Heidi Aronson: 2026-27 Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Aronson is a geobiologist and geomicrobiologist who studies microbial metabolisms that operate under extreme energy limitation. Her research integrates thermodynamics, cultivation, physiology, and geochemistry to identify and characterize poorly understood anaerobic metabolisms in subsurface environments. Through this approach, she examines their contributions to biogeochemical cycling, their role in supporting Earth’s earliest ecosystems, and their implications for habitability on other planetary bodies.
As a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Aronson will investigate the isotopic signatures of microbial phosphite oxidation, a metabolism that may have helped sustain early microbial communities. Building on her discovery of lithosyntrophic phosphite oxidation, her research will quantify oxygen isotope fractionations associated with microbial phosphorus redox cycling and evaluate whether these signatures can be preserved in phosphate minerals from ancient rocks. This work will provide new tools for interpreting phosphorus cycling on the early Earth and for recognizing potential biosignatures in the geologic records of Earth and other planets.
Dr. Aronson received her Ph.D. in Marine Biology and Biological Oceanography from the University of Southern California and her B.A. in Biology from Occidental College. Before beginning graduate school, she worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, first as an undergraduate intern and later as a Planetary Protection Engineer.
Landen Gozashti: 2026-27 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow
Landen is interested in mobile genetic elements (MGEs) and the molecular and evolutionary mechanisms that shape genome evolution. Landen's research career started as an undergraduate in Russell Corbett-Detig's Lab at UC Santa Cruz studying how new introns are generated in eukaryotes. Landen then completed a PhD with Hopi Hoekstra at Harvard University, where he investigated the implications of host-MGE conflict on genome structure, the molecular origins and implications of karyotype-altering chromosomal inversions, and the utility of pangenome graphs for studying structural variation in natural mammalian populations. As a Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, Landen's research leverages state-of-the-art long-read approaches to identify the genomic determinants and evolutionary processes shaping de-novo mobile element insertions, as well as the functional roles of mobile genetic elements in innate immune adaptation.
Santiago C. López: 2026-27 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow
Santiago C. López (he/him) is a 2026-2027 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology working with Professor Jennifer Doudna. Dr. López combines microbiology, structural biology, and metagenomics to interrogate the non-immune and ecological roles of bacterial immune systems. He is particularly interested in their role in orchestrating the delicate dance performed by complex microbial communities that inhabit our ecosystems. This work builds on his doctoral training with Professor Seth Shipman, where besides repurposing bacterial retrons for biotechnological applications, he studied how CRISPR immune memory are made: he uncovered a global regulator of the cellular stress response crucial to this process, an early indication that bacterial immunity is deeply tied and attuned to cell physiology.
Santiago holds a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Francisco, and a B.S. in Biology from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia.
José L. Godínez Castellanos (he|him): 2025-26 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow
José L. Godínez Castellanos is a 2025-2026 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Chemistry working with Professor. Naomi S. Ginsberg. José’s current work revolves around understanding charge carrier and thermal transport, and their interconversion in solid state doped silver selenide thermoelectrics. He uses stroboscopic interferometric scattering to provide a spatially- and time-resolved perspective of energy transport in these materials. This approach offers a new framework where we probe a material’s intrinsic properties and the effect of mesoscale structure in thermal transport—helping chemists understand the effects of dopants and design high-efficiency thermoelectrics.
José’s PhD work explored different structural effects (e.g., sequence, conformers, chromatin region location) that modulate the ultrafast formation of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers in DNA after absorption of UV light. José received a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Southern California, and a B.S. in Chemistry from the California State University, Stanislaus.
Erin Doherty (she|her): 2025-26 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow
Erin E. Doherty is a 2025-2026 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology working with Professor Jennifer Doudna. Dr. Doherty employs chemical and structural biology to investigate the ongoing evolutionary conflict between viruses and their hosts, with a particular emphasis on mechanisms of immune signaling and interference. This work builds on her doctoral training in the lab of Professor Peter Beal, which examined the regulation of RNA editing in human cells—a process central to both innate immunity and neurological function. Her dissertation, titled “Rational Design of Oligonucleotides for Site-Directed RNA Editing,” focused on developing strategies to manipulate editing outcomes using engineered oligonucleotides.
Erin holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Davis, and a B.S. in Biochemistry from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
Orlando Lara (he|him): 2025-26 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow
Orlando Lara is a 2025-2026 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology working with Professor Charles L. Briggs.
Orlando is an anthropologist, Ethnic Studies scholar, and writer. Grounded in the Rio Grande Valley and Southeast Texas, Orlando Lara’s dissertation focuses on the growth of identity precarity and insecurity through the interrogation and denial of core state identity documents such as US birth certificates and passports. His research focuses on state and federal efforts to formally question birth certificates registered by midwives in Southeast Texas as an example of the growing instability of citizenship and other purportedly “legal” statuses. Orlando also conducts research on the struggle for and growth of K-12 Ethnic Studies in hostile contexts.
Working with the artist Delilah Montoya, he co-created “Sed: A Trail of Thirst” and, with the Sin Huellas Artist Collective, the multimedia installation, “Detention Nation.” As a long-time community-engaged scholar, he co-founded the Ethnic Studies Network of Texas and has helped to establish American Indian/Native Studies as a statewide high school elective in Texas.