Stottmann Lab Staff
Rolf Stottmann, PhD
Principal Investigator
Rolf.Stottmann@NationwideChildrens.org
Rolf Stottmann, PhD, is a professor in the Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Stottmann has an enduring interest in the genetics of structural birth defects. He is especially focused on structural brain malformations and disrupted craniofacial skeletal development: congenital malformations of craniofacial development. He originally trained using mouse genetics to study these issues but has recently added human sequencing projects to his lab portfolio. The lab now uses a combination of human and mouse genetics to identify and study rare genetic variants which cause these congenital malformations. Genome editing tools allow the group to directly model patient variants to assess pathogenicity, study animal models in depth and potentially design therapeutic intervention strategies.
Dr. Stottmann received his bachelor’s degrees in physiology and neurobiology and his master’s degree in developmental neurobiology from the University of Maryland. Dr. Stottmann pursued dissertation work in the Department of Cell Biology at the Duke University School of Medicine followed by postdoctoral training at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital Division of Genetics and Harvard Medical School. In 2011, Dr. Stottmann set up his first laboratory research program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in the Division of Human Genetics with a joint appointment in the Division of Developmental Biology.
Kurt Reynolds, PhD
Postdoctoral Scientist
Kurt.Reynolds@NationwideChildrens.org
Kurt recently completed his doctorate at The University of California, Davis, where he investigated Wnt signaling in craniofacial development and its roles in the etiology of oral clefts. He joins the Stottmann Lab as a postdoctoral scientist where he will use mouse models to characterize the developmental contributions of two genes whose homologs are implicated in rare human craniofacial disorders.
Jennifer Watts, PhD
Postdoctoral Scientist
Jennifer.Watts@NationwideChildrens.org
Jennifer Watts, PhD, is a postdoctoral scientist in the the Stottmann Lab. Her current research focuses on the genetic and molecular origins of craniofacial abnormalities.
Dr. Watts received her bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2016, completing her undergraduate thesis in cancer biology, and her doctorate degree in molecular, cellular and integrative physiology from Michigan State University in 2021. Her dissertation focused on the effects of Zika virus infection on embryo development utilizing mouse and stem cell models. Dr. Watts completed additional developmental biology training at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and the reproductive and developmental sciences training program at Michigan State University with three years of funding through the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Thamara Dayarathna
Research Scientist
Thamara.Dayarathna@NationwideChildrens.org
Thamara earned her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka and her doctoral degree in plant chemistry from University of Greenwich, UK. Then she moved to Canada and gathered post doctoral experience in biochemistry and molecular biology from University of Western Ontario. During her postdoctoral experience, Thamara won an industrial scholarship to join with a biotech company to develop DNA aptamer-based biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and mycotoxin detection in various food types. Her translational research work conducted at St Joseph’s Hospital in Ontario was intriguing. This work led her to discover nutraceutical drug candidate for kidney stone disease and to develop non-invasive biomarkers to detect various cancer types and Alzheimer’s disease. Throughout her research journey she is qualified for high throughput drug discovery animal model development, personalized drug discovery using various cancer xenografting models, biomarker development for early diagnosis of both cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. In the Stottmann Laboratory, Dr. Dayarathna is researching mechanisms involved in structural birth defects at genotypic, transcriptional, posttranscriptional, translational, and post-translational levels using animal models as well as patient derived human iPSC research models.
Paul Iyyanar
Research Scientist
Paul.Iyyanar@NationwideChildrens.org
Paul joined the lab as a research scientist in August 2023 and has a longstanding interest in craniofacial development. During his doctoral program at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, Paul investigated the mechanism of cleft palate pathogenesis due to mutations in the Hoxa2 gene. During his postdoctoral work at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, he characterized several transgenic mouse lines of Alx transcription factors and identified the developmental and patterning basis of frontonasal dysplasia (median cleft syndrome). In the Stottmann Lab, Paul will be using a combination of human genetics and mouse transgenic approaches to delineate genetic, cell and developmental mechanisms of craniofacial malformations.
Russell Chuah
Research Associate
Russell.Chuah@NationwideChildrens.org
Russell graduated from The Ohio State University with a bachelor's of science in molecular genetics. After graduation, he worked in the field of gene therapy for two years at Nationwide Children's before deciding to join Stottmann Lab in July of 2024 to pursue more developmental and mechanistic research. In the Stottmann Lab, his main work focuses on the ENU screen, to find craniofacial and cortical lamination mutant phenotypes in embryonic mice to identify novel genes guiding development.
Logan Willeke
Research Assistant
Logan.Willeke@NationwideChildrens.org
Logan Willeke joined the Stottmann Lab as a research assistant in September 2023. Logan graduated from The Ohio State University with a bachelor’s degree in molecular genetics. He is excited to gain more experience with research before pursuing a master’s degree in genetic counseling.
Jesus Leal
Research Assistant
Jesus.Leal@NationwideChildrens.org
Jesus M. Leal joined the Stottmann Lab as a research assistant in July 2023. Jesus recently graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a bachelor’s degree in biology and a minor in history. As an undergraduate, Jesus conducted research in ecology and evolution. He is excited to pursue his other research interests as he studies the development of congenital brain defects.
Iftekhar Showpnil
Bioinformatics Analyst I
Iftekhar.Showpnil@NationwideChildrens.org
Iftekhar is a bioinformatics analyst in the Stottmann Lab performing variant analysis for the craniofacial malformations human genetics research protocol launched by Dr. Rolf Stottmann at the Institute for Genomic Medicine (IGM), Nationwide Children's Hospital. He completed his doctorate with Dr. Stephen Lessnick at the Center for Childhood Cancer, Nationwide Children's Hospital. As part of his graduate studies, Iftekhar worked with several genomic and epigenetic datasets including Hi-C, 4C, CUT&TAG, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, and RNA-seq to understand the effects of the EWS::FLI oncogenic transcription factor on chromatin organization and gene expression in Ewing sarcoma. Iftekhar is highly interested in studying disease mechanisms using genomics and bioinformatics tools and is currently integrated with the research genomics group at IGM (led by Daniel Koboldt) where he routinely works with genomic datasets (WES, WGS, and RNA-seq) to identify disease causing variant(s) in patient families enrolled in various human genetics research protocol at IGM.
Rebekah Rushforth
Graduate Student
Rebekah.Rushforth@NationwideChildrens.org
Rebekah Rushforth is a student in the biomedical sciences graduate program at The Ohio State University completing her graduate work in the Stottmann Lab.
Bekah graduated from Brigham Young University with a bachelor's degree in genetics, genomics, and biotechnology. She became interested in pursuing rare pediatric neurological disorders while working as a lab tech at the University of Utah. Her research focus is on the genetic mechanisms of craniofacial disorders and basal ganglia development.
Morgan Smith
Graduate Student
Morgan.Smith@NationwideChildrens.org
Morgan Smith is a graduate student in the molecular, cellular and developmental biology doctorate program at The Ohio State University. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami in both biology and marine science. She has previously worked at Columbia University as a research assistant focusing on the development of stem cell therapies for pediatric diseases and more recently as a high school biology teacher in Florida. Her research in the lab focuses on understanding the role various genes and their pathogenic mutations have on cell biology, neurogenesis, and cortical development.
Bayla Bessemer
Research Student
Bayla.Bessemer@NationwideChildrens.org
Bayla Bessemer is a graduate student in the comparative biomedical sciences graduate program at The Ohio State University and a veterinary anatomic pathology resident in OSU’s Department of Veterinary Biosciences. Dr. Bessemer completed her bachelor’s in biomedical sciences at the University of West Florida and her master's in public health and doctor of veterinary medicine at Michigan State University. Her research in the lab focuses on the investigation of the role of cholesterol biosynthesis in embryogenesis, with a special focus on the Hsd17b7 protein coding gene. Dr. Bessemer’s work outside of the lab primarily lies in diagnostic necropsy, histopathology and teaching.
Ramon Macias
Research Student
Ramon.Macias@NationwideChildrens.org
Ramon is a graduate student in The Ohio State University's molecular, cellular and developmental biology doctorate program. Ramon graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering and had been working at a diagnostic laboratory, Alverno Laboratories, for two years prior to joining the Stottmann Lab. His research in the lab is primarily focused on elucidating the role of α/β-tubulin isotypes in embryonic development, with a particular interest in cortical development.
Bryan Crase
Undergraduate Student
Bryan.Crase@NationwideChildrens.org
Bryan Crase is a third-year molecular and cellular neuroscience undergraduate at The Ohio State University who joined the lab in January 2022. He has since worked on projects that focus on genetic influences of the neocortex and the cerebellum during development. He is currently studying the epigenetic effect of a specific bromodomain on neocortical development. Is a current Choose Development! fellow through the Society of Developmental Biology. He plans to pursue a medical degree and doctorate after graduation.