meet the fellows

From sugars and lipids to metals and gases, Jutta Diessl, Ph.D., studies cellular biology at the intersection of molecular biology and biochemistry. During her graduate studies, Diessl investigated glucolipotoxicity in yeast (M.Sc., University of Graz, Austria) and dysregulated calcium and manganese homeostasis in yeast and flies (Ph.D., Stockholm University, Sweden). In the U-M Medical School's Department of Biological Chemistry at the U-M Medical School, Diessl now elucidates the crosstalk of hydrogen sulfide- and oxygen-signaling and its impact on mitochondrial bioenergetics and cellular metabolism in mammalian cells.

In the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Department of Chemistry, Luis Ortiz-Rodríguez is developing next-generation single-molecule microscopy methods for measuring subcellular interactions in living microbial cells. Ortiz-Rodríguez comes from Luquillo, Puerto Rico and graduated with his B.S. in biology from University of Puerto Rico-Humacao Campus. He earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he scrutinized the excited state dynamics and electronic relaxation pathways of thionated heavy-atom-free photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy applications.

In the U-M Life Sciences Institute, Mónica Rivas, Ph.D., focuses on the development and application of allosteric modulators of dynamic proteins. After earning her B.S. in chemistry from the University of Central Florida, Rivas completed her graduate studies in chemistry at the University of Texas at Dallas, developing methods for robust and rapid 18F-incorporation for the synthesis of positron emission tomography (PET) agents, and their application to potential target radiosynthesis.