, Qualification, and Validation Engineer at Jacobs
  • Caroline Lesher, M.S.Program in Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida
  • Veronica Bubay, recent graduate, B.S. Biomedical Engineering, University of South Carolina
  • Conor Given, recent graduate, B.S. Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida