Postdoctoral Fellows 

Seemanti Ramanath
Seemanti worked as a postdoc in the lab for a year after defending her thesis. Her thesis topic was on understanding the role of the myosin converter domain in muscle mechanical function. In particular, to determine if the myosin converter domain is part of the elastic element that enables muscle force generation. Highlights of her time in the lab include a selected talk at the 2009 Biophysical Society Meeting and winning the RPI Founders Award of Excellence. Seemanti is continuing her training in Dr. Marlene Belfort's lab at SUNY Albany. 

Chaoxing Yang
Chaoxing pioneered the jump muscle dissection technique. She studied how the myosin relay domain responded to load to alter muscle kinetics. She produced the first mechanical data out of Dr. Swank's lab at RPI.

Graduate Students 

Catherine Eldred
Catherine joined the Swank Lab at RPI in 2006 as a Senior Research Associate. She brought with her severals years of experience in industry and government labs. Her past work included research on ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) using a mouse model, as well as research on multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. Since becoming a graduate student 2009, her thesis work focused on the evaluation of different troponin C isoforms and their role in the muscle stretch activation mechanism. Catherine is now a Postdoctoral fellow at the Albany Medical College. 

Ryan Koppes
Ryan studied at RPI for several years, having completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering before entering the graduate program. His work included mechanically characterizing the Drosophila jump muscle and determining the mechanisms behind muscle force depression and force enhancement. Ryan also worked in the lab of Dr. David Corr, where he developed techniques for growing single muscle fibers from mouse myoblasts. Ryan is now a Postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Kaylyn Bell
Kaylyn is studying Biochemistry and Biophysics in RPI's accelerated BS/PhD program. She joined the lab in 2013 and is investigating how mutations in myosin cause human heart and skeletal muscle diseases through a collaboration with Dr. Sanford Bernstein at San Diego State University, by using muscle fiber mechanics experiments. She is also investigating the role of different myosin isoforms in setting properties of stretch activation. Outside the lab, Kaylyn is a member of the RPI Dance Club.

Gemel Joseph
Gemel joined the lab in 2016 as a graduate student in the Biology Department. She earned her BS degree in Biology at the University of the Virgin Islands in 2014 where she was a MBRS-RISE and NSF HBCU-UP student of the Emerging Caribbean Scientists and president of the Rho Omicron chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha. In collaboration with the Barquera lab at RPI, Gemel's current work involves using Drosophila as a model organism to study and characterize Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection and virulence as influenced by sodium ion transport membrane proteins. Outside of the lab, Gemel is active with the Black Graduate Student Association and the Albany graduate chapter of AKA.

Amy Loya
Amy joined Dr. Swank's lab as a graduate student in the Biomedical Engineering PhD program in 2014. Prior to RPI, Amy was a Bioengineering major with a minor in Electrical Engineering at Union College, where she was also the captain of the women's basketball team. Her current projects focus on the proteomic characterization of the Drosophila jump muscle, in order to help elucidate the thin filament mechanism behind stretch activation and shortening deactivation. With the help of Dr. Brian Foster from Johns Hopkins University, she is investigating the expression patterns of various isoforms within the troponin complex, and she is examining their roles using fiber mechanics experiments.

Chris Newhard
Chris joined the lab as undergraduate in 2011 as a part of RPI's Accelerated BS/PhD Program and characterized a Drosophila model of pediatric restrictive cardiomyopathy. He has also developed a protocol to measure the wing stroke amplitude of Drosophila. One of his pictures has placed at a few scientific image contests, click here to see the winning photograph. His current project is determining the mechanism for how the myosin converter domain influences load-dependent properties of myosin and muscle, using both the jump muscle of the fruit fly and molecular dynamics simulations. In addition to his research, Chris has been involved in RPI student government and enjoys several intramural sports. Chris is funded by a graduate research fellowship from the National Science Foundation.

Andrew Mason
Andrew joined the Corr lab in 2013, pursuing his Phd in the biomedical engineering program. He completed his BS at Union College in 2006, majoring in biology and psychology. He worked for six years in industry, studying drug pharmacokinetics for BD biosciences, Contract Research Services. His major line of research is skeletal-muscle, tissue engineering. By using a differentially adherent growth channel, single muscle fibers are grown and then studied by varying mechanical, electrical, and biochemical stimuli. In collaboration with the Swank lab, Andrew is studying the biomechanics of the Drosophila jump muscles (a model for mammalian skeletal muscle). 

Christine Cuiping Zhao
Christine transferred from the neuroscience graduate program at University of Maryland to RPI in 2008 and joined Dr. Swank's lab in 2009. She studied the effects of myosin heavy chain isoforms (MHC) on the mechanical properties of Drosophila jump muscles. She found that myosin isoforms can convert a non-stretch activated muscle to one with moderate stretch activation. The major techniques she used are step analysis and work loop assays. She gave a talk on her work at the 2012 annual Biophysical Society Meeting in San Diego. She was supported by an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship. Christine is now employed at General Electric. 

Qian Wang
Qian thesis work included understanding the importance of stretch activation to Drosophila flight ability. She investigated the contribution of stretch activation to muscle power generation and if the converter region of myosin influences stretch activation properties of different muscle fiber types. Highlights of her time in the lab include multiple poster presentations at the Biophysical Society meeting and at the Muscle Gordon Conference. Qian is now working for General Electric in Shanghai, China. 

Soyo Lee
Lee is as an artist exploring the intersection of art and biology. She observes and develops procedures for adapting nature into a variety of visual cultures. She contributed to our scientific research by producing photographs and illustrations of Drosophila flight and jump muscles using DIC and electron microscopy.

Research Specialists 

Leah Sullivan
Leah joined the lab as a research technician in 2015. She received her BS in Chemistry with a minor in Biology from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, where she was involved in STEM peer tutoring and was a member of the women's lacrosse team. Leah tested the muscular effects of actin point mutations in collaboration with the Lab of Dr. Anthony Cammarato. Leah is now a PhD student in Chemistry at the University of Notre Dame. 

Mia Corcione
Mia used her training as an RPI graduate from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and 4 years of Biomedical industry experience to construct a new muscle mechanics apparatus for investigating the properties of the Drosophila jump muscle. She also ran experiments. Mia is currently working for AngioDynamics in Latham, New York. 

James Seger
Jim investigated the influence of myosin structural regions on cross-bridge rate constants using sinusoidal analysis of indirect flight muscle expressing transgenic myosin constructs. James is currently a medical student at New Jersey Medical School. 

Justin Haviland
Justin learned molecular biology techniques and whole fly assays from Swank Lab members. He is now using these skills to improve student instruction in his AP Biology class and other classes at Troy High School.

Undergraduate Students 

Emily Dunn
Emily is a junior at RPI majoring in Biomedical Engineering. She started working in the lab in Summer 2017 under Amy's mentorship. Emily is currently learning dissections and working on improvements to the jump assay. Additionally, she will be assisting Amy in analyzing data related to stretch activation and shortening deactivation. Emily is a member of the RPI Women's soccer team and a BMES mentor.

 Joy Puthawala
Joy is a senior co-terminal at RPI majoring in pre-medical Biochemistry & Biophysics. She joined the Swank lab in Spring 2016 under Chris's mentorship. Her work included investigating improvements into the wing stroke amplitude techniques. Her current project explores the effects of the S532D mutation associated with the development of dilated cardiomyopathy in humans. Outside of the lab, Joy is an active member in Greek life, Global Medical Brigades and RPI's Weightlifting Club.

Alice Huang
Alice worked in the Swank Lab for two years characterizing several Drosophila lines expressing Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and Distal Arthrogryposis mutations. Alice is now at Albany Medical College in the Accelerated Physician-Scientist Program. 

Monica Patel
Monica worked in the Swank Lab throughout her entire undergraduate stay at RPI. She began under the tutelage of Catherine on a project investigating the role of troponin C isoforms on muscle function. Her later work included molecular biology techniques and locomotion assays on the converter project with Chris and Bernie. Monica is now attending medical school at SUNY Stonybrook. 

Georgia Yalanis, Biology 
Georgia's senior thesis was to create a Drosophila fly line lacking an isoform of Troponin C. She created this null line using a genetic technique called p-element mediated male recombination. Georgia helped out with many other projects by performing techniques including dissection of flight and jump muscles, myosin purification, and molecular cloning and protein expression. Currently Georgia is a medical student at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. 

Jeremie Carlson, Biology
Jeremie assisted Seemanti in her investigations into the function of the myosin converter domain. He performed many molecular biology techniques helping make the converter transgenes and crossing fly lines expressing the transgenes. 

John Bliton, Biology 
John helped out with experiments designed to determine the influence of calcium on stretch activation properties of indirect flight muscle fibers. This involved dissecting IFM fibers from fruit flies and running muscle mechanics experiments. 

Dimitre Simeonov, Biomedical Engineering
Dimitre's excellent dissection skills and long hours generated half the data for our first jump muscle mechanics paper. He is co-first author on this paper and was an author on two Biophysical Society meeting posters. He helped improved the technique used for dissecting Drosophila jump muscles, which greatly increased the success rate of TDT experiments. Dimitre is currently as a reserach associate at the National Institutes of Health and is applying to M.D./Ph.D. programs. 

Charlotte Kaplan, Biology
Charlotte came to our lab as an athlete interested in learning how muscles work. Her projects included measuring wing-beat frequency and flight duration of several mutant fly lines, helping make the first in vitro motility measurements in the lab and nalyzeing IFM mechanical data to derive cross-bridge rate constants for mutant myosins. This last effort earned her a authorship on a Biophysical Journal paper. Her highly-skilled hands will be missed when we dissect fibers from many flies for our myosin protein isolation. Charlotte is currently a medical student at the Uniformed Services University. 

Maria Thatcher, Biomedical Engineering
Maria spent most of her first summer analyzing and organizing motility data. She worked with collaborator Dr. Patrick Dillon of Michigan State University to determine ATP concentration in flight muscle. She also performed work-loop assays to measure power generation from IFM expressing mutant myosin. She earned an authorship on a Biophysical Journal paper. Maria is currently working at the Masschusetts General Hospital. 

Michael Walker, Biomedical Engineering 
While working in our lab, Mike was probably the fastest student to learn the flight muscle dissection technique as he has amazing hand-eye coordination. He helped develop our work-loop analysis software. 

Alison Berney, Biology 
Though a lab member for only one year, Allie's worked on many different projects. She performed a sequence comparisons of myosin converter regions from different species and isoforms which was included in a paper published in Biophysical Journal. Allie tested the flight ability of flies with mutations in their myosin relay domain. She assisted in making clones for transgenic fruit flies with Seemanti Ramanath, was a regular participant in group dissection days, and analyzed motility data. Alison is currently at medical student at the University of Miami. 

Brandon Fetzer, Mechanical Engineering
Brandon designed a system to pipe coolant through all of our stereo microscope dissection stages. Chilling the flies helps reduce protein degradation during muscle dissection. He also helped maintain the muscle mechanics apparatus. 

Matthew Oakley, Mechanical Engineering
Matt redesigned the stage of our primary mechanics apparatus so that a wider range of fiber types could be mechanically evaluated. 

Nita Padavil, Biology 
Research Project: Cloning myosin gene constructs with mutations in the converter domain. Nita is currently a medical student at Albany Medical Center. 

Kevin Georgek, Biology 
Research Project: Generation of a Drosophila TnC4 null mutant. Upon graduating RPI Kevin worked as a research associate with Regeneron pharmaceuticals and is now enrolled in law school. 

Nathan Marsan, Biology 
Research Project: Mechanical analysis of IBM-3 myosin mutations in muscle fibers, NIH Summer ARRA grant. 

Laura Koppes, Chemistry 
Research Project: Creation and analysis of a Drosophila MLP null mutant, NIH Summer ARRA grant. 

Hardik Parikh, Biology 
Research Project: Analysis of Drosophila troponin isoforms using RNAi. 

Hsin Dat Li, Biomedical Engineering 
Research Project: Mechanical analysis of Drosophila IFM lacking Tnc. 

Debra Sheppard, Biology 
Debbie performed flight and wing beat frequency measurements on fruit flies expressing mutated myosin in their flight muscles. The transgenic flies had been forced to express one of 5 versions of the myosin converter found in different Drosophila myosin isoforms. She also helped makes clones for creating the transgenic flies. 

Lauren Riley, Biology 
Research Project: Analysis of a Drosophila TnC4 null mutant. 

Vigneesh Kumar, Biology 
Research Project: Locomotion assessment of various Drosophila lines. 

Katie Devin, Biology 
Research Project: Wing Stroke Amplitude analysis Drosophila converter lines.