Kaylah Samuelson

Ph.D. Candidate
2025 Claire M. Berg Fellow
2024 Pfizer Fellow

Kaylah earned her B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Northern Colorado where she studied cell pathway interactions in the adult stem cell niche in the testes of Drosophila melanogaster. She joined UConn as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2020 and joined the Hanlon lab in Spring 2021. Since joining the lab, Kaylah developed a project investigating the role of Matrimony (Mtrm), a female-specific meiotic regulator, and its interactor Polo kinase (Polo) in suppressing drive of the B chromosomes. Her work shows that shows that the regulation of Mtrm is critical for suppressing the drive of the B chromosomes and that unregulated Polo activity is likely promoting B chromosome drive.

Publications:

Peterson S.C.*, Samuelson K.B.*, & Hanlon S.L. Multi-Scale Organization of the Drosophila melanogaster Genome. Genes 2021, 12, 817. Genes. May 2021. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes12060817
*Equal contribution

Stanek, T.J. et al* Recombination Suppression Drives Expansion of the Drosophila Dot Chromosome. Mol. Biol. Evol. December 2025. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf304
*Contributed as an undergrad annotator under the Genomics Education Partnership

Manuscripts in progress:

Samuelson K.B., Lin M.M., Goldhamer A.B., Gado R. M., Gardner A. M., St. Jacques A.R., & Hanlon S.L. Elucidating the role of Polo Kinase regulation in suppressing drive of the B chromosomes in Drosophila melanogaster (Working Title).  (In Preparation, expected submission: early Summer 2026)

Samuelson K.B., & Hanlon S.L. B chromosomes put the super in supernumerary (Working Title). Trends In Genetics. (In Preparation, expected submission: early Spring 2026)

Oral presentations: