People - Hammell Lab

Contact details: mhammell at cshl dot edu

Molly Gale Hammell, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Molly received her Ph.D. in Physics & Astronomy from Dartmouth College in 2003. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Victor Ambros, where she studied gene regulation by small RNAs. She now runs a mixed computational and experimental lab here at CSHL to expand her studies of RNA mediated gene regulation with a particular focus on neurodegenerative disease. For this work, she was named a 2014 Rita Allen Foundation Scholar, and received the Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award in 2019.

Email:
bolger at cshl dot edu

Isobel Bolger

Graduate Student

Isobel is a Ph.D. student at SUNY Stonybrook. She joined Molly Gale Hammell’s lab in June 2020, studying the role of TDP-43 in regulating transposable element-derived small RNAs using cellular models of amylotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia.

Email:
talitha at cshl dot edu

Talitha Forcier, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Talitha received her Ph.D. from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in 2019. Her work in Molly Gale Hammell’s lab focuses on algorithms to improve quantification of transposable elements in RNA-seq and single-cell/nuclei RNA-seq experiments.

Email:
marshal at cshl dot edu

Craig Marshall

Graduate Student
Craig earned his B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology from the University of Arizona in 2016. In 2017, Craig joined the MSTP at SUNY Stony Brook, and joined Molly Hammell’s group at CSHL in 2019, where he is studying the role of transposable elements regulation in the pathophysiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia.

Email:
nataraj at cshl dot edu

Karthick Natarajan, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Karthick is a postdoctoral researcher joining Molly Gale Hammell’s lab in 2021. He works on developing CRISPRi and CRISPRa systems in cell-based models of ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Email:
rshaw at cshl dot edu

Regina Shaw

Research Technician

Regina joined Molly Hammell’s lab in early 2016 as a wet bench scientist. Her current focus is studying the role of retrotransposons in cell-based models of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Email:
tam at cshl dot edu

Oliver Tam, Ph.D.

Computational Science Analyst

Oliver received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in 2010. He currently works on the potential impact of tranposable element transcription and regulation on neurodegenerative disorders such as Motor Neurone Disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).

Email:
wunderl at cshl dot edu

Cole Wunderlich

Graduate Student

Cole is a School of Biological Sciences graduate student at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. His work focuses on developing a better algorithm for quantification of transposable elements from single-cell/nuclei RNA-seq experiments, to be utilized on neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson’s disorder.

Visitors and Volunteers

Lab photos

From left: Molly Hammell (Principal Investigator), Ray Ho, Talitha Forcier, isobel Bolger, Craig Marshall, and Ying Jin.

From right: Yuan Hao, Cole Wunderlich, Miu-Ki Yip, Regina Shaw, Nikolay Rozhkov, and Nik’s daughters.

From left: Song (Ray’s wife), Ray Ho, Wen-Wei Liao, David Molik, Yuan Hao, Ying Jin, Molly Hammell, and Ami Patel

From left: Ray Ho, David Molik, Wen-Wei Liao, Oliver Tam, Song, Molly Hammell, Elena Rozhkova (Nik’s wife) and Nikolay Rozhkov.