top of page



Thomas A. DeFalco
Tom is a molecular biologist interested in the mechanisms of plant-environment interactions and cell signaling. He studied plant molecular biology with a focus on calcium signaling at Queen's University (with Wayne Snedden) and received his PhD from University of Toronto (with Keiko Yoshioka). He then pursued postdoctoral work in the lab of Cyril Zipfel as an EMBO and NSERC fellow, where he worked on receptor kinases and the plant immune system. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Western where his lab uses a variety of biochemical, molecular, genetic, and systems approaches to tackle complex aspects of plant receptor signaling.
Background:
Assistant Professor, Western University, London, Canada (since 2022)
Postdoc, University of Zurich, Switzerland (2018-2022)
Postdoc, The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich, UK (2017-2018)
PhD, University of Toronto, Canada (2016)
MSc, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada (2010)
Teaching:
Bio 3224G - Molecular Sensing and Signalling in Plants
Bio 4218F - Plant Pathology

Current group members
Nathan Doner

Nathan is an NSERC postdoctoral fellow who joined in the lab in 2025, and is working on several projects related to downstream RK signaling.
Eleanor Khochaba

Eleanor is graduate student who joined the lab in 2023 and is studying the molecular basis of signaling specificity in different RK pathways.
Anka Colo

Anka is a graduate student who joined the lab in 2024, who is identifying novel kinase substrates downstream of RKs.
Colleen Barghout

Colleen is a graduate student who joined the lab in 2024, who is working to identify novel components of RK signaling pathways.
Maxwell Carito

Max was an NSERC USRA summer student who is currently doing his 4th year honours thesis in the lab, working on the mechanisms of substrate targeting by protein kinases.
Erica Yip

Erica was an NSERC USRA and honours thesis student (2023-2024), who continues to work on identifying and characterizing the kinases and their substrates that function in peptide signaling pathways.
Derek Wang

Derek is a work-study undergraduate research assistant who joined the lab in 2024.
George Del Grosso

George is a technical assistant who joined the lab in 2025.
Former members
Lorenzo Ford (work-study undergrad, 2023-2024)
Gregory Wei (NSERC USRA summer student, 2023)
bottom of page