Ana L. Caicedo

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Ana obtained her B.S. in Biology in 1996 at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She left the lofty peaks of the Andes for the (flatter) environment of the Midwest U.S. to attend graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis; there she studied the population genetics of disease resistance genes in wild tomatoes and received her Ph.D. in 2003. During a postdoc at NC State, she carried out research on the evolutionary genomics of rice domestication and the population genetics of floral timing genes in Arabidopsis thaliana. Ana joined the UMass Biology faculty in 2006.  Her current research interests include the genetic basis of adaptation, the genomics of plant domestication, and the population genetics of diversification within and between species.

Rachel Tavares

PhD student, Plant Biology

Rachel is a PhD student in the Plant Biology Graduate Program. She rotated in Fall 2019 and joined the lab in Spring 2020. She is most interested in endophytic microbes in weedy versus cultivated rice species. Previously, she worked at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center studying abscission zone development and using Setaria protoplast cells to create plant sensors. 

e-mail: rltavares_at_umass.edu

Maryam Rashidzade

PhD student, Plant Biology

Maryam is a Ph.D. student in the Plant Biology Graduate Program. She rotated in Spring 2021 and joined the lab. She received B.S. and M.Sc. in Horticulture from the University of Tehran, Iran. She is mostly interested in population genetics, evolution, and plant-pathogen coevolution. 

e-mail: mrashidzade_at_umass.edu

Tori Ford

PhD student, Plant Biology

Tori Ford is a PhD student in the Plant Biology Graduate Program. They rotated in Fall 2024 and joined the lab in Spring 2025. They are mainly interested in the genetic underpinnings of Vavilovian mimicry in Vicia sativa. They are broadly interested in population genetics, biogeography, herbarium studies, species distribution modeling, and computational biology.  

e-mail: toriford_at_umass.edu

Ludmila Tyler

Collaborator

Ludmila Tyler is a Senior Lecturer in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department.  Her interests include the genetics, cell walls, and developmental biology of plants, as well as bioenergy and undergraduate education.  In the lab, her focus is on the genomics and natural variation of the model grass Brachypodium distachyon.

e-mail: ludmilat_at_umass.edu

Jessica Matheson

Technician

Jessica graduated as a Biology major in Spring 2024. She joined the Caicedo lab in Spring 2022 and carried out an honor’s thesis on the haustorial attachments of various dodder species to a variety of host plants. Since graduating, she has been advancing the ability of the lab to grow and study dodder, and has been supporting many other lab activities.

email: jlmatheson_at_umass.edu

Nina Theis

Sabbatical Scholar

Nina is a Professor of Biology at Elms College, and co-Chair of the Division of Natural Science, Mathematics and Technology at Elms. Nina is also an adjunct Professor in the UMass Biology Department. She is spending a sabbatical semester in the Caicedo lab working on a very exciting dataset of floral volatile compounds across the honeysuckle (Lonicera) genus.

email: theisn_at_elms.edu

Isabelle Schramm von Blucher

Undergraduate researcher

Isabelle is an undergraduate Biology major with an interest in genetics and evolution. She joined the Caicedo Lab in the Fall of 2022 working with PhD student Mariam Rashidzade. In the lab, Isabelle has helped investigate the relationship between tomatoes and their co-evolved fungal pathogens.

e-mail: ischrammvonb_at_umass.edu

Brian Kubi

Undergraduate researcher

Brian is an undergraduate student majoring in biology. He joined the lab in Fall of 2023 and is currently working with PhD student Maryam Rashidzade. In the lab, Brian’s work focuses on the difference between wild type and domesticated tomatoes’ resistance against pathogens. He is interested in biotechnology research and industry.

e-mail: bkubi_at_umass.edu

Christopher Faneuff

Undergraduate researcher

Chris is a class of 2025 undergraduate majoring in Biology. He joined the Caicedo lab in the December of 2023. He has been helping Rachel Tavares with transforming rice plants to investigate the genetic basis of shattering, and has now become more involved in assessment of the effects of rice seed endophytes on plant growth.

e-mail: cfaneuff_at_umass.edu

Helena Duffy

Undergraduate researcher

Helena is an undergraduate Plant and Soil Science student. She joined the lab in spring of 2025 and is learning dodder growth and care from Jess, as well as dodder microscopy.

e-mail: hduffy_at_umass.edu

Aaron Cashton

Undergraduate researcher

Aaron is an undergraduate Biology major with a focus in genetics and microbiology. He joined in the fall of 2023 working with undergraduate Jessica Matheson on the dodder project, analyzing haustarical attachments of different dodder species and hosts. He is further interested in biotechnology research and industry and plans to find a career there.

e-mail: acashton_at_umass.edu