Alejandro De Santiago

Alejandro De Santiago is a Ph.D. student in the Institute of Bioinformatics Graduate Program at UGA. His current research interests are focused on developing computational workflows for analyzing metagenomic dataset from microbial metazoa. His main focus is uncovering the functional diversity of free-living marine nematodes and their microbiomes. He previously obtained his B.S. in Microbiology from the University of California – Riverside where he was an undergraduate researcher in the Bik Lab. Additionally, he was an HHMI ExROP fellow in the Jez lab at the Washington University of St. Louis where he worked on kinetically and structurally characterizing chorismate mutase, a protein secreted by plant-parasitic nematodes (e.g. Meloidogyne javanica and Heterodera schachtii) during early stages of infection. His other interests include improving science education and making science accessible to the public.