Jake earned his BS from the University of Minnesota, PhD from Yale, and conducted postdoctoral studies at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. In 2023, he established his lab at Yale University to investigate the origins of animal life and the deep evolutionary history of our nervous system.

Kejue is an associate research scientist in the MCDB department at Yale studying cell type and gene module evolution. He earned his PhD in computational biology with minors in applied math and statistics from Iowa State University with a focus on protein coevolution and homolog detection.

Jamie received her B.S. in Forensic Science and Biology and her M.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of New Haven. She is now a Research Associate in the Musser lab and interested in the evolution of cell types in animals.

Oscar is a second-year undergraduate at Yale University majoring in Philosophy and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. In the Musser Lab, Oscar studies the composition and development of sponge microbiomes. When not in the lab, Oscar plays bass and piano and enjoys reading and working out.

Dominica received their B.A.s from Smith College and conducted postgraduate research at Yale University. They joined the Musser group as a Gruber Fellow to study the evolution of animal body plans, with particular interest in how it intersects with organismal development, evolution, and theory.

Sean is a fourth-year undergraduate at Yale University majoring in Neuroscience and Evolutionary Biology. He previously studied cytoskeletal protein dynamics and is now investigating the evolution of cell type-specific cytoskeletal regulation in the Musser Lab.

Sarah joined the lab as a PhD student to study the microbiome of freshwater sponges. She is very passionate about microorganisms of all kinds. When she is not in the lab she is looking for rocks, watching animal documentaries, gaming, or sleeping.

Roy received his B.M.Sc. in Microbiology & Immunology w/ Pathology and M.Sc. in Microbiology & Immunology from Western University in Canada. He is currently disentangling how proteins and organelles became integrated as part of cell-cell communication pathways to coordinate multicellular physiology.

Kat received her A.B. in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology from Harvard University and is now a Yale BBS doctoral student. She loves microscopy and uses this tool  in the lab to answer questions about the development of the sponge canal system and the origin of animal tubulogenesis.​

Miranda is a paleontologist and a PhD student in Yale’s Earth and Planetary Sciences department, where she studies tetrapod skeletal evolution. She is pursuing her minor project in the Musser lab, investigating the tempo and mode of sponge plasticity under different environmental conditions.

Vikash completed his PhD in Physics from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, India and conducted postdoctoral research at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stockholm, Sweden. He is currently investigating the sponge's canal architecture, tissue elasticity, and how water flows inside the canals.