People | Index

Current Lab Members

Megan Behringer, Ph.D. - Principal Investigator

Megan is an Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Microbiome Innovation Center. With a general interest in microbiology and the forces of evolution, Megan's research focuses on how new genetic variation is created and how this genetic variation shapes the way microbes colonize new environments. Before coming to Vanderbilt, Megan obtained both her B.S. and M.S. at Auburn University then continued to the University of Georgia to pursue her Ph.D. in Genetics. She then completed her postdoctoral training with Dr. Jay T. Lennon and Dr. Michael Lynch at both the Department of Biology at Indiana University and in the Biodesign Center for Mechanisms of Evolution at Arizona State University. When Megan isn't in the lab, she enjoys hanging out with her husband and their two dogs (Annie and Paisley).

CV:

Research Scientists

Loren Vanags - Lab Manager

Loren's background is in Wildlife Biology, having majored in Forestry at the University of Georgia and conducting research in Marine Science. She then transitioned to a research role at VUMC investigating how genetic variation shapes individual disease risk. She has expertise in CRISPR editing, flow cytometry, and functional assay design. Loren joined the lab in February 2026 and now puts this scientific background, along with her organizational skills, to work running the lab’s day-to-day operations. Outside the lab, she enjoys hiking, biking, kayaking, gardening, and anything that gets her outdoors.

Graduate Students

Owen Hale - Ph.D. Student

Owen earned his B.S. in Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2021. There, he worked in Dr. Amit Reddi's lab studying mycobacterial heme homeostasis and completed a co-op at an agricultural biotechnology company engineering crop microbiomes to increase food production during environmental stress.

Owen is interested in the ecological dynamics within microbial communities and the resulting consequences for host health. His research aims to uncover fundamental mechanisms of microbial evolution and ecology in the human urogenital microbiome. In 2025, Owen was awarded a Danone Microbiome Graduate Research Fellowship.

William McLaughlin - Ph.D. Student

William obtained his B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology at Auburn University. There he worked in Dr. Aaron Rashotte’s lab studying cytokinin response factors in Arabidopsis thaliana and their role in stress response and development. He joined the lab in Spring 2023 to investigate questions about historical contingency and the evolution of cooperation in microbial populations.

In 2026, William was awarded a USDA-NIFA Predoctoral Training Award. In his free time, he enjoys playing the banjo, Celtics basketball, and listening to an excessive amount of NPR.

Ashlynn Bruder -

Ph.D. Student

Ashlynn received her B.S. in Biology at Belmont University, where she studied antimicrobial resistance in soil microbiomes. Prior to attending Vanderbilt, she also completed two internships: one in contaminant detection in a food microbiology company, and one in trait optimization of soybeans and wheat. She joined the lab in

2024, and is currently exploring how epistatic interactions shape adaptation to fluctuating environments. Outside of the lab, she loves to exercise, read, and spend time outdoors. In 2025, Ashlynn was named an Evolutionary Studies Initiative at Vanderbilt Predoctoral Fellow.

Claire Cheng - Ph.D. Student

Claire graduated from the University of Georgia with a BS in genetics in 2024. During her time at UGA, Claire worked with Dr. Kelly. Dyer where she investigated the evolutionary dynamics in Wolbachia infections from natural

Drosophila recens populations. She joined the lab in Spring 2026 and is interested in how E. coli’s methylome evolves under varying intensities of stress. In her free time, Claire loves watching anything from Bravo, going to Orange Theory, and finding DJ sets on YouTube to listen to as she works. In 2026, Claire was appointed to the Computational Evolutionary Approached to Disease NIH-T32 Training Grant.