Amber is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the Institute for the Study of Host-Pathogen Systems at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and has a joint position in Microbiology, Immunology, and Biochemistry. She received her B.Sc. in Mathematical and Computer Sciences from the Colorado School of Mines, M.S. and Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Utah, and postdocs in Biophysics and Theoretical Biology at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Amanda holds a B.A. in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an M.S. in Infectious Disease and Microbiology from the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. Her graduate work focused on the cutaneous immune response to dengue virus. Before joining the lab in 2014, she worked as a lab manager and technician at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Vaccine Research, studying Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) and dengue virus immunology.

Before joining the Smith Lab, Ivan completed his Ph.D. in Mathematics at University of Pittsburgh in July 2020.  He also has a M.S. in Mathematics from East Tennessee State University and a B.S. in Mathematics from the Universidad de Costa Rica.  His research focuses on developing, calibrating, and using mathematical models to understand the role of energy production & consumption during pathogenic infections. He’s particularly interested in sepsis and whether poor energy availability and production is responsible for systemic inflammation.

Bio coming!

Amaya received her B.Sc. in Medical Laboratory Sciences from the General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences in Sri Lanka. Before joining the biomedical sciences graduate program at UTHSC, she worked as a Research Assistant at the Sri Lanka College of Endocrinology and as a Teaching Assistant at the same university where she graduated.