Dr. Matt Mead graduated in 2009 with a degree in biochemistry from the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Iowa State University. During his undergraduate years, he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Reuben Peters studying the enzymatic production of diterpene natural products. Matt participated in multiple Stupka Undergraduate Research Symposiums and was the Director of the 4th annual symposium in 2009. After graduation from ISU, Matt pursued a PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the laboratory of Dr. Christina Hull. In Dr. Hull’s lab, Matt elucidated the transcription factor networks responsible for early events in the production of Cryptococcus neoformans spores, a human fungal pathogen. After graduating from UW-Madison in 2015, Matt began his post-doctoral research at Vanderbilt University in the lab of Antonis Rokas where he is currently studying the evolution of fungal secondary metabolism and pathogenesis using bioinformatic and Next-Generation Sequencing methods.