Allison Carey, MD, PhD
Principal Investigator
Allison is a physician-scientist who received her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale School of Medicine. At Yale, she completed her doctoral training with Dr. John Carlson, investigating how the Anopheles gambiae mosquito uses its sense of smell to detect human blood-meal hosts, a key step in the malaria transmission cycle. After a Roux fellowship at the Pasteur Institute, she completed her residency training in Clinical Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital. She then joined Dr. Sarah Fortune’s research group at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she developed expertise in another globally significant pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. She joined the Department of Pathology at the University of Utah in January 2021. Outside the lab, Allison enjoys skiing, swimming, hiking, reading, and spending time with her dog, Charlie.
Matt Gebert, PhD
Kylie Beach
Post Doctoral Research Associate
Matt is a postdoctoral research associate in the Carey lab. He received his PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2025, where he completed his training under the mentorship of Dr. Noah Fierer, focused on the ecology and geographic distribution of the opportunistic pathogen nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) in both natural and engineered systems. During his PhD, he also worked extensively with the Epidemiology and Population Studies Section (EPSS), led by Dr. Becky Prevots, at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). His current research in Dr. Carey's lab at the University of Utah aims to further our understanding of the genetic determinants of pathogenicity in NTM, as well as the processes that allow for their survival in the environment, and ultimately the host. When not in the lab, Matt spends his free time riding bikes up mountains, walking his orange dog, and collecting soil and water samples in search of mycobacteria.
Kylie is a graduate student in the Carey lab. She received her B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Washington where she took classes in microbiology, genetics, and epidemiology. Her course work led her to seek opportunities in basic science research. During and after undergrad she worked as a lab technician studying the regenerative capacity of mammalian organs, specifically, the heart and inner ear. Through her research experience she realized that she wanted to pursue a graduate degree and joined the Molecular Biology PhD program at The University of Utah. Her research aims to understand the fitness costs associated with antibiotic resistance and how we can target these weaknesses to re-sensitize antibiotic resistant Mycobacteria. In her spare time, she likes to read books (mostly non-science related), spend time with her pets, and watch movies.
Meet the Team
Nico Cicchetti, MS
Senior Lab Specialist
Nico is a senior lab specialist who received his B.S. and M.S. from Binghamton University. His research experience began in Dr. Ralph Garruto’s lab, where he assessed Peromyscus leucopusas a primary reservoir for Borrelia burgdorferi, and analyzed genotypes of infectious samples. Throughout his graduate training in Dr. Gretchen Mahler’s lab, he co-cultured cell lines in novelly produced microfluidic environments. After graduating, he joined Dr. Carl Nathan’s research group at Weill Cornell Medicine as a research specialist. There, his sub-group characterized differentially detectable forms of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in both clinical and lab strains. Since then, he has joined Dr. Allison Carey’s mycobacterial genetics research group as a senior lab specialist at the University of Utah. In his free time, Nico enjoys rock climbing.
Graduate Student
You?
We are recruiting motivated graduate students. Please reach out if you are interested in learning more about the lab!
Kelly Witzl
Genetic Data Analyst, Myriad Genetics
Jordan Davis, MS
Lead Technologist, ARUPImages above are of each lab member with a block of text beneath describing their past laboratory experiences.
Lab Alumni
Kimra James, PhD