William Wiley Navarre, Ph.D.
Professor and Associate Chair

(Mentorship and Equity)

William Navarre was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan and attended the University of Michigan as an undergraduate.  He obtained his Ph.D. in the lab of Olaf Schneewind at UCLA studying the anchoring of surface proteins in Gram-positive bacteria.  He was a Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow and did post-doctoral work with Arturo Zychlinsky at New York University prior to joining the lab of Ferric Fang at the University of Washington in Seattle.  With Ferric he studied mechanisms of bacterial resistance to immune effectors.  He joined the Department of Molecular Genetics as an Assistant Professor in September of 2007 and was a CIHR New Investigator.  

He maintains an active role in teaching and is the coordinator for MGY377H1, the main bacteriology course on campus.  He created the online microbiology course MGY277H1 (Introduction to Medical Microbiology) and the second-year undergraduate research course MGY280H1. He was awarded an Excellence in Undergraduate Life Sciences Teaching Award in 2017.


Current Lab Members


Jhenielle Campbell
Ph.D. Candidate

Daniella Serrador

Daniella Serrador
Ph.D. Candidate

Kevin Cao
MSc Candidate

Spencer Brooks

Spencer Brooks
Undergraduate Researcher

Gelila Shefraw

Gelila Shefraw
Undergraduate Researcher

Kenson Wong
Undergraduate Researcher


Lab Alumni (in no particular order)

Graduate Students

Cayla Burk, PhD

Erin Wong, PhD

Brian Hicks, MSc

Danica Chaharlangi, MSc

Emma Brownlie, MSc

Steven Hersch

Steven Hersch, PhD

Betty Zou

Betty Zou, PhD

Sabrina Ali

Sabrina Ali, PhD

Grace Tong

Grace Tong, MSc

Sinwan Basharat, MSc

Jeremy Soo

Jeremy Soo, MSc

Emily Beckett

Emily BeckettSward, MSc

James Stevenson

James Stevenson, MSc


Undergraduate Students

Dorothy Cheung

Dorothy Cheung
Undergraduate Researcher
2023-2024

Daniela Atere

Daniela Atere
Undergraduate Researcher
2023-2024

Avril Wang
Undergraduate Researcher
2022-2023

Oriana Sully Monaco
Undergraduate Researcher
2022-2023

Andie Kim

Andie Kim
Undergraduate Researcher
2021-2022

Osama Abdin
Undergraduate Researcher

Patrick Lavoie

Patrick Lavoie
Undergraduate Researcher

Yin Cheng
Undergraduate Researcher

Sornujah Kathirgamanathan
Undergraduate Researcher

Sudipta Saha

Sudipta Saha
Undergraduate Researcher

Golnoosh Siavash

Golnoosh Siavash
Undergraduate Researcher

Jack Stanley
Undergraduate Researcher

Andrea Watson

Andrea Watson
Undergraduate Researcher

Bojana Radan

Bojana Radan
Undergraduate Researcher

Bushra Ilyas

Bushra Ilyas
Undergraduate Researcher

Rebecca Hylton

Rebecca Hylton
Undergraduate Researcher

Lucy Xie

Lucy Xie
Undergraduate Researcher


Grown ups

Martha Cordova, MSc
Research Technician

Vivian Cheung

Vivian Cheung, MSc
Research Technician

Hazel Soto-Montoya

Hazel Soto-Montoya, BSc
Research Technician

Andrea Leung

Andrea Leung, MSc
Research Technician