Robin did his undergraduate and graduate studies in genetics, computational biology and philosophy (totally shows) at the University of Freiburg in Germany. He then did his postdoc with EMBO and HHMI fellowships at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. Having come to Dallas in 2006, he is in his 8th year in Texas, yet still maintains a life with no fast food, no TV, no gun and no right to vote.

Peter Robin Hiesinger, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor
email: robin.hiesinger@utsouthwestern.edu
phone: 214-645-6060

Leah is responsible for all those things the scientific lab members don't understand. If you don't get an answer out of Robin, please contact her!

Leah Benson - Administrative Associate
email: leah.benson@utsouthwestern.edu
phone: 214-645-5920

Chih-Chiang received his Ph.D. here at UT Southwestern in 2008. Faithfully sticking to Drosophila as the love of his choice (just goes to show...), he's moving on from embryo to brain development for his postdoc. Yes, there is a brain.

Chih-Chiang Chan, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow
email: chih-chiang.chan@utsouthwestern.edu
phone: 214-645-6059

Sunil is a Psychiatrist - and we're not really sure whether he's a member of our lab, but he kinda shows up several times a week talking to our flies, so we figure he must be. Matter of factly, he's sharing a bench with Robin, which is an odd deja vu, because they did the same thing for 5 years or so already when Sunil was an MD/PhD student and Robin a postdoc at Baylor in Houston.... There's a tie that binds... or at least, let's say - it cannot have been that bad...

Sunil Q. Mehta, M.D., Ph.D. - Resident Physician, Psychiatry
email: s1meht@parnet.pmh.org
phone: 214-645-6059

Elzi received her degree in Plant Sciences from Oregon State University, Corvallis. In a natural succession of professional experiences, she has worked as a research assistant, free-lance writer, fitness personal trainer and consultant and research associate in Veterinary Medicine (Ohio State) and neuropathology (UT Southwestern) ever since. A serious motorbiker, she lives on her own ranch 60 miles out of Dallas just to get on her bike every morning before dawn.

Elzi Volk, B.S. - Sr Research Associate
email: elzi.volk@utsouthwestern.edu
phone: 214-645-6059

Ryan is our real Texan, although he tells some strange story involving Alaska. Discussions with him will principally leave you wanting to think and learn more - except, maybe, if he tells you all about how to shoot and cut a deer into pieces.

Ryan Williamson, B.S. - Graduate Student
email: wallace.williamson@utsouthwestern.edu
phone: 214-645-6059

Dong (or Wang?) received a B.S. from Kunming Normal College, a Masters from Yunnan University, and a Ph.D. from the Chinese Academy of Science. He worked as a biology teacher in China, a DAAD postdoc at the University of Munich in Germany and a postdoctoral fellow in Singapore. Having worked all his scientific career with the genetic model plant Arabidopsis he did the only square thing at Southwestern Medical Center: start working on the genetic model Drosophila - fundamentally Arabidopsis with wings.

Dong Wang, Ph.D. - Research Associate
email: dong.wang@utsouthwestern.edu
phone: 214-645-6059

Victor received his degree in Neuroscience from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. A trained electrophysiologist, he found himself in a dream come true to record electroretinograms from flies for almost a year, before he became the teacher he always wanted to be: teaching kids all about flies, science and everything.

Victor Galanis, M.S.