Originally from Lloyd Harbor, New York, Sean received an AB in Molecular Biology from Princeton University in 1988 and, after working for 5 years in the family automobile business, returned to science and complete a PhD in Biological Oceanography at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1999. His doctoral work explored the quorum sensing regulon of
Vibrio fischeri and its involvement in symbiosis between the bioluminescent bacterium and the Hawaiian bobtail squid
Euprymna scolopes. As an NIH postdoctoral fellow Sean worked with Bob Haselkorn at the University of Chicago, where he learned about the developmental program of heterocyst differentiation in filamentous cyanobacteria. In 2002 he started as an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Now a full professor, his lab typically consists of 5 -10 students and postdocs who continue the developmental work on patterning and differentiation of heterocysts in the cyanobacterium
Anabaena, or on a second project developed in collaboration with Greta Aeby of the Hawaii Institute for Marine Biology, the roles of bacteria in coral health.
Contact:
Sean Callahan
Professor
University of Hawaii
Department of Microbiology
207 Snyder Hall, 2538 McCarthy Mall
Honolulu, HI 96822
Tel: 808 956-8015
Fax: 808 956-5339
Email: scallahaAThawaiiDOTedu
