Team

Conor J. McMeniman, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Conor received his BSc with first-class honors in Parasitology in 2003 and a Ph.D. in Biological Science in 2009 from The University of Queensland, Australia. During his Ph.D., Conor established various strains of the bacterium Wolbachia pipientis from Drosophila melanogaster in the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti. This work with Scott L. O’Neill yielded a novel self-sustaining strategy to block transmission of dengue and other viruses in wild mosquito populations using Wolbachia; currently deployed in 12 countries worldwide to improve public health. From 2009-2015, Conor was a Human Frontier Science Program Postdoctoral Fellow at The Rockefeller University, New York with Leslie B. Vosshall. This work illuminated the molecular mechanics of Aedes aegypti CO2 detection and the key role that multisensory integration plays in driving mosquito attraction towards humans. In September 2015, Conor joined Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, and Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute. Conor is Director of the JHMRI Insectary Facility, and is jointly appointed to the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Diego Giraldo, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Diego received his BSc in Biology in 2012 at Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. He then moved to the University of Göttingen in Germany, where he joined the International Max Planck Research School for Neurosciences from 2012-2018 and obtained his MSc. and Ph.D. in Neurosciences. For his Ph.D. he joined the Department of Cellular Neurobiology at the Schwann-Schleiden Research Center and worked under the supervision of Bart Geurten and Martin Göpfert. Diego joined the McMeniman lab in January 2019 to study the neuromodulation of mosquito attraction to humans at a molecular and circuit level using functional imaging, behavioral assays and neuroanatomy. Diego has also led efforts in the McMeniman lab to develop semi-field behavioral assays to study mosquito olfactory preference towards humans in Zambia. Diego is a recipient of a 2019 Human Frontier Science Program Long-Term Postdoctoral Fellowship and 2022 Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute postdoctoral fellowship.

Margot Wohl, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Margot received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego in 2020, where she explored the role of genetics and neuromodulation on aggressive behaviors in vinegar flies in the lab of Kenta Asahina at the nearby Salk Institute. Margot joined the McMeniman lab in December 2020 to study the influence of mating on the egg-laying behaviors of the yellow fever mosquito. Specifically she is interested in the olfactory preferences of female mosquitoes and how their motivation to seek out egg-laying sites changes due to reproductive state. Margot is a recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from the The Molecular and Cellular Basis of Infectious Diseases (MCBID) Program (T32A1007417) from the NIH, is a 2022 L’Oreal USA For Women in Science Fellow which recognizes scientists for their research contribution as well as their commitment to serve as a role model for young women. Outside of research, she participates in science communication endeavors. She co-founded the science themed first person storytelling show, SASSY, at UCSD and she is the producer of the KPBS podcast Rad Scientist.

Stefano Garcia Castillo

Ph.D. student

Stefano received his BSc in Biology from Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, Peru in 2019 and a Clinical Research Certificate from the same institution in 2022. From 2018-2022, as an undergraduate and postbac, Stefano researched the epidemiology of Plasmodium vivax infection in the Peruvian Amazon with Dionicia Gamboa; the acoustic behavior of mating swarms of Anopheles gambiae with Laura Harrington at Cornell University; and was awarded the Belgian Directorate for Development Co-operation (DGD) scholarship at the Institute of Tropical Medicine at Antwerp to study the clonality of Peruvian Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax infections using bioinformatic approaches. Stefano entered the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology (MMI) Ph.D. training program at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in August 2022, and joined the McMeniman lab in August 2024. For his Ph.D. project, Stefano is identifying protein ligands for targeted CRISPR-Cas9 delivery into Anopheles gambiae oocytes. Stefano is a recipient of a 2025 Predoctoral Fellowship Award from the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute.  

Lusajo Mwakibete

Ph.D. student

Lusajo received his BA in Molecular Biology at Pomona College in 2019. Upon graduation, Lusajo moved to San Francisco to work in the Rapid response team at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub San Francisco from 2020-2023. Here, Lusajo assisted international and domestic groups in employing metagenomics and next generation sequencing for pathogen detection and surveillance. Among these various collaborations, Lusajo applied these methods to characterize potential etiologies of non-malarial fever in a cohort living in a high malaria burden area of Uganda with Bryan Greenhouse at UCSF. Lusajo is interested in leveraging genomics as an effort to mitigate infectious disease outbreaks through the one health approach. Lusajo entered the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology (MMI) Ph.D. training program at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in August 2023, and joined the McMeniman lab in October 2023. For his Ph.D. project, Lusajo aims to identify chemosensory circuitry implicated in attraction of Anopheles gambiae towards human scent.

Lydia Namuganga

Masters student

Lydia is currently in the final year of her Bachelor of Science/Master of Science in Molecular & Cellular Biology at Johns Hopkins University. Lydia joined the McMeniman lab in April 2022 as an undergraduate research fellow working under the mentorship of Margot Wohl to identify proteins in the male accessory gland that trigger Aedes aegypti oviposition. Lydia is highly passionate about improving public health disparities within Sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond. As a premed student, Lydia has performed volunteer internships in the pediatric malnutrition at Mulago Hospital in Uganda, and the pediatric emergency department at Johns Hopkins Hospital. For her Masters project, Lydia is employing synthetic biology approaches to engineer next-generation strategies for malaria control.

Arjun Vasuki Kowshik

Masters student

Arjun received his B. Tech in Biotechnology with a specialization in Molecular and Cellular Biology from PES University, Bengaluru, India in 2024. As an undergraduate, Arjun completed a series of research internships in neurovirology with Jayasri Das Sarma at the Indian Institute of Science, Education & Research, Kolkata (IISER-K); biophysics with P. Sivaraman at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru (NIMHANS); and functional imaging within the context of rodent learning and memory with Balaji Jayaprakash at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. Arjun is currently enrolled in a Master of Science in Biotechnology at Johns Hopkins University and joined the McMeniman lab in September 2024. In the lab, Arjun is working under the mentorship of Diego Giraldo to study the molecular and cellular mechanisms governing multisensory integration in Aedes aegypti using calcium imaging and neurogenetic approaches.  

Stephanie Rankin-Turner, Ph.D. (Postdoc) - Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh

Christin Hardee, B.A. (Undergraduate Fellow) - Masters student, Bloomberg School of Public Health, JHU

Micaela Feldi, B.S. (Undergraduate Fellow) - Staff, Behavioral Psychology Department, Kennedy Krieger Institute

Jinling Wu, M.S. (Masters student) - Ph.D. candidate, Case Western Reserve University

Noor Al-Saloum, B.S. (Undergraduate Fellow) - Patient Care Coordinator, Shepard’s Clinic
 Baltimore

Kristen Alicea-Jorgenson, B.S. (Undergraduate Fellow) - Masters student, Bloomberg School of Public Health, JHU


Zakiya Carter, B.S. (Undergraduate Fellow) - M.D. candidate, University of Massachusetts TH Chan School of Medicine 


Brandon Feole, B.S. (Undergraduate Fellow) -  Ph.D. candidate, Stony Brook University


Andrew Hammond, Ph.D. (Postdoc) - Chief Scientific Officer, Biocentis

Levina Lim, M.S. (Masters student) - Research Associate 3, DermBiont, Inc


Emilio Miret, B.S. (Undergraduate Fellow) - M.D. candidate, School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell


Gibran Nasir, M.S. (Masters student) - M.B.A. candidate, Harvard Business School


Luisa Otero, Ph.D. (Postdoc) - Staff Scientist, CDC Dengue Branch, Puerto Rico


Ana Perez-Lebron, M.S. (Masters student) - Senior Research Associate, Labcorp


Hebe Rosado, M.S. (Masters student) - Senior Associate, Amgen


Shruti Shankar, Ph.D. (Postdoc) - Research Associate, Brandeis University, Garrity Lab


Genevieve Tauxe, Ph.D. (Postdoc) - Research Scientist, University of Washington, Riffell Lab

Lais da Silva Pereira, Ph.D. (Postdoc) - Staff Scientist, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) | FDA

Alumni