principle investigator

elizabeth duncan

Beth graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in English literature. She then worked as a research assistant in the laboratory of Jan Breslow, MD (The Rockefeller University) where she studied the genetic basis of cholesterol absorption.

​After enrolling in The Rockefeller University graduate program, Beth earned a Ph.D. in Chromatin Biology & Epigenetics with C. David Allis, Ph.D. She was a Damon Runyon postdoctoral fellow with Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Ph.D at the University of Utah and the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. Beth is now an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Kentucky.

research assistants

makayla dean

Hailing from small-town Ohio, Makayla received her B.S. in Biology this past December from the University of Kentucky. She is a self-proclaimed nerd, lazy poet, and struggling new adult. She's worn many different hats in several labs across campus studying things from mammalian species habitat distribution to crayfish limb autotomy and regeneration.

Her work in the Duncan lab includes maintaining the worms and keeping them healthy and happy. In her free time, she enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons, hiking and camping, and not reading as much as she should. She is also a mom to a beautiful disaster of a cat and a curator of her own mini museum of natural history.

katya lundberg

Katya has a passion for learning. After receiving a BA in Math (Colby ‘08) and working in insurance and hospitality, she decided to feed her intellectual curiosity and take a plethora of science coursework. This led her to join the lab of Dr. Duncan. Her research interests include the mechanisms of epigenetic control on stem cell differentiation as well as the effects of chemotherapeutic agents on stem cells.

On the personal side, woodworking, piano, park walks with her dog Frank, cooking (eating!), reading and maintaining an overly extensive plant collection for apartment life occupy her in her free time.

undergraduates

zachary baker

whitney combs

Born and raised in Lexington, Whitney attended high school at Paul Laurence Dunbar before graduating and beginning her college career here, at The University of Kentucky. She is in her second year of study as a Biology major with hopes of minoring in either Neuroscience or Chemistry.

In her time off she loves to write, read, watch movies, hang out with her family at home, make things on Photoshop, talk to her friends or play outside with her dog, Sophie! She has always been interested in science though, collecting rocks as a little girl or owning multiple space books that she would thumb through, and stumbling upon a lab job at the beginning of her sophomore year seemed like something right up her alley.