Dr. Donovan received her B.S. and Ph.D. in Nutrition from the University of California, Davis. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology at Stanford University School of Medicine, she accepted a faculty position at the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1991. She was promoted to Professor in 2001 and, in 2003, was named the first recipient of the Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair in Nutrition and Health at the University of Illinois. She served as Director of the Division of Nutritional Sciences Interdisciplinary Graduate Program from 1999-2009. She is actively involved in her professional societies and will serve as President of the American Society for Nutrition for 2011-2012.
339 Bevier Hall
905 S. Goodwin Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 333-2289
Email: sdonovan@illinois.edu
Marcia Monaco Siegel received her B.S. in Dietetics at the Pontificia Catholic University of Campinas in Brazil, her M.S. in Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Rhode Island and her Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Illinois in 1994. Her scientific training was followed with a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratories of Drs. Matt Wheeler and Sharon Donovan at UI, where she worked on the development of an IGF-I transgenic line of swine. Marcia is involved in several projects that focus on the understanding of the role of nutrition, particularly components of breast milk, in the development of the gastrointestinal tract. She has over 20 years of experience in using the piglet as a model for biomedical research and often collaborates with other investigators in the adaptation of the piglet model for their research. In the spring of 2011, Marcia received the Professional Staff Award for Excellence from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.
338 Bevier Hall
905 S. Goodwin Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 244-2873
Email: monaco@illinois.edu
Mei Wang has been working at the Donovan Lab as a postdoc research associate since 2007. Her current research interests focus on the impact of early nutrition (breast-milk, formula, formula with prebiotics, and breast-milk in combination with formula) on the colonization of intestinal microbiota and immune function using a neonate pig model. Mei obtained her Ph.D. at the Department of Food Technology, Engineering and Nutrition, Lund University, Sweden. During that time, her research aimed at the characterization of intestinal microbiota in healthy and diseased subjects by DNA-based methods. Mei's research interests are gut microbiota, infant formula, and pre- and probiotics.
363 Bevier Hall
905 S. Goodwin Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 333-2685
Email: meiwang@illinois.edu
Min Li joined Dr. Donovan’s lab as a postdoctoral fellow in the fall of 2009. She obtained her PhD in Microbiology at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China in June of 2009. Her PhD research work focused on the functionality analysis of human intestinal microbiome relevant to host metabolism and metabolic disease. Since September 2009, Min has been working in the Donovan lab to study the effects of human milk oligosaccharides (HMO) on the development of neonatal gut microbiota and immunity using piglet models. Through these years’ research work, she has mastered various microbial ecological techniques, such as DGGE, T-RFLP, qPCR, pyrosequencing and massive sequence data analysis, and Min has also learnt to conduct animal studies, and some immunological techniques such as ELISA, cell culture and flow cytometry.
363 Bevier Hall
905 S. Goodwin Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 333-2685
Email: mli2009@illinois.edu
Emily Radlowski received her PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her researched focused on early nutrition (breastfeeding, formula feeding, or the combination of the two) and its effect on immune development using a neonatal piglet model. She is currently a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratories of Dr. Sharon Donovan and Dr. Rodney Johnson. Her current projects include developing a piglet model for research involving the small for gestational age infant. Through her training as a PhD student and now a post-doc, Emily has learned many techniques including gut enzyme assays, flow cytometry, immune cell isolation, ELISAs, microarray analysis as well as behavioral testing using a piglet model. In addition to her research, Emily is involved with the Graduate Dietetic Internship, as an assistant to Dr. Sharon Donovan.
338 Bevier Hall
905 S. Goodwin Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 244-2863
Email: radlowsk@illinois.edu
Elizabeth (Lizzy) Reznikov joined the Donovan Lab in the fall of 2009. Lizzy is the recipient of the Ruth. L. Kirschstein Fellowship. The overall focus of her dissertation research has been on the biological effects of lactoferrin on gastrointestinal and immune development in the piglet model. She has conducted several animal studies examining intestinal proliferation, enzymatic activity, histomorphological, immunohistochemical measures and gene expression on the intestine in piglets supplemented with lactoferrin. Lizzy has also optimized several methods including quantifying proliferation and migration, and immune cell staining. This data has been presented at Experimental Biology 2011, and 2012. Both years Lizzy’s abstracts were chosen for a Trainee Travel Award from the Int'l Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation. She is currently working on her next project that will study the interaction between lactoferrin and probiotics in modulating the systemic immune system and microbiota in a novel piglet Staphylococcus aureus sepsis model.
338 Bevier Hall
905 S. Goodwin Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 244-2863
Email: rezniko1@illinois.edu
Casey joined the Donovan Lab during the summer of 2010 as an undergraduate helper. After graduating with a degree in Communication he was hired to help full time with the graduate student projects. While working here Casey has learned new experimental techniques including ELISAs, Histomorphology, and PCR. Tasked with creating this website, Casey has also learned the basics of website planning and website design. He continues to look for opportunities to enrich his skill set.
338 Bevier Hall
905 S. Goodwin Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 244-2873
Email: cradlo2@illinois.edu
Cassandra Fox, Class of 2013
Animal Sciences/Pre-vet
Alexa Personett, Class of 2013
Animal Sciences/Pre-vet
Jessica Chen, Class of 2014
Mollecular and Cellular Biology