Graduate Student Researcher
Email: ljmckinnon@ucdavis.edu
Plant Biology Graduate Group, UCDavis (2013-)
B.S. in Biological Sciences, UCDavis (2013)
Lucas is interested in the functions, components, and maintenance of thylakoid membranes and how these things are important for photosynthesis. He finds studying chloroplast biogenesis in the Inoue lab exciting because he gets to combine basic biochemical and molecular genetic tools to address the questions he is interested in. He also enjoys working with the bright and amiable people in the lab.
Outside of the lab, Lucas is a new parent of a six month-old baby boy (as of March 2015). Parenthood in conjunction with doing a PhD has turned out to be more intense than he expected, but it is also very rewarding. When Lucas is not parenting or researching, he loves to spend time in the outdoors hiking, sight-seeing, swimming, playing sports, etc.
Besides his obvious future academic goal of earning a PhD degree, one of Lucas’ goals is to get into a career where teaching and or science communication are integrated into what he does on a daily basis.
Publications:
Honors and Awards:
UCDavis Department of Plant Sciences Graduate Student Researcher Fellowship (2015-).
Poster award at the 24th Western Photosynthesis Conference (2015)