Zsolt Toth, PhD

• Associate Professor, July 2022-
• Assistant Professor, University of Florida, College of Dentistry, Department of Oral Biology, Gainesville, Florida, 2016-2022
• Assistant Professor of Research, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, 2013-2016
• Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, 2008-2013
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Salk Institute, La Jolla, California, 2007
• PhD, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany, 2002-2006
• MSc, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary, 2002

Dr. Toth UFCD department info…

Current Lab Members

Amanda Pretory

PhD student – Microbiology & Immunology concentration, Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences – joined the lab in January 2024.

Minhchau To

PhD student – Microbiology & Immunology concentration, Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences – joined the lab in August 2024.

Sammy Gomez Medina

Lab manager and research assistant – since August 2025

Danalee B. Rodriguez

Undergraduate student – since 2025

Tirth Shah

Undergraduate student – since 2025

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Lab Alumni

See-Chi (Sookie) Lee, PhD

Postdoc – Microbiology & Immunology concentration, Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences – Joined lab in March 2020, graduated in Dec 2023. She worked as a postdoc in the Toth lab until August 2024.

Seung Jin (James) Jang, PhD

DMD/PhD student at the University of Florida College of Dentistry since August 2017. James joined the lab for PhD in August 2020 and graduated in May 2024.

Lauren McKenzie Spires, PhD

PhD student – Microbiology & Immunology concentration, Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences – Joined the lab in January 2020. She graduated in May 2024.

Jimei Lin

Volunteer undergraduate – 2023-2024.

Jordyn G. Hannum

Volunteer undergraduate – 2023-2024.

Kevin Hall

Lab manager and research assistant – May 2022 – October 2023.

Lauren Roberts Combs, PhD

PhD student – Microbiology & Immunology concentration, Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences (January 2019 – graduated in May 2023).

Julia Chen

Lab manager and research assistant (June 2021- May 2022)

On Ki Grina Omaira Cheng

Research assistant (July 2021- May 2022)

Abhishek Kumar, PhD

Postdoctoral associate July 2019 – March 2022

Nenavath Gopal Naik, PhD

Postdoctoral associate August 2018 – April 2021

Luke Fischer

DMD student May 2019 – May 2023

Juan D. Alonso

Lab manager and research assistant May 2018 – May 2020
Past positions in Toth lab:  UF undergraduate researcher until graduation.

Gavin Golas, PhD

PhD student – Microbiology & Immunology concentration, Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences – T90 NIH/NIDCR training grant pre-doctoral fellow. Joined the Toth lab in August 2017 and graduated in July 2019.

David Brice, PhD

Postdoctoral associate – January-April 2019

Aria Sharma, DMD

UFCD Research Track Dental Student –  UF College of Dentistry DMD student. She was co-mentored by Dr. Toth and Dr. Papp – 216-2019.

Katherine Glickman

UF Undergraduate student, Undergraduate researcher summer 2017 – August 2018.

Richard Smindak, PhD

Postdoctoral associate 2017-2018.

Thomas Hong Nguyen

UF undergraduate student, undergraduate researcher 2017-2018.

Kyra Senchyshak

UF undergraduate student, undergraduate researcher summer 2017 – March 2018.

Paul Faelnar

Research laboratory technician in 2016.