Past Trainees

Past postdoctoral trainees

Jacob Brown (Mentored by Holly Van Remmen)
May 1, 2018 - April 40, 2021
Dr. Brown received his Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas and is now an Assistant Professor at Florida State University. His research focuses on the underlying mechanisms of skeletal muscle atrophy and dysfunction during aging and age-related diseases.

Matthew Bubak (Mentored by Benjamin Miller)
October 10, 2020 - September 30, 2022
Dr. Bubak received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. His research focuses on poly-therapeutic effects of exercise and how improvements in skeletal muscle mass and function reduces all causes of morbidity and mortality with age.

Arik Davidyan (Mentored by Benjamin Miller)
May 1, 2020 - April 30, 2022
Dr. Davidyan received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis and is now an Assistant Professor at Sacramento State University. His research focuses the ways sex, age, and physical activity mediate testosterone role in skeletal muscle.

Jordan Fuqua (Mentored by Benjamin Miller)
July 1, 2022 - June 30, 2024
Dr. Fuqua received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and is now Postdoctoral Fellow at The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. His research focuses on autophagy in skeletal muscle, particularly gene regulation in ulk1 and ulk2.

Cory Giles (Mentored by Jonathan Wren)
September 1, 2017 - August 31, 2020
Dr. Giles received his Ph.D from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now a Staff Scientist at The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. His research focuses on bioinformatics with an emphasis on developing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning infrastructure.

Walker Hoolehan (Mentored by Willard Freeman)
January 1, 2023 - December 31, 2024
Dr. Hoolehan received his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. His research focuses on epigenetic mechanisms of aging and developing new sequencing approaches to examine the epigenome.

Marcus Lawrence (Mentored by Benjamin Miller)
November 1, 2018 - October 31, 2019
Dr. Lawrence received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and is now an Assistant Professor at Southern Utah University. His research focuses on skeletal muscle physiology.

Sreemathi Logan (Mentored by William Sonntag)
June 1, 2017 - April 30, 2019
Dr. Logan received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences. Her research focuses on on mitochondrial mechanisms and its effects on cognitive aging.

Dustin Masser (Mentored by Willard Freeman)
June 1, 2017 - April 30, 2018
Dr. Masser received his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now a Field Application Consultant at Roche Sequencing and Life Science. 

May 24, 2022 - April 30, 2023
Dr. Ocanas received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now an Assistant Professor at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. Her research focuses on Alzheimers and neurological diseases, genetic disease, and women's health.

Colleen O'Reilly (Mentored by Benjamin Miller)
January 1, 2023 - December 31, 2024
Dr. O'Reilly received her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University and is now a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. Her research focuses on aging, skeletal muscle biology, and mitochondrial function.

July 1, 2018 - June 30, 2020

Stefano Tarantit (Mentored by Zoltan Ungvari)
June 1, 2017 - April 30, 2018
Dr. Tarantit received his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences. His research focuses on vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID), mechanisms of vascular aging, age-related endothelial dysfunction, neurovascular coupling, intra-cerebral microhemorrhages (microbleeds), cerebrovascular reactivity, senolytics therapies, nutritional anti-aging interventions.

Past predoctoral trainees

Matthew Baier (Mentored by Sreemathi Logan)
July 1, 2023 - April 30, 2026
Dr. Baier received his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now an MD/PhD student at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. His research focuses on research focuses on characterizing the interrelations between mitochondrial dysfunction, reactive astrogliosis, cellular senescence, and cognitive decline associated with aging.

Marisa Bickel (Mentored by Shannon Conley)
May 8, 2022 - May 31, 2025
Dr. Bickel received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now a Graduate Research Assistant at University of Oklahoma Health Sciences.

Marina Brown (Mentored by Veronica Galvan)
May 1, 2022 - April 30, 2023

Jordan DelFavero (Mentored by Anna Csiszar)
September 1, 2020 - August 31, 2021
Dr. DelFarevo received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now a Science Communicator & Advisor at Suvoda. 

Samah Houmam (Mentored by Heather Rice)
July 1, 2022 - June 30, 2025
Dr. Houmam is an MD/PhD student at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine.

Collyn Kellogg (Mentored by Willard Freeman)
July 1, 2023 - April 30, 2024
Dr. Kellogg is an MD/PhD student at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. His research focuses on works on neuroinflammatory mechanisms of traumatic brain injury and the role of microglial MHC-I in brain aging.

Shivani Mann (Mentored by Michael Stout)
November 1, 2018 - October 31, 2021
Dr. Mann received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on the roles of Sex Hormones, specifically estradiol, in brain-mediated regulation of metabolism and healthspan in obese and aged conditions.

Sarah Ocanas (Mentored by William Sonntag)
July 1, 2019 - June 30, 2020
Dr. Ocanas received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now an Assistant Professor at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. Her research focuses on Alzheimers and neurological diseases, genetic disease, and women's health.

Cameron Owens (Mentored by Andriy Yabluchanskiy)
July 1, 2022 - May 21, 2024
Dr. Owens is an MD/PhD student at the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City. His research focuses on neurovascular mechanisms contributing to cognitive impairment in aging and age-releated diseases.

Eileen Parks (Mentored by William Sonntag)
June 1, 2017 - July 31, 2018
Dr. Parks received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and currently serves as a Technical Sales Representative at ARL Bio Pharma.

Gavin Pharaoh (Mentored by Holly Van Remmen)
July 1, 2017 - April 30, 2020
Dr. Pharaoh received his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now Heart Scientist at Gordian Biotechnology. His research focuses on elucidating the role of mitochondria in aging and disease, integrating physiological, pharmacological, genetic, molecular, and bioenergetic approaches.

Hunter Porter (Mentored by Willard Freeman)
November 1, 2018 - October 31, 2020
Dr. Porter received his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. His research focuses on developing computational models from human biomedical data and understanding the biology behind their predictions.

Destiny Simpson (Mentored by Karla Rodgers)
June 1, 2021 - April 30, 2022
Dr. Parks received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now a Scientist I at Simulations Plus.

Kyla Tooley (Mentored by Willard Freeman)
June 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022
Dr. Tooley received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. 

Alexander Yeganeh (Mentored by William Sonntag)
June 1, 2017 - November 30, 2018