Willow Coyote-Maestas

Congrats @jeromics.bsky.social on getting your facs model out - we literally use it all the time and was so happy to work together with you on it!

Photo of Lynmarie Thompson, the president of the Biophysical Society, presenting a plaque to Sarah Veatch for winning the 2026 Agnes Pockels Award.

Of course, I am over the moon with happiness that @veatchlab.bsky.social won the 2026 Agnes Pockels Award from the @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social. Moreover, TWO students in Sarah's lab won poster awards at the BPS Meeting! What a year for the Veatch Lab! #bps2026

@jingyour.bsky.social @matthewkhoward.bsky.social @noahgreenwald.bsky.social

A wonderful first for me at the upcoming @biophysicalsoc.bsky.social meeting in SF is having many lab members present! See 6 brilliant graduate students postdocs from the lab present talks and posters on how they are pushing the boundaries of technology and mechanistic membrane protein biology

If you’re attending #BPS2026, there are several opportunities to hear about ongoing projects in the Starbird lab. Looking forward to seeing everyone at BPS!

Awww thanks - so wonderful to see you and look forward to more at bps!

Awesome seminar today by UCSF's @willowcoyote.bsky.social! He is not afraid to blaze his own trail, redefining paradigms along the way!

Excited to share emerging studies in the lab and learn from all the brilliant scientists at uw Madison!

Our paper is (finally) out in Cell today!

CRISPR screens in iPSC-derived neurons reveal principles of tau proteostasis
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Great collaborative effort - read more from first author @asamelson.bsky.social below:

Alex Pretti was a colleague at the VA. We hired him to recruit for our trial. He became an ICU nurse- I lover working with him. He was a good kind person who lived to help and these fuckers executed him.

White. Hot. Rage.

Huge congrats! The heterozygous screens are awesome!

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳

Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life?

For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided.

We provide new evidence suggesting that...

🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

When people celebrate the individual genius of folks in science, they should also
mourn the collective loss of genius of folks who were actively discouraged or disadvantaged from a career in science because of the same person(s)

Zara was one of the best people I've crossed paths with in this career, in this life. A fissure has opened with her departure, and I will miss her terribly.

Zara was an inspiration. We never met in person but became friends through Leading Edge. She zealously advocated for her ideals, but was also passionate about helping others realize why they should too. Her loss is gutting & the world is the worse for it. RIP, I'll do my best to continue the fight.

We are all better because of the energy, inspiration, brilliance, and tenacity that Zara was. A bright light, role model, advocate & snarky tweeter... everything I needed in a person when I was navigating dark times when we met in 2021. You will be missed deeply, Zara, but never forgotten ❤️

Zara was a great inspiration and mentor... Its really sad the excellent often leave us too soon... You will be missed Zara 💕

Zara will be missed. Such terrible news.

Zara Weinberg was a brilliant, loving, and beautiful woman. She inspired everyone who she interacted with, and always strived to make the world a better place for everyone. Tho the world is a little less bright today without her, her memory will always be a blessing.

She was truly one of the best.

Truly one of the best. We worked on various initiatives/wrote a paper together, and had the best conference meet ups. She was a bold and tireless advocate for change. Last time we met, we had a great time trying new cuisine and imagining a future that’s so different for trainees than we experienced.

While everyone in my lab is a bit heartbroken. It’s been a good moment to come together to celebrate how fucking awesome Zara was. I know she meant so much to so many people at ucsf, in pharmacology, cell biology, and synthetic biology, the leading edge community, and really across science.

While I wish I could’ve worked with her for the rest of my career, I’m so very grateful to have had the opportunity to work together on science. She has left a permanent mark on my lab and will inspire us to be dedicated to open science, mentorship, and innovative tool building.

In my lab, she brought such fire to the science and inspiration. She kept doing lab work til she lost mobility due to her love for science and being around the lab. She was a dedicated mentor with sharp wit and bright ideas. She contributed foundational to all our projects and training everyone.

Zara Weinberg passed away earlier this week. She joined my lab earlier this year when her postdoc lab formally closed.
She was a brilliant scientist, supportive mentor, dear friend, avid music fan, rabid believer in public transit, open science champion, and above all just an amazing human.

We are #hiring for a Tenure Track Assistant Professor position in the Department of Molecular&Cellular Physiology (med.stanford.edu/mcp.html) at @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social. Please apply or forward the opportunity to anybody who might be interested.
facultypositions.stanford.edu/en-us/job/49...

ATP-dependent remodeling of chromatin condensates reveals distinct mesoscale outcomes Adenosine triphosphate (ATP)–dependent chromatin remodeling enzymes mobilize nucleosomes, but how such mobilization affects chromatin condensation is unclear. We investigate effects of two major remod...

Today I am so pleased to present our work on how chromatin remodelers affect mesoscale chromatin organization.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I love writing spontaneous and unsolicited reviews. I would be thrilled folks did it to me too! I think it gets the heart of what we do science for - giving and getting feedback to get closer to the ‘truth’! Otherwise why post a preprint if you don’t want people to read and respond?

Check out MitoScribe in our new preprint led by Linhan Wang: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

It's an analog molecular recorder that uses neutral base edits to the mitochondrial genome to store information about historical signaling in a cell. Single cell resolution at scale (see next post)!

Congrats! So well deserved!

1st day of classes went well for this associate professor! I’ll ride this tenure/promotion wave for another week.

I’m teaching a new chemical biology class this semester. Excited to bring computational chemistry topics & hands-on activities in the computer lab.

Also still masking this semester!