ILS Faculty
Dr. Najib El-Sayed (Ph.D. Yale University)
Professor, Department of Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics
Dr. El-Sayed is a Professor of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics (CBMG) with a joint appointment in the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS). His research program is focused on the study of the biology of parasitism and host-pathogen interactions using genomic and bioinformatics approaches with the ultimate goal of better understanding infection and survival mechanisms. He was the founding director of the Computational Biology, Bioinformatics and Genomics graduate concentration area of studies and the founding director of the Next-Generation Sequencing facility at UMD.
Dr. Sabrina Kramer (Ph.D. University of Maryland)
Associate Director of Integrated Life Sciences, Honors College
Dr. Kramer teaches our second-year cell biology course. She completed her doctoral research pathogen-host interactions with Tobacco Mosaic Virus and completed postdoctoral work on using viruses as templates for nanowires. She worked previously as a faculty developer and teacher trainer, working with both graduate students and faculty to improve courses. She is a proud University of Maryland alumna (Go Terps!) and formerly the Assistant Director for Faculty Programs at the Teaching and Learning Transformation Center.
Dr. Leslie Pick (Ph.D. Albert Einstein College of Medicine)
Professor and Chair of Entomology
Dr. Pick teaches Genetics and Genomics for first-year students. Her research studies the regulatory genes and pathways that control embryonic development and Hox gene evolution, which has changed its expression pattern and protein sequence to switch its function from an ancestral homeotic gene to a segmentation gene in Drosophila. Additionally, she’s investigated modeling diseases of insulin-signaling pathways in Drosophila.
Dr. Brantley Hall (Ph.D. Virginia Tech)
Assistant Professor, Department of Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics
Dr. Hall studies the functional roles of human gut microbes, focusing on the genetic basis of microbial activities and the enzymes responsible for gut microbial biotransformations. His research also explores electron flow in the gut and its implications for gut microbial metabolism. Passionate about precise measurement, he is working on developing wearable devices to monitor microbial metabolism in real time. Since joining the University of Maryland as an Assistant Professor in 2020, his lab has focused on understanding how gut microbial functions relate to gut health. He also teaches Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics.