Graduate students
Gozel Atakgayeva
Gozel is a PhD student cosupervised by Dr. McPhee and Dr. Roberto Botelho. Her project is investigating the consequences of stalled/delayed bacterial cell division on the behaviour of uropathogenic E. coli.
Sophia DiClemente
Sophia is a second year MSc student. Her project examines the consequences of restoring the function of lost signaling networks in Shigella flexneri on the behaviour of the bacteria.
Shaili Kapadia
Shaili is a first-year MSc student studying the evolutionary loss and rentention of signalling pathways in Shigella flexneri. Her research specifically examines how PmrDAB signalling contributes to bacterial virulence.
Undergraduate students
Ava Bhatthal
I am a fourth year undergraduate Biomedical Science student passionate about understanding the complexities in host-pathogen interactions. My project is investigating the effects of various antimicrobial peptides on actively dividing Escherichia coli and investigating the role of filament resolution.
Sukumar Elantholy
Sukumar is a fourth year Biomedical Science student investigating bacterial pathoadaptation and the evolutionary mechanisms influencing virulence regulation. His project focuses on restoring ancestral Eschericia coli transcriptional regulators in Shigella flexneri to determine how adaptive gene loss can contribute to intracellular fitness and virulence.
Rana Elsharkawy
I am a fourth-year Biomedical Sciences student studying the inactivation of regulatory genes in Shigella. My project focuses on the role of the PmrAB signalling system in Shigella virulence by examining the effects of restoring and deleting PmrAB function in Shigella and the closely related enteroinvasive E. coli.
Emma Macgregor
My project investigates how environmental conditions and regulatory signaling pathways influence virulence regulation in Shigella flexneri. I am examining plasmid stability, metabolic sensing, and type III secretion activity to better understand how pathogenic traits are maintained and expressed during infection.
Suzy Petrosyan
Syuzanna’s project investigates how the human antimicrobial peptide HD5 influences Shigella pathogenesis, focusing on why HD5 promotes bacterial invasion rather than killing. The work examines the PhoPQ-regulated virulence operon (shf-wabB-virK-msbB2) and PmrAB signaling to explore their roles in defensin resistance and HD5-enhanced epithelial uptake.
McPhee Lab Alumni
Zaid Shahid – MSc student – 2023-25
Harnoor Gahir – undergraduate thesis student 2024-25
Sofya Rudovskaya – URO and undergraduate thesis student 2024-25
Tanvir Shakil – undergraduate thesis student 2024-25
Solé Scott – undergraduate BLG481 project student 2024-25
Rebecca David – undergraduate thesis student 2023-24
Sophia DiClemente – undergraduate thesis student 2023-24
Shaili Kapadia – undergraduate thesis student 2023-24
Erica Gasparotto – undergraduate research student 2023-24
Jamie Rice – NSERC USRA and undergraduate thesis student 2023-24
Reshmi Misir – MSc student – 2021-2023
Tesam Ahmed – undergraduate thesis student 2022-23
Jateya Grbic – undergraduate thesis student 2022-23
Golsa Makvandi – undergraduate thesis student 2022-23
Youn Hee Cho – PhD student – 2016-2022
Arooj Qamar – MSc student – 2020-2022
Madison Tomlinson – MSc student – 2019-2021
Raymond Huynh – MSc student – 2019-2021
Mayet Awoke – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22
Adelaida Blaxley – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22
Selina Melilo – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22
Shafi Rahman – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22
Julia Novielli – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22
Ingrid Bancolita – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21
Ipar Karaali – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21
Urooj Khan – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21
Jocelyne Mendez-Guzman – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21
Taylor Pham – NSERC USRA – 2021
Adam Khan – MSc student – 2017-2019
Zohra Kassam – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020
Nathaniel Katzenberg – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020
Avery Malpass – NSERC USRA undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020
Reshmi Misir – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020
Deserie Montances – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020
Eesa Chaudhry – visiting international student – 2018-2019
Abuzar Zainul Abedin – NSERC USRA 2017 and 2018; undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019
Disha Acharya – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019
Jasika Bashal – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019
Joy Dallaire – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019
Anna Mapili – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019
Michael Renouf – MSc student – 2016-2018
Sheena Shah – visiting international student – 2017-2018
Rebecca Cabral-Dias – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018 (co-supervised with Dr. Costin Antonescu)
Najih Ismail – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018
Ashuka Kayastha – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018
Shion Song – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018
Riasad Fadle Aziz – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018
Tanuja Sutradhar – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018
Viktoria Weisz – undergraduate volunteer 2016-2017
Mario Vargas MSc – graduate student 2015-2018
Jessica Kociper – undergraduate volunteer 2016-2017
Lauren Phillips – undergraduate thesis student 2016-2017
Veronica Cojocari – undergraduate thesis student 2015-16
Mariya-Nikol Leshchyshyn – undergraduate volunteer 2015-2016
Achjuthan Raveendran – undergraduate summer student 2016