Graduate Students
Jenn Cossaboon, DVM/Ph.D. Candidate
Jenn is a Veterinary Scientist Training Program (DVM/Ph.D.) student at UC Davis working towards her Ph.D. in Integrative Pathobiology as a member of the Aquatic Health Program. Her passion for toxicology began during her B.S. in Marine Biology at UC Santa Cruz, where she studied mercury cycling at an elephant seal rookery. She was then drawn to veterinary research during her M.S. in Environmental Health at San Diego State University, where she tracked emerging contaminants in marine mammals and California condors. For her Ph.D., Jenn is studying reproductive pathology in the Japanese medaka fish model with a particular interest in how contaminants harm the developing ovary. Jenn is using single-cell transcriptomics paired with molecular pathology tools to study how the legacy pesticide, DDT, harms specific ovary cell types. When she’s not studying, Jenn enjoys skiing, getting outside with her dog, homebrewing, and watercolor painting.
Email: jcossaboon@ucdavis.edu
Charlene Lujan, Ph.D. Candidate
Charlene is a veterinarian from Peru currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology. She has always been passionate about understanding wild birds’ diseases. In Peru, she studied avian parasites in wild birds and avian gastric yeast in exotic birds. She got her Avian Sciences M.S. at UC Davis working on Chlamydia sp. and atherosclerosis in raptors. Now, her research focuses on how microplastics and PBDEs are interfering with the health status of diving birds from the Humboldt Current Large Marine Ecosystem in Peru. Charlene runs the Microplastic Fauna Peru Project, which is an initiative from a multidisciplinary group of young Peruvian professionals that study microplastics and contaminants in Peruvian wildlife.
Email: cmlujan@ucdavis.edu
Khiet Huynh, Ph.D. Student
Khiet joined the lab as an undergraduate and continued as a lab assistant after he received his Animal Biology B.S. in 2019. Now, Khiet is a Ph.D. student in the Animal Biology Graduate Group. He is interested in studying the effects of environmental factors on fish larvae. He currently leads our Delta Smelt larval culture and experimentation.
Email: khihuynh@ucdavis.edu
Jeffrey Caudill, Ph.D. Student
Jeffrey graduated from the University of St. Thomas, MN with a B.S. in Chemistry in 2003, then obtained his M.S. in Environmental Health with a focus in Regulatory Toxicology from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in 2012. He has spent 13 years in the chemical industry followed by 7 years in the public sector. His current focus is environmental toxicology and assessing impacts of aquatic herbicides on Delta Smelt and the food web.
Email: jecaudill@ucdavis.edu