Monk Lab Members | Vollum Institute

Vollum Institute co-director, Kelly Monk

Kelly Monk, Ph.D. monk@ohsu.edu
Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator

Kelly Monk is the co-director of the Vollum Institute. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry from Elmira College and her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from University of Cincinnati/Cincinnati Children's Hospital where she studied neuron-glial interactions in development and disease models. Kelly performed postdoctoral studies at Stanford University from 2006–2010. In 2011, she joined the Department of Developmental Biology at Washington University School of Medicine and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2016. Kelly joined the Vollum Institute in 2017 as a senior scientist. She was named director of the Vollum/OHSU Neuroscience Graduate Program in 2018.

Emma Brennan brennaem@ohsu.edu
Research Assistant 2

Emma graduated from Santa Clara University in June 2021 with a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Music. There, she worked for three years as an undergraduate research assistant in the lab of Dr. Laura Cocas studying oligodendrocyte progenitor cells and their synapses with neurons. Emma joined the Monk lab in July 2021, where she oversees mouse colony health and helps to investigate astrocyte development and oligodendrocyte-neuron interactions in zebrafish.

Cody Call callc@ohsu.edu
Postdoctoral Fellow

Cody received a B.S. in Psychology and Biology from Florida State University working primarily with Dr. Richard Hyson on activity-dependent neuron survival in the developing auditory system. He next earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University under the mentorship of Dr. Dwight Bergles, where he investigated the dynamics and specificity of cerebral cortex remyelination using two-photon in vivo imaging in adult mice. Cody is now studying glia-glia interactions regulating myelination in the zebrafish as a postdoctoral fellow in the Monk lab.

Jiakun Chen chenjia@ohsu.edu
Postdoctoral Fellow

Jiakun received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Xiamen University, China. In 2012, he started his graduate studies in the laboratory of Dr. Lilianna Solnica-Krezel at Washington University in St. Louis to study early embryogenesis in zebrafish. After receiving his Ph.D., Jiakun joined the Monk lab and Freeman lab in March 2018. He is interested in astroglial maturation and plasticity in development and neurological disorders using the fruit fly and zebrafish models.

Hannah Collins collinha@ohsu.edu
Graduate Student, Neuroscience Graduate Program

Hannah received her B.S. in Cellular Molecular Biology with a minor in psychology from Humboldt State University, on the beautiful northern coast of California, in 2015. There she studied the role of asymmetric cell division of neural stem cells in the initiation and progression of glioblastoma. After graduating she joined the lab of Dr. Claudia Petritsch at UCSF as a California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Bridges Fellow, continuing her work on asymmetric cell division, this time in oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs). In 2016 she joined the lab of Dr. Ben Barres at Stanford University as a research technician working on creating defined culture system for microglia. Hannah joined the Neuroscience Graduate Program in 2018 and the labs of Dr. Ben Emery and Dr. Kelly Monk in 2019. With this co-mentorship she hopes to use the combined power of zebrafish and mouse models to understand the regulation and maintenance of central nervous system myelination.

Adam Coombs, coombsa@ohsu.edu
Graduate Student, Neuroscience Graduate Program

Adam received a B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from the University of California, San Diego in 2016. During his time in California, he worked his way up from undergraduate intern to research assistant in the lab of Ardem Patapoutian at Scripps Research/HHMI. Adam worked on various projects centered around mechanosensitive ion channels, and spanning from plant biology to translational projects involving human subjects. In 2020, he joined the Neuroscience Graduate Program and entered into a co-mentorship with Ben Emery (OHSU Jungers Center) and Kelly Monk to study the mechanobiology of myelinating glia.

Ryan Doan doanr@ohsu.edu
Graduate Student, Neuroscience Graduate Program

Ryan received his B.S. in Neuroscience from Saint Louis University in 2015. He then moved to Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to work in the labs of Aaron DiAntonio and Stefanie Geisler as a research technician, where he studied the mechanisms of axon degeneration and peripheral neuropathies. Ryan joined the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the Vollum Institute in 2018 and the Monk lab in 2019. He is interested in using the zebrafish model to investigate the roles of neuron-glia interactions in the development and function of the peripheral nervous system.

Raja Estes estesr@ohsu.edu
Graduate Student, Neuroscience Graduate Program

Raja received her B.S. in Physiology from the University of Washington, Seattle in 2020. During that time she worked as an undergraduate research assistant in Matthew Kaeberlein's lab studying the link between aging and onset of Alzheimer's Diseases by performing high throughput drug screenings on C.elegans. She continued work in neurodegeneration by establishing Astrocyte cultures derived from human Induced Puripotent stem cells isolated from Parkinson's Disease patients. This work supported the investigation of the role of GBA in the spread of alpha-synuclein from neurons to glia in Marie Davis's lab at the Veterans Association Hospital in Seattle. She plans to continue her interest in astrocytes by implementing zebrafish and mice models to understand astrocytes role in neurovascular coupling from development to disease with co-mentorship by Anusha Mishra.

Austin Forbes forbesa@ohsu.edu
Research Associate

Austin is a research associate in the Monk lab. He received a B.S. degree in biology from the University of Oregon and worked for a year at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center before settling at OHSU. Currently he curates a forward genetic zebrafish screen to help uncover novel mutants. Additionally, he has been working on VAST imaging system to analyze physiological changed in drug treated fish with high-throughput efficiency.

Dongeun Heo, Ph.D. heo@ohsu.edu
Postdoctoral Fellow

Dongeun received her B.S. degree in Neurobiology from Georgetown University, where she first developed her interest in glial cells in the lab of Jeffrey Huang. She earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University, where she studied oligodendrocyte lineage cells using a diverse set of transgenic mouse lines in the lab of Dwight Bergles. Dongeun joined the Freeman and Monk labs in September 2021 and is interested in investigating the development and function of astrocytes using both fruit fly and zebrafish models.

Jiaxing Li lijia@ohsu.edu
Postdoctoral Fellow

Jiaxing received a B.S. degree in Animal Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and then a Ph.D. degree in Molecular Biology with Dr. Catherine Collins from University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. During his Ph.D., Jiaxing investigated the regulation mechanism of a MAP kinase, known as Wallenda/dlk, which plays important roles in synapse development and axonal injury response. Using Drosophila embryos and larvae, his work revealed a previously unknown regulation mechanism that coordinates axonal cargo volume with axonal transport capacity. Jiaxing joined the Monk lab in November 2017 to study myelination in the central nervous system with a focus on the development of oligodendrocyte-lineage cells.

Tania Miramontes miramota@ohsu.edu
Graduate Student, Neuroscience Graduate Program

Tania received her B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biochemistry with a minor in Biomedical Engineering from The University of Texas at El Paso in 2019. She was a BUILDing SCHOLAR and explored various research topics throughout her undergraduate years. Her undergraduate thesis work focused on understanding the mechanisms that promote sex differences in the reinforcing effects of nicotine. Tania joined the Neuroscience Graduate Program in 2019 and the Monk lab in 2020. She is interested in using the zebrafish model to understand neuron-glia interactions and glial development through various genetic and imaging techniques.

Tia Perry perryti@ohsu.edu
Research Assistant 2

Tia Perry received her bachelor’s degree in Zoology from Oregon State University in 2012. Prior to joining the Monk Lab at OHSU as a research assistant, she worked at the Oregon Zoo as the Oregon Silverspot Butterfly Program Coordinator. The Oregon Silverspot Butterfly is a federally threatened species, and she helped collect eggs from wild caught gravid females and raised the larvae for release on historical and newly created habitat. Tia also helped the Oregon Zoo Butterfly Conservation Lab raise and release federally endangered Washington Taylor’s Checkerspot butterflies. Before leaving the Oregon Zoo she participated in the first successful zoological breeding of the Oregon Silverspot Butterfly, which produced over 300 larvae that were released back into the wild. Tia joined the Monk lab in December 2020.

Melanie Piller pillerm@ohsu.edu

Graduate Student

Melanie Piller received a B.S. with highest distinction in biology in from the University of Virginia in 2019. As an undergraduate, she worked in the lab of Dr. Sarah Kucenas studying the roles of adenosine and glutamate signaling in glial development as a Beckman Scholar. Melanie joined the OHSU MD-PhD program in 2020, and the NGP and Monk lab in 2022, where she studies interactions between oligodendrocyte lineage cells and neurons during development.

Adriana Reyes reyesad@ohsu.edu
Research Associate

Adriana Reyes graduated with a B.S. in Animal Science from West Virginia University in 2014. She started off in the research field working for Charles River Laboratories at Janelia Farms in Ashburn, VA as a study support associate for various labs mainly on rodent studies. Soon after she moved to New York City to work at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where she gained most of her zebrafish knowledge. After a couple of years in NYC, Adriana made her way to Pittsburgh, PA to work at the University of Pittsburgh. There she was able to work with a variety of species such as rodents, livestock, amphibians and non-human primates. Outside of work Adriana loves to travel and trying new food spots around the city.

Amanda Senatore senatore@ohsu.edu
Graduate Student

Amanda received her B.S. in Psychological Science and M.S. in Pharmacology from the University of Vermont. She first developed an interest in mechanobiology during her master's where she worked with Dr. Alan Howe studying the regulation of focal adhesions by PKA. Prior to beginning graduate studies at OHSU, she worked as a research technician with Dr. Osama Harraz and helped to define a role for Piezo1 as a mechanosensor in brain capillary endothelial cells. Amanda joined the Monk and Murthy labs in 2023 where she plans to combine electrophysiology, zebrafish, and mouse model systems to investigate the role of mechanically activated ion channels in myelination.