CV

Education

Doctor of Philosophy in Plant Biology, UC Davis
Designated Emphasis in Biotechnology
Research Interest: The effect of introns in chromatin biology
Major Professor: Dr. J. Grey Monroe
Expected Graduation: June 2026

Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology, Honors, UC Davis
Specialization in Plant Biotechnology
Honors Thesis: Understanding what kind of sequences can support transcription initiation in response to stimulatory introns
Minor in Computational Biology
Graduation Date: June 2019

Publications

Monroe, J. Grey, Chaehee Lee, Daniela Quiroz, Mariele Lensink, Satoyo Oya, Matthew Davis, Evan Long, Kevin Bird, Alice Pierce, et al. (2024)
Convergent Evolution of Epigenome Recruited DNA Repair across the Tree of Life. bioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2024.10.15.618488
Daniela Quiroz, Diego Lopez-Mateos, Kehan Zhao, Alice Pierce, et al. (2024)
H3K4me1 recruits DNA repair in plants. The Plant Cell.
doi: 10.1093/plcell/koae089
Alice Pierce, Ian Anderson, Neelima Sinha, Grey Monroe (2024)
Celebrating modern plant diversity cataloging. Plant Sciences Bulletin
Alice Pierce, Joseph Student and Maeli Melotto (2022)
The Farm-to-Fork Journey: Keeping Produce Fresh and Safe to Eat. Front. Young Minds, 10:587135.
doi: 10.3389/frym.2022.587135
DeMott, L., Oblessuc, P.R., Pierce, A., Student, J. and Melotto, M. (2021)
Spatiotemporal regulation of JAZ4 expression and splicing contribute to ethylene- and auxin-mediated responses in Arabidopsis roots. Plant J., 108: 1266-1282.
doi: 10.1111/tpj.15508

Teaching

Guest Lecture “Becoming a Latina Scientist”, Winter 2025, Becoming a Latino Scientist Seminar at UC Davis
Teaching Assistant Plant Genetics, Fall 2022 & Fall 2023, UC Davis
Guest Lecture “Is the Central Dogma Actually a Dogma?”, Summer 2021, American Chemical Society
Learning Assistant Biodiversity and the Tree of Life, Winter 2017, UC Davis

Honors & Awards

Chapter Leadership Participant Travel Award
Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, National Diversity in STEM 2024 Conference
Corteva Student Showcase Travel Award
American Society for Plant Biologists 2024 Conference
Summer Graduate Student Research Award
For engineering, computer sciences, and disciplines with engineering-related applications and methods, Summer 2023
Travel Scholarship Award
Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, National Diversity in STEM 2023 Conference
Recognition Travel Award
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee, American Society of Plant Biologists, ASPB 2023 Conference
General Member Award for Outstanding High School Outreach
Grad and Postdoc UC Davis SACNAS Chapter, 2022-2023
Ford Foundation Fellowship, Honorable Mention
National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
Jastro-Shields Research Award
2022
Department of Plant Sciences Graduate Student Research Award
2022-2026
UC Davis Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Fellowship
2021-2022

Presentations

Oral Presentation: “The Role of Introns in Plant Chromatin” Pierce, Alice. Presented at the Annual Biotechnology Training Retreat at UC Davis. March 2025
Abstract & Poster Presentation: “Exploring the impact of intron architecture on chromatin features in plants” Pierce, Alice & Monroe, J. Grey. Presented at National Diversity in STEM. November 2024
Workshop: “How to make an effective graphical abstract or scientific illustration” Pierce, Alice & Chakraborty, Sonhita. Presented at Plant Biology 2024 with over 150 attendees. June 2024
Oral Presentation: “The Role of Introns in Plant Chromatin” Pierce, Alice Presented at Plant Biology 2024. June 2024
Abstract & Poster Presentation: “Exploring the impact of intron architecture on chromatin features in plants” Pierce, Alice & Monroe, J. Grey. Presented at Plant Biology 2024. June 2024
Oral Presentation: “The Role of Introns in Plant Chromatin” Pierce, Alice. Presented at Plant Biology Graduate Group Tuesday Seminar. April 2024
Oral Presentation: “Understanding the role of introns on the histone code” Pierce, Alice. Presented at the National Diversity in STEM. October 2023
Abstract & Poster Presentation: “Intron Loss and Gain: Implications for Chromatin Biology in Arabidopsis Gene Duplicates” Pierce, Alice & Monroe, J. Grey. Presented at Plant Biology 2023. August 2023
Poster Presentation: “How does intron loss/gain affect chromatin marks in gene duplicates?” Pierce, Alice & Monroe, J. Grey. Presented at the Plant Sciences Symposium at UC Davis. May 2023
Abstract & Poster Presentation: “How does intron loss/gain affect chromatin marks in gene duplicates?” Pierce, Alice & Monroe, J. Grey. Presented at the UC Davis Annual Biotechnology Program Retreat. March 2023
Poster Presentation: “How do IME introns contribute to the mutation rate and epigenetic landscape of their gene bodies?” Pierce, Alice & Monroe, J. Grey. Presented at the Plant Sciences Symposium at UC Davis. May 2022
Oral Presentation: “How does IME affect gene body mutations?” Plant Biology Graduate Group Seminar, UC Davis, March 2022
Abstract and Poster Presentation: ”What Kind of Sequences Support Transcription Initiation in Response to Stimulatory Introns?” Pierce, Alice & Rose, Alan. Presented at the Undergraduate Research Conference at UC Davis. April 2019