People

Dr. Emily E Rosowski, PI
B.S. 2007, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Ph.D. 2013, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Postdoctoral research 2013-2018, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. Rosowski's research interests lie in host-pathogen interactions, both from the immune side--understanding how our immune systems combat infection--and from the pathogen side--understanding pathogen virulence and survival factors. During her PhD at MIT in Dr. Jeroen Saeij's lab (now at UC-Davis), she studied the obligate intracellular pathogen Toxoplasma gondii, working to understand how proteins secreted from Toxoplasma into host cells modulate host cell signaling. She then moved to UW-Madison to work with Dr. Anna Huttenlocher and to learn the larval zebrafish model of immune function. This is where she began studying Aspergillus fumigatus, working with Dr. Nancy Keller to better understand how the innate immune system controls and combats A. fumigatus infection. Dr. Rosowski moved to the Department of Biological Sciences at Clemson University in January 2019 to start her own lab.

Find Dr. Rosowski's full list of publications at:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/12gXubvBr4QQF/bibliography/public/

Or find her on ResearchGate and Google Scholar.

Current lab members

May 2023, From left to right: Will Henry (PhD student), Aqib Magray (postdoc), Sarah McKay (PhD student), Lynette Goins (PhD student), Bailey Naples (Lab technician), Savini Thrikawala (Postdoc), Emily Rosowski.

Dr. Savini U Thrikawala, Postdoc
B.S. 2011, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka
Ph.D. 2018, University of Houston

Savini’s current research focuses on the innate immune response to Aspergillus infection using zebrafish as a model system. Her interests in the zebrafish model started with her PhD at the Bondesson/Gustafsson lab in UH, where she studied developmental toxicity of environmental chemicals, such as pesticides. Before that, she did her bachelor’s degree on parasitology and immunology. Savini is excited to have joined the Rosowski lab, starting from February 2019.

Dr. Aqib Magray, Postdoc
Aqib joined the lab in February 2023 as a postdoc. He is working on understanding the relative importance of different phagosomal and lysosomal killing mechanisms used by macrophages against Aspergillus spores.

Lynette (Margaret) Goins, PhD student
Lynette joined the lab from the rotation program in February 2022. Her research focuses on the role of the NADPH oxidase complex in macrophage responses to Aspergillus.

Sarah McKay, PhD student
Sarah joined the lab as a direct admission student in August 2022. Her research focuses on the role of TLR and NLR sensors in macrophage recognition and killing of Aspergillus.

William Henry, PhD student
Will joined the lab from the rotation program in February 2023. He currently has two research projects- one focusing on the role of Rab GTPases in the trafficking of Aspergillus spores in macrophages, and one aiming to understand the function of EP2 receptors in macrophages versus neutrophils in the response to Aspergillus.

Oluseyi Taiwo, PhD student
Seyi joined the lab from the rotation program in May 2024. He is currently working on developing new models of bacterial infection to study bacterial-innate immune reponses in larval zebrafish.

Bailey Naples, Lab technician
Bailey joined the lab in January 2023 and is charge of the Rosowski lab zebrafish facility as well as helping other lab members with their research projects.

Former lab members

Erin Glass, Lab technician
Erin started as an undergraduate student in the lab and then worked as a technician from January 2022-November 2023. She is currently working as an Annual Giving Officer at Clemson.

Stephan Robinson, MEnTOR student
Stephan was a summer student in the lab from May 2022-July 2022 while he was a medical student at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

Christopher Tanner, Graduate Student (M.S.)
B.S. Microbiology 2019, University of Maine

Chris joined the Rosowski Lab in September 2019 and graduated with his MS degree in May 2022. His work focused on the role of Rac signaling pathways in clearance of Aspergillus. He will be enrolling at Dartmouth in Fall 2022 to start his PhD studies.

Michael Kellett, Lab technician
B.S. Biology 1995, Furman University
M.S. Biology 2020, Clemson University

Michael was a technician in the lab from November 2020 to August 2021. He is currently working at the Greenwood Genetics Center.

Sarah Baum, MEnTOR student
Sarah was a summer student in the lab from May 2021-July 2021 while she was a medical student at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine.

Former undergraduate students in the lab

Heather Cosh worked in the lab from January 2022 to May 2023, when she graduated. She wrote an honors thesis on her work in the lab.

Emma Taylor and Logan (Huston) Betenbaugh were undergraduate students in the lab from January 2022 to December 2022.

Kevin Ayala, Molly Anderson, Hannah Pollock, and Collin Davis (left to right) are all former Clemson undergraduate BioSci or Micro students in the lab.

Old lab photos