Allyson Sheneman
PhD Student
B.A. Astronomy, Biology, State University of New York at New Paltz, 2024
Curriculum Vitae
What allows life to persist in the most hostile environments of this planet? Could those strategies allow life to evolve elsewhere?
I research microbes that survive and thrive in the subsurface, using interesting metabolic and lipid pathways shaped by billions of years of evolution under extreme constraint. My work traces how those pathways evolved to learn more about what they can tell us about the origins of life on Earth and the potential for similar mechanisms to evolve in response to constraints elsewhere in the universe.
Outside the lab, I'm usually explaining science to anyone who'll listen, mainly through podcasts, writing, and teaching.
Selected Publications
Allen, L., Sheneman, A., & Morrow, M. A. (2026). "Post Wildfire Soil Bacterial MAGs and Metagenome Analysis." Microbiology Resource Announcements. DOI: 10.1128/mra.00444-26.
Sheneman, A. C. & Rest, J. S. (2025). "Rates of Protein Structural Evolution in Mammals." Master's Thesis, Stony Brook University.
Sheneman, A. C., Langeveld, A. B., & Bartholomew, A. (2024). "Assessing the Accuracy of Telluric Corrections." SUNY Open Access Repository, Honors Thesis.
O'Connor, C., Sheneman, A., Ferguson, M., & Herne, C. (2023). "Measuring attachment rate of predatory bacteria to prey using optical tweezers." Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation. DOI: 10.1117/12.2675569.