Xue lab at UC Irvine

Katherine Xue

Assistant professor, UC Irvine
CV | science writing
contact: xuek5 [at] uci [dot] edu

Katherine received her A.B. from Harvard University and her PhD from the University of Washington, where she studied influenza evolution in Jesse Bloom’s lab. As a postdoctoral fellow, she worked with David Relman and Dmitri Petrov at Stanford University to investigate ecological dynamics in the gut microbiome.

In addition to science, Katherine also enjoys writing, nature journaling, and birding.

Allison Ea
eaac@uci.edu

Allison received her B.S. in Microbiology and M.S. in Biology at UC San Diego, where she worked in Hiutung Chu’s lab studying the evolution of Bacteroides fragilis during oxidative stress and host inflammation. During her free time, Allison likes to bake, knit, crochet, and draw.

Jenna Archambeau
archambj@uci.edu

Jenna is a microbial ecologist specializing in microbial community responses to environmental and host-derived stressors, including antibiotic pressure. She earned her B.Sc. in Biochemistry with a minor in Statistics, and worked in a veterinary infectious disease diagnostic lab, where she focused on DNA sequencing applications in veterinary care to improve clinical outcomes across animal species. Jenna joined the lab in June 2026 and contributes to our work in strain isolation and synthetic microbial community construction.

Ana Espeleta
aespelet@uci.edu

Ana is a PhD student in the Mathematical, Computational, and Systems Biology program at UC Irvine. She earned her B.A. in Computer Science with a minor in Biology from Macalester College, and her previous work involved the application of computational tools in a wide range of biological problems, such as RNA sequence-structure prediction, and the analysis of single-cell transcriptomic data.

Since joining the Xue lab, Ana has developed a deep interest in the microbial world. Her research now focuses on the colonization dynamics of the gut microbiome, particularly through the lens of ecological theory to better understand how microbial communities behave and respond to perturbations.

Outside of the lab, Ana enjoys going to the gym, hiking, and spending time with friends and family.

Alyssa Cao
ahcao2@uci.edu

Alyssa is an undergraduate student at UC Irvine who is currently majoring in both Biological Sciences and English. As a part of the Xue Lab, she has been working on both uncovering the timeline of the horizontal transfer of the Type 6 secretion system gene from Bacteroides species to Phocaeicola vulgatus in response to antibiotics and measuring the ability of the gut microbiome to resist pathogen colonization with and without the presence of commensal species. In her free time, Alyssa enjoys crafting stories, playing the piano, and playing badminton.

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