The Wayment-Steele lab

Accessing the dynamical foundations of biology

About us

Our research seeks a predictive understanding of biomolecular dynamics and mechanisms that underlie biological function and shape evolution.

We are bringing together data science, deep learning, and NMR spectroscopy.
Deep learning: a 10,000-ft view of all known data and patterns.
NMR: an intimate view of biomolecules' motions, interactions, and timing.

We are based at UW-Madison Biochemistry
and affiliated with Biostatistics and Medical Informatics.

Lab Members

Hannah Wayment-Steele

Hannah Wayment-Steele

Data junkie in chief

hannah.waymentsteele (at) wisc.edu

Would bring to a Deserted Island: A rowboat

Kritika Kumari

Kritika Kumari

PhD student in Biophysics

kkumari (at) wisc.edu

BS-MS Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education & Research Pune

Would bring to a Deserted Island: A Friend

Cizhang Zhao (JOJO)

Cizhang Zhao (JOJO)

PhD student in Biophysics

czhao276 (at) wisc.edu

Bachelors Biosciences, University of Science and Technology of China

Would bring to a Deserted Island: A Knife

Gina El Nesr

Gina El Nesr

Visiting researcher

gelnesr (at) stanford.edu

Ph.D. Biophysics, Stanford University
B.A. Biophysics / Computer Science / Applied Math & Statistics, JHU

Would bring to a Deserted Island: Swimsuit & goggles

Ben Harding

Ben Harding

Post-doc (starting 2025)

bdharding (at) wisc.edu

Ph.D Biophysics, University of Wisconsin–Madison
B.S. Biochemistry, Miami University (Ohio)

Would bring to a Deserted Island: Golf clubs

Yuxin Duan (Phillip)

Yuxin Duan (Phillip)

UG researcher

yduan47 (at) wisc.edu

UG Biology / Data Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Would bring to a Deserted Island: Locally deployed large language model with enough battery source

Nevin Pai

Nevin Pai

UG researcher

nnpai (at) wisc.edu

UG Biochemistry / Computer Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Would bring to a Deserted Island: A Frisbee

Recent Papers

  • Wayment-Steele HK#, Otten R#, Pitsawong W#, Ojoawo A#, Glaser A, Calderone LA & Kern D. The conformational landscape of fold-switcher KaiB is tuned to the circadian rhythm timescale. PNAS 2024

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  • Zhang Z#, Wayment-Steele HK#, Brixi G, Wang H, Kern D & Ovchinnikov S. Protein language models learn evolutionary statistics of interacting sequence motifs. PNAS 2024

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  • Wayment-Steele HK#, Ojoawo A#, Otten R, Apitz JM, Pitsawong W, Hoemberger M, Ovchinnikov S, Colwell L & Kern D. Predicting multiple conformations via sequence clustering and AlphaFold2. Nature 2023

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See More Papers




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Contact

We welcome applicants with backgrounds in computation, experiment, and any mix of the two!

Interested PhD applicants are encouraged to apply to the Biophysics, the Integrated Program in Biochemistry, and/or the Biomedical Data Science PhD programs.

Interested in post-doc or post-bac: please email Hannah describing your interests and goals, along with a CV.