Lab Team
Casey Theriot | Professor
Casey is a Professor of Infectious Disease in the Department of Population Health and Pathobiology at NC State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Her research focuses on understanding the interactions between the gut microbiota, metabolome, host, and pathogen C. difficile. She is also the Chair of the Microbiome Cluster, the Assistant Director for the UNC CGIBD, and the Director of the Gnotobiotic Animal Core at NC State University.
NCSU Microbiome Cluster | UNC CGIBD | NCSU Gnotobiotic Animal Core
cmtherio@ncsu.edu | Phone: +1 (919) 513-0711
Stephanie Thomas | Research Associate
Stephanie joined the Theriot Lab in May of 2023. She did her PhD in microbiology and postdoctoral work at UNC-CH. Her research focuses on regulation of toxin mediated inflammation with microbial derived bile acids during C. difficile infection.
sathoma@ncsu.edu | Phone: +1 (919) 515-5233
Cypress Perkins | Animal Research Technician
Cypress joined the Theirot Lab in November of 2021. They earned their MS in Animal Science at NC State in 2023. Cypress is the lab manager in addition to managing all the in vivo experiments for the Theriot Lab.
ceperkin@ncsu.edu | Phone: +1 (919) 515-5233
Abigail Gancz | Postdoctoral Fellow
Abby joined the lab in September 2024 as a postdoctoral fellow. She earned her BSPH in biostatistics at UNC-CH in 2019 and her PhD in anthropology at Penn State in 2024. She is also a UNC Basic Science GI T32 Fellow through NIH. Her research focuses on integrating multi-omic datasets to investigate the relationships between the gut microbiota and novel lipids in patients undergoing fecal microbiota transplantation.
asgancz@ncsu.edu | Phone: +1 (919) 515-5233
Samantha Kisthardt | Graduate Student
Samantha joined the Theriot Lab in December 2021. She completed her BS in Microbiology at NC State and is a 2021-2022 Genetics and Genomics Scholar. Samantha studies how nutrient use by commensal Clostridia affects secondary bile acid production and C. difficile colonization.
sckistha@ncsu.edu | Phone: +1 (919) 515-5233
John Shamoun | Clinical Investigator/Graduate Student
John recently joined the Theriot Lab in August 2024. He completed his BS from UGA in 2015, DVM from Ross University in 2019, and residency in small animal internal medicine at NCSU in 2023. John is a clinician investigator who studies pathogenesis mechanisms of Uropathogenic E. coli in canines under the direction of Drs. Theriot and Jacob.
jashamou@ncsu.edu | Phone: +1 (919) 515-5233
Sam Hamacher | Graduate Student
Sam joined the Theriot lab in January 2024. He graduated in 2019 with a degree in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology with minors in Genetics and Microbiology at NC State. Sam uses cloning techniques to create modified commensal strains to create complex bile acid pools and determine their impacts on C. difficile.
swhamach@ncsu.edu | Phone: +1 (919) 515-5233
Nish Mathur | Undergraduate Researcher
Nish is an undergraduate research fellow working towards a BS in Microbiology. He is currently studying how commensal Clostridia strains respond to different bile acids.
Xochilt Espinoza Jaen | Undergraduate Researcher
Xochilt is an undergraduate research fellow working towards a BS in Microbiology. She is currently studying how C. difficile toxins affect host cell gene expression in Caco-2 cells and primary colonocytes.
Minh Anh (Mimi) Nguyen | Undergraduate Researcher
Mimi is an undergraduate research fellow working towards a BS Human Biology. She is currently assisting the graduate students where needed and helping with other maintenance around the lab.
Lab alumni
- Dr. Sam McMillan: PhD candidate 2019-2024
- Sean Brown: undergraduate researcher 2023-2024
- KC Cooper: undergraduate researcher 2022-2024
- Molly Vanhoy Walsh: undergraduate researcher 2019-2022
- Dr. Colleen Pike: postdoctoral fellow 2020-2022
- Sana Khan: undergraduate researcher 2021-2022
- Dr. Matthew Foley: postdoctoral fellow 2018-2022
- Dr. Amber Reed: PhD candidate 2016-2021
- Dr. Rajani Thanissery: research associate 2015-2021
- Alissa Rivera: animal research technician 2016-2021
- Gracie Vestal: undergraduate researcher 2019-2020
- Garrison Allen: undergraduate researcher 2018-2020
- Ruth Parsons: undergraduate researcher 2017-2020
- Dr. Joshua Fletcher: postdoctoral fellow 2016-2020
- Dr. Jenessa Winston: clinical investigator and PhD candidate 2015-2019
- Ivy Gold: undergraduate researcher Summer 2019
- Tommy Burdette: veterinary scholar’s program Summer 2018
- Elissa Foss: research technician 2016-2017
- Dr. Susan Gardner: postdoctoral fellow 2016-2017
- Kevin Chang: veterinary scholar’s program Summer 2016
- Allyson Patterson: undergraduate researcher Spring 2016
- Kaitlyn George: undergraduate researcher Spring 2016