Silvie Huijben, PhD
Assistant Professor
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Research interests | Publications
“At the helm of this wonderful crew below, who make the real magic happen!”
Staff
Sarah Rydberg – Research specialist
Sarah supervises day-to-day activity in the mosquito insectary facility and molecular laboratory. She is an Arizona State University undergraduate alumni currently also working on her Masters degree. Sarah spends most of her time rearing numerous laboratory strains of Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus for ongoing research, training and assisting personnel, and performing other essential managerial tasks in-lab. Her current MSc research aims to examine whether insecticide resistance reversal in Aedes aegypti can be observed in the absence of insecticide pressure.
Graduate students
Brook Jensen – PhD candidate
Brook explores the phenotypic trade-offs of insecticide (knock down) resistance within Aedes aegypti through resistance profiling (using topical bioassay application) and life history trait measurements. Additionally, she is comparing the efficacy of resistance management strategies (i.e., low-dose and high-dose-refugee vs. no dose and high-dose) across multiple generations. Collectively, her work can be used to improve insecticide resistance modeling and inform future resistance management strategies.
Xyonane Segovia – PhD candidate
Xyonane investigates the complex dynamics of malaria infections through an ecological lens. She aims to understand these ecological interactions within malaria infections as this knowledge could lead to effective strategies to manage antimalarial resistance. She examines within host parasite dynamics (through animal model data), explores the impacts of competition (through in vitro work), and elucidates the significance of a fitness cost (through extensive literature research).
Sergio Serrato – PhD candidate
Sergio is a Biology PhD Candidate in the School of Life Sciences. His research interests are 2-fold: #1) Understand how parasites regulate their growth rate when starting at different densities and #2) Investigate the impact antimalarial drug usage has on the competitive interactions between drug resistant and susceptible malaria parasites. The main goal of these projects is to improve our understanding of parasite biology and determine whether resistant management strategies can suppress the spread of resistant parasites.
Donald Ward – PhD student
Don is a PhD student in the lab with a broad array of research interests that encompass both the laboratory and field arenas. 1) He is currently assessing the target-site and metabolic resistance of field-caught Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus in Maricopa County, AZ. 2) He is interested in the contact efficacy of insecticide-spraying operations in both Maricopa county and by mosquito control units, in general, as a function of land cover and residual deposition on various substrates. 3) He is interested in insecticide resistance as a function of the physiology and ecology of mosquito vectors.
Undergraduate students
MacKenna Berg – 4 + 1 Undergraduate student
Since the summer of 2022, Mackenna has been working as an undergraduate researcher in the lab. Her project focuses on assessing insecticide resistance in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Maricopa County by detecting kdr mutations, specifically focusing on the V1016I and F1534C loci. As a 4+1 master’s student, she plans to expand her research to investigate insecticide resistance in other species of mosquitoes, specifically interested in Culex tarsalis.
Mikayla Utnehmer – Honor’s thesis student
Mikayla joined the Huijben Lab her freshmen year in October of 2020. Currently, she works with Don Ward to assess insecticide resistance in Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes. Her senior honor’s thesis is on the impact of local insecticide fogging levels on insecticide resistance in Cx quinquefasciatus. She has aspirations to attend graduate school in the Fall of 2024.
Max Martinez – Honor’s thesis student
Max has been working in the lab since Fall 2022 when he was a freshman. He assisted Sergio and Xyonane with the malaria parasite cultures, collecting samples and perform qPCR. He currently works on his Barrett Honor’s thesis and aims to determine whether competition between two different strains of malaria is direct or indirect using transwell plates. He plans to attend medical school after graduation, with possibly a masters degree in between.
Sophia Koutsogiannis – Honor’s thesis student
Sophia has been a part of the lab since Spring 2023, where she has worked under Brook Jensen on her Resistance Management and Resistance Reversal projects. She currently is working on her honors thesis by serving as the genotyping team lead under Brook Jensen. Sophia plans on pursuing a PhD in Evolutionary Biology once she graduates in spring 2025.
Shelby Blach – Undergraduate Researcher
Shelby has been in the lab since spring semester 2023. She works with Brook Jensen on the insecticide resistance management project and is responsible for rearing the multiple lines of mosquitoes in the lab evolution experiment. She is now the lead of a team of several other undergraduate students who assist her with this.
Eliana Cheroske – Undergraduate Researcher
Elly has been in the lab since Spring 2023. She is leading an undergraduate research project exploring the impacts of stress on mosquito development. She is exposing three unique insecticide resistant Aedes aegypti genotypes to stable or vibrating platforms from hatching until adult emergence and comparing several life history traits such as wing length. After graduation (May 2024), Elly aims to pursue a PhD in microbiology.
Jack Reihing – Undergraduate Researcher
Jack has been working in the lab since the Spring of 2023. He assists Brook Jensen, Donald Ward, and Eliana Cheroske on their projects. Jack has a keen interest in infectious disease, and plans to attend medical school after graduating in 2025.
Noureen Nakshbandi – Undergraduate Researcher
Noureen joined the Huijben Lab through our CURE program in Fall 2023. She works with Brook Jensen on the Resistance Management research project, performing mosquito DNA extractions, conducting comprehensive melt curve analyses, and genotyping samples. In continuing her research efforts in Spring 2024, she maintains her focus on the kdr mutation within locus V1016I in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. With aspirations for a career in medicine, Noureen aims to utilize her lab experience to make positive impacts on global health.
Roman Lombardo – Undergraduate Researcher
Roman Lombardo, a sophomore, is assisting Brook Jensen on analyzing wing length variations in mosquitoes. Roman became part of the lab after his enrollment in a class focused on studying mosquito-borne diseases in the fall semester of 2023. Despite his diverse interests across various research areas, Roman is inclined towards a potential future focus on food and nutrition, with specific interest in algae.
Tara Magana – Undergraduate Researcher
Tara joined the lab after being a student in the CURE course in Fall 2023. She leads the mosquito wing length team in support of Brook Jensen and Joshua Kalmouni. In addition, she has trained other undergraduate students and provided tips to improve manual dexterity when dissecting mosquitoes. She also assists Eliana Cheroske in rearing Aedes aegypti mosquitoes for her project. Tara is an avid learner who also enjoys creating solutions, both of which have contributed to her growing fondness for research.
Tamuyen Truong – Undergraduate Researcher
Tamuyen has been in the lab since Spring 2024 after working on the resistance reversal project in the lab’s first CURE in Fall 2023. She is a member of the genotyping team that works with Brook Jensen, assisting in all of the molecular aspects of the resistance management project. Tamuyen hopes to expand her knowledge of insecticide resistance through an honors thesis in the near future.
Ashlyn Maag – Undergraduate Researcher
Ashlyn has been in the lab since Fall 2023, joining while taking the CURE course. She works with Don Ward, previously assisting with the rearing of field-caught Culex mosquitoes in Fall 2023. She is now working on performing DNA extractions and PCR on Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. After graduation, Ashlyn hopes to work toward a career in research and possibly pursue a master’s degree.
Autumn Roberts – Undergraduate Researcher
Autumn has been working in the lab since fall of 2023 as an undergraduate researcher. She is a part of the rearing team and helps ensure that the Aedes agypti and CMAVE culex mosquitos are taken care of properly and in a timely manner. She is also on the electric fields project, figuring out the best way to repel mosquitos using electricity. After she obtains her biomedical science degree, she hopes to attend medical school to become an ear, nose, and throat doctor.
Alex Aldosari – Undergraduate Researcher
Alex joined the lab in spring 2024 after taking the CURE in the previous fall semester. He is part of the rearing team that works with Brook Jensen on the resistance management experiments. Alex is planning to attend medical school to become a dermatologist after he graduates in fall 2024.
Juwairiah Afridi – Undergraduate Researcher
Juwairiah joined the lab through the CURE program in Fall 2023, where she worked on genotyping mosquitoes of the Resistance Reversal project. She now works with Brook Jensen on the Genotyping team for the Resistance Management project, aiding with the sampling and molecular components of the project. With an ambition to expand her future career in medicine, Juwairiah aims to apply her lab experience in the fields of global and public health.
Honorary lab members
These talented young lab members play a vital role in keeping the creative juices of the PI flowing and the mind sane. They’ve since grown quite a bit, but don’t look as adorable anymore in lab coats.
Huijben lab group pictures
Huijben lab Spring 2022
