Graduates of the Program in Genetics
Year of entrance into the Program is indicated in parentheses. Dates at the end of entries indicate when current position was most recently confirmed.
Dexter Adams (2018)
Dexter graduated with a B.S. in Molecular Biology and Zoology from U Wisconsin-Madison in 2018. As a graduate student in the Joshua-Tor lab at CSHL, he investigated the regulation of gene expression through transcription factors, epigenetics, and RNAi, using biochemical, biophysical, and structural techniques. Dexter received his PhD in August 2024 and currently holds the title of Protein Chemist at Vandstrom in Gaithersburg, MD. 10/16/25
Disha Aggarwal (2017)
Disha graduated with a B. Tech. in Biotechnology from D.Y. Patil University, Mumbai, in 2014 and earned her M.S. in Molecular and Cell Biology from Brandeis University in 2015. She subsequently worked as a Research Associate at Moderna Therapeutics and then at CRISPR Therapeutics. Disha pursued her dissertation under the guidance of Dr. David Spector. Her project studied the role of long non-coding RNAs in breast cancer using patient-derived tumor organoids. Disha graduated in May 2025 and is now a postgraduate researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. 10/16/25
Brinda Alagesan (2013)
Brinda joined Stony Brook's Medical Scientist Training Program in 2011 and the Genetics Program in 2013. Brinda performed her doctoral research under the guidance of David Tuveson at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. She defended her dissertation, entitled 'Oncogenic Kras induces Nix to promote pancreatic cancer' in April 2018, and then returned to her medical training. Brinda is currently a fellow in medical oncology/hematology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. 10/16/25
Emmanuel N. Asare (2009)
Emmanuel Asare is a Bronxite who earned his B.S. in Biology at Clarkson University. He pursued his doctoral work in Dr. Eckard Wimmer’s lab, where he studied the molecular biology of poliovirus. His doctoral work investigated the role of poliovirus 2C ATPase in viral morphogenesis and replication. Emmanuel received his doctorate in August 2015. Emmanuel continued at Stony Brook as a postdoctoral fellow and then moved to Albert Einstein College of Medicine as a research fellow, where he is currently a Staff Scientist. 10/16/25
Kimberly Bell (2010)
Kim earned her B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Biology from Stony Brook University in 2003. She received a M.S. in Neuroscience and Behavior from U Mass Amherst in 2006. She then worked as a technician at Cold Spring Harbor Lab for 4 years as part of the ENCODE and modENCODE projects. As a doctoral student, Kim worked on enhancer-promoter interactions mediated by the transcription factor Runt during Drosophila development in the Gergen lab. Kim also collaborated with Undergraduate Biology and The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science to use improvisation techniques to bolster TA-student communication in inquiry-based introductory labs. She received her PhD in December 2015, subsequently served as the Workshop Supervisor for the Alda Center, and is a Teaching Assistant Development Specialist in Stony Brook's Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. 10/16/25
Alex Bott (2012)
Alex carried out his dissertation work in the laboratory of Dr. Wei-Xing Zong and moved with Dr. Zong to Rutgers University. Alex's dissertation was entitled 'Glutamine synthetase in cancer cell metabolism and oncogenesis', and he graduated in August 2018. Alex is currently a postdoctoral fellow at University of Utah and the recipient of a prestigious National Cancer Institute F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award. 7/26/23
Rachel Caston
Awaiting completion
Frank Celeste
Awaiting completion
Sudipto Chakrabortty (2008)
Sudipto received a BE in biotechnology from Vishveshswaraiah Technological University, Belgaum, India, in 2007.
After entering the Graduate Program in Genetics, Sudipto joined the laboratory of
Tom Gingeras at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he studied intercellular communication
through exosome-mediated transfer of functional mRNA molecules. Sudipto received
his PhD in August 2015 and currently is the Director of Research and Development at
Exosome Diagnostics in Waltham, MA. 10/16/25
Chuankai Chen (2017)
Chuankai received his B.S. in Biotechnology from Soochow University (Suzhou) in 2016. As an undergrad, he investigated the role of Fstl1 in vascular biology in the lab of Dr. Yulong He. Chuankai trained in the lab of Dr. Richard Lin, where his research focused on the roles of Akt isoforms in pancreatic cancer. He received his PhD degree in May 2024.
Derek Cheng
Awaiting completion
Charlie Chung (2018)
Charlie received a B.S in Biology from Stony Brook University and an M.S in Biotechnology from the City College of New York. His previous research interests primarily included molecular techniques, and his more recent interests involved E. coli genetics as a tool for identifying novel antibiotic targets. Charlie trained at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory under the mentorship of Semir Bayez, where he studied miocrobial regulation of anti-tumor immunity in colorectal cancer. Charlie graduated in August 2025.
Cristian Cleary (2018)
Cristian graduated from Columbia University in 2013 with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. He then did research in the lab of Dr. Simon Powell at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center investigating genetic loci that confer radiosensitivity. Cristian joined Stony Brook’s Medical Scientist Training Program in 2016 and did his doctoral work under Dr. Christopher Vakoc at CSHL, where he investiged ways to improve therapies for patients with rhabdomyosarcoma. Cristian graduated in August 2023 and then completed his medical training in 2025.
Ana Paula Delgado (2015)
Ana received her B.S. in Biology and a double minor in Chemistry and Bioinformatics from Nova Southeastern University in 2012. She also earned her Master's degree in Biological Sciences from Florida Atlantic University in 2014, where she applied bioinformatics approaches to discover novel druggable targets and diagnostic markers in cancer. At Stony Brook, Ana was an IMSD-MERGE scholar with an interest in cancer genomics, which she pursued in the lab of Scott Powers. Ana received her doctorate in August 2022 and is now a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Columbia University. 10/16/25
Miriam Fein (2010)
Miriam earned her B.A. degree in Biology from Queens College (CUNY) in 2003 and received her M.A. from Hunter College (CUNY) in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology in 2006. Miriam joined the Egeblad lab at Cold Spring Harbor laboratory in 2011, where studied tumor-host interactions that drive tumorigenesis and metastasis using intravital imaging in transgenic mice models. Miriam received her PhD in December 2016 and is now a Research Associate at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. 10/16/25
Moises Guardado
Awaiting completion
Diana Guimet (2009)
Diana earned her B.S. in Biology at the University of San Diego. She pursued her doctoral work in Patrick Hearing’s lab, focusing on the adenovirus L4-22K protein. L4-22K serves as the master regulator for several aspects of adenovirus infection and may be a useful target for antiviral therapy and directed cancer gene therapy. Diana received her doctorate in December 2014, completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Tariq Rana at UC San Diego, and is now a Principal Scientist at Inovio Pharmaceuticals. 10/16/25
Xiao Han (2019)
Xiao earned her B.S. in Biological Science from Sichuan University in 2019 and studied at the University of Notre Dame in 2018 as an exchange student, studying prostate cancer immunotherapy and penile cancer oncogenesis. Xiao is completed her dissertation work in the research group of Dr. Mikala Egeblad, who recently moved from CSHL to Johns Hopkins U. Her project studied pancreatic cancer metastasis to the liver, with a focus on how the immune system controls whether dormant cancer cells remain dormant or awaken. Xiao was awarded her PhD in August 2025 and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 10/16/25
Chenjun He (2022)
Chenjun received his B.S. in Biological Science from Huazhong Agricultural University in 2022 and studied at Peking University for summer research and a graduation project in 2021 and 2022. He undertook COVID-19 vaccine development in Dr. Mingqian Feng’s lab and budding yeast nuclear-cytoplasmic ratio research in Dr. Chao Tang’s lab. At Stony Brook, Chenjun pursued research on control of cell size in yeast in Dr. Bruce Futcher's lab. Chenjun received a Master's in Biology in May 2025 and is currently working in the laboratory of Yuping Chen (a Genetics graduate) in Shenzhen, China. 10/15/26
Samantha Henry (2019)
Sam received her BS in Biology and a double minor in Chemistry and Computer Science from SUNY Polytechnic Institute in 2019. As an undergraduate, her research focused on investigating elements in the mobile genome of Daubentonia madagascariensis. Sam pursued her dissertation research in the lab of Dr. Camila dos Santos , where she used scRNA-seq and organoid models to investigate the impact of age on mammary gland development and oncogenesis. Sam received her PhD in August 2024.
Kelly Hills-Muckey (2016)
Kelly earned her B.S. in Biology from Barry University in May 2015. As an undergrad, Kelly participated in a research project looking at the paternal role in fetal alcohol syndrome using zebrafish. She was also heavily involved in community service and in leadership development through her work as an e-board member of Sigma Alpha Phi. At Stony Brook, Kelly was a Turner Fellow and worked in the lab of Chris Hammell studying the regulatory network surrounding developmental timing and how this is influenced by environmental factors. Kelly currently serves as a Proposal Development Specialist in Stony Brook's Office of Proposal Development. 10/17/25
Reuben Hoffmann (2011)
Reuben earned his B.S. in Genetics and Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He worked in Aaron Neiman's lab studying sporulation in the budding yeast S. cerevisiae. His focus was upon the gene SRT1, which encodes one of the two yeast cis-prenyltransferases and produces an aberrant sporulation phenotype when deleted. Under investigation was SRT1's relations to other genes and the mechanism by which it influences spore formation. Reuben was awarded his PhD in August 2017. Reuben is now a Postdoctoral Scholar at Oregon Health and Science University. 10/17/25
Chad Hogan (2016)
Chad received his B.S. in Biotechnology with a minor in Chemistry from Florida Gulf Coast University in 2016. With an interest in forensic biology, Chad's undergraduate research focused on the degradation and recovery of trace DNA evidence. He also interned at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Regional Crime Laboratory. Chad's research at Stony Brook focused on gammaherpesviruses, which are associated with human cancers, in the lab of Laurie Krug. Using a mouse gammaherpesvirus as a model organism, Chad's work contributed to understanding the roles of a host transcription factor, STAT3, in this infection. Chad received his PhD in May 2023. After completing a Postdoctoral Fellowship at The Mount Sinai Hospital, Chad took on a new position as Research Lab manager at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 10/17/25
Shruti Iyer (2016)
Shruti received her bachelor's degree in Genetic Engineering from SRM University, India, in 2012 and a master's degree in Molecular Biology and Human Genetics from Manipal University, India, in 2015. Shruti also worked on the genetic basis of complex psychiatric disorders at Emory University. She pursued her doctoral research in the McCombie Lab at CSHL, where she developed long-read sequencing strategies to resolve complex genomic regions associated with cancer. Shruti was also the mentorship coordinator for the SBU chapter of Graduate Women in Science and Engineering. Shruti graduated in May 2024 and is now a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Yang Lab at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 10/17/25
Nuri Kim (2017)
Nuri received her B.A. in English and Molecular & Cell Biology with emphasis in Genetics, Genomics, and Development from UC Berkeley. Her prior research mainly involved ischemic stroke and traumatic brain injury in mice. As an MSTP student here at Stony Brook, she worked under the guidance of Jessica Seeliger studying synonymous mutations and gene recoding in mycobacteria. Nuri was awarded her PhD in August 2022 and received her MD degree in 2024.
Young Jin Kim
Awaiting completion
Brian Kinney
Awaiting completion
Michael Klingener
Awaiting completion
Abraham Kohrman
Awaiting completion
Erik Lavington (2009)
Erik is a graduate from the University of Kansas with a B.S. in biology with an emphasis in genetics. Erik worked in Walt Eanes' lab, where he studied the patterns of adaptation in Drosophila melanogaster core metabolic genes in populations from eastern North America and possible effects on several performance measures due to downregulated activity of glycolytic enzymes in experimental D. melanogaster lines. He received his doctorate in August 2015 followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the Rutgers Human Genetics Institute of New Jersey. Erik's current position is Senior Research Associate at Mizuho Financial Group, where he carries out biotech equity research. 10/17/25
Steven Lewis (2021)
Steven graduated with a B.S. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and History from Yale University in 2018. After staying at Yale for a year studying red blood cell transfusion rejection immunity in the lab of Dr. Stephanie Eisenbarth, Steven joined the MSTP at Stony Brook in 2019. Steven worked in the lab of Dr. Camila dos Santos at CSHL, where he was excited to combine an epigenetic and immunological perspective to better understand BRCA1 breast cancer tumor progression. Steven received his PhD in May 2025 and is now completing his medical training. 10/17/25
Meng Lin
Awaiting completion
Lingjie Liu (2019)
Lingjie graduated with a BS in Biology from Southern University of Science and Technology, China, in 2019. As an undergraduate, she participated in analyzing high-throughput sequencing data in several projects that focused on transcriptional regulation and chromatin accessibility in the lab of Dr. Wei Chen. Lingjie joined the lab of Adam Siepel at CSHL for her graduate training, and her dissertation work explored probabilistic methods for predicting local rates of transcription elongation. Ling was awarded her PhD in May 2024. She now holds the position of Scientist I, Computational Biologist, at BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. 10/17/25
Devon Lukow (2016)
Devon graduated from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania with a degree in biotechnology in 2015. Devon carried out his dissertarion research in the Sheltzer Lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he studied the relationship between aneuploidy and cancer. Devon graduated in December 2022 and now holds the position of Curation Scientist I at Fulgent Genetics. 10/17/25
Fu Luo (2017)
Fu (Maze) received her B.S. in Biological Science from Sichuan University, China, in 2017 and studied at Columbia University and Oxford University as a visiting student in 2015 and 2016, respectively. She pursued her dissertation research in the lab of Dr. Flaminia Talos, where she studied clonal dynamics in prostate homeostasis and cancer. Fu received her PhD in May 2022 and is currently a Senior Translational Scientist at Tempus AI. 10/17/25
Craig Marshall (2019)
Craig earned his BS in Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology from the University of Arizona in 2016. During his time there, he worked in a neurodegenerative lab and then in an asthma lab during his post-baccalaureate year. In 2017, Craig joined the MSTP at Stony Brook and is worked in Molly Hammell’s group at CSHL, where he studied the role of transposable elements in the pathophysiology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He was awarded his PhD in May 2024 and is now completing his medical training. 10/17/25
Taylor Medwig-Kinney (2016)
Taylor earned her B.S. in Biology and Health Science at Stony Brook University in 2016, concentrating in developmental genetics, public health, and community health education. She was a graduate student in the Matus laboratory, where she studied the transcriptional and cell cycle control of invasive differentiation. Taylor was awarded her doctoral degree in May 2022 and is pursuing postdoctoral studies at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. 10/17/25
Sitapriya Moorthi (2011)
Sitapriya earned her Bachelors in Zoology (Honors) from Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, India. While dissecting animals at school, she was passionately involved in trying to rescue them outside, being involved with several animal shelters. She was also a member of the debating society at her college. Sitapriya received her Masters in Genomics from Madurai Kamaraj University, India, where she discovered her interests in genetics and cancer research. At SBU she joined Dr. Chiara Luberto’s lab, where she worked on chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and sphingomyelin synthase (SMS). Her research focused on understanding the transcriptional regulation of SMS through alternative promoters in CML. In 2014 she was selected for the Scholars in BioMedical Science program at SBU to help translate her research into a more clinical setting. Sita was awarded her doctorate in August 2017. She is currently a Staff Scientist in the Data Science Lab at Fred Hutchison Cancer Center. 10/17/25
Phil graduated with a BA in Biology from Mount Saint Mary College in 2016. As an undergraduate, he studied the effects of the pneumococcal cell wall on mouse fetal neural precursor cells and adult neurons in Dr. Elaine Tuomanen’s lab at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He joined the MD program at Stony Brook in 2016 and the MSTP in 2018. His work in Dr. Douglas Fearon’s lab at CSHL studied the binding of CXCL12 to pancreatic cancer cells via TGM2. Phil received his PhD in May 2024 and is now finishing his medical studies.
Cara Moravec (2010)
Cara earned her B.S. in genetics at Iowa State University. At Stony Brook, she studied neural development in zebrafish in the Sirotkin lab. Her project examined how changes in gene expression and epigenetic modifications during development cause life-long effects on behavior. She also served as the Genetics senator in the Graduate Student Organization for three years. Cara is now a Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate in the laboratory of Dr. Francisco Pelegri at University of Wisconsin - Madison. 10/17/25
Kaustav Mukherjee (2009)
Kaustav earned a Master’s in Biotechnology from Madurai Kamaraj University in India. At Stony Brook, he worked in Dr. Janet Leatherwood’s lab where he studied post-transcriptional gene regulation in fission yeast He was co-mentored by Dr. Bruce Futcher. Kaustav presented posters at the 2011 International Fission Yeast meeting in Boston, MA and the 2014 FASEB Yeast Chromosome Structure, Replication, and Segregation conference in Steamboat Springs, CO. He received his doctorate in December 2015. Kaus was a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. James Bieker's lab at Mount Sinai Medical Center, where he is studied the regulation of erythropoiesis by the zinc finger transcription factor EKLF. Kaus is currently an Assistant Professor at Icahn School of Medicien at Mount Sinai. 10/17/25
Mansa Munshi
Awaiting completion
Jamina Oomen-Hajagos (2010)
Jamina graduated from Yale with a B.S. in Organismal Biology (Intensive Research Track) and received a Master's in Biology from Stony Brook University. She carried out her doctoral work in Jerry Thomsen's lab, studying the effect of the PQBP1 protein on early neural development in Xenopus. Jamina also has a background in high school and community college teaching. Jamina received her PhD in May 2015 and subsequently earned a graduate degree in genetic counseling from Long Island University. She is now a Genetic Counselor at GeneDX. 10/17/25
Jason O'Rawe (2013)
Jason received his B.A. and an M.A. in Biology from Stony Brook University. His master’s work focused on mathematical formulation of species interactions and community-level consequences of particular interaction schemes. Jason’s postgraduate work focused on developing software implementations of classical and contemporary statistical models for characterizing population level health-care data. As a doctoral student, Jason studied human genetic variation in the Lyon Lab and received his doctorate in August 2016. Jason is the Director of People Analytics at Etsy. 10/17/25
Jordan Pearson (2021)
Jordan earned her BA in Biological Basis of Behavior at U of Pennsylvania. There she studied the relationship between taste and energy density under Dr. Michael Tordoff at Monell Chemical Senses Center. She then spent two years in Dr. Paul Greengard’s lab at Rockefeller U studying Parkinson’s disease with a focus on senescence in dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain. In 2019, she joined the MSTP at Stony Brook. In Dr. Doug Fearon’s Lab at CSHL, she studied how pancreatic cancer evades the immune system. Jordan received her PhD in May 2025 and has returned to medical school to complete her training. 10/17/25
Shaobo Qin (2018)
Shaobo received a B.S. in Biotechnology from Sichuan University in 2015. She described two new species of Liuixalus as an undergraduate. Following her graduation, she worked as a lab technician in State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy (China), where her research focused on hepatocellular carcinoma. Shaobo pursued her dissertation research in the laboratory of Scott Powers. Her project employed combinatorial CRISPR screening to identify synergistic therapeutic targets in breast cancer. Shaobo was awarded her doctoral degree in May 2024.
Christian Ruiz
Awaiting completion
Ioana Rus (2011)
Ioana earned a B.S. in Chemistry from UNC Chapel Hill in 2007 and a M.S. in Biomedical Science from Mount Sinai in 2009. Ioana subsequently joined the MSTP program at Stony Brook and was a student in Nicholas Tonks' lab, where she conducted structural and functional studies with conformation-sensing antibodies to PTP1B. Ioana received her PhD in May 2016 and returned to medical school to complete her MD degree. Ioana is currently a board-certified anesthesiologist at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital in Richmond, VA. 10/17/25
Joanne Saldanha (2019)
Joanne received her BS in Biology with an Honors in the Major from the University of Central Florida in 2018. She dabbled in ecology, studying herpesvirus in gopher tortoises, before finding her passion for genetics. For a year, she studied genes involved in the polyamine transport system in Drosophila melanogaster. Joanne is carryed out her doctoral research under the mentorship of Dr. Hyungjin Kim. Her project focused on the role of TIMELESS in the suppression of single-stranded DNA gaps and mutagenesis. Joanne was awarded the PhD in May 2024 and is currently an entrepeneur in the Bay Area. 10/17/25
Jia Shen
Awaiting completion
Nitin Shirole (2011)
Nitin received his BS in Biotechnology, Microbiology, and Chemistry from Nagpur University, India in 2008. He also earned a Master's in Biological Sciences from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, in 2011, where he studied regulation of translation in E. coli. Nitin worked in Dr. Raffaella Sordella’s lab at CSHL, where his research focused on understanding the role of p53 isoforms in tumor initiation and progression. Additionally, Nitin performed a whole-genome RNAi screen to uncover novel driver genes in non-small cell lung cancer. Nitin earned his PhD in May 2017 and is currently holds the title of Instructor, Medical Oncology, at Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School. 10/17/25
Zunaira Shuja (2009)
Zunaira earned her B.S. in Biology with a double major in History at Stony Brook University. She completed her dissertation work in the White lab, where she studied the functional effect of connexin mutations on various wild-type connexin proteins. Her doctoral work focused on how genetic alterations to these proteins result in epidermal disorders. Zunaira graduated with her PhD in August 2105. Zunaira received postdoctoral training at Columbia University and is now a Pharmaceutical Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Kenvue in Summit, NJ. 10/17/25
Jayson Smith
Awaiting completion
Joshua Steinberg (2018)
Josh graduated from Columbia University in 2014 with a B.A. in Biochemistry. Prior to joining the MD/PhD program at Stony Brook University in 2016, he worked as a research assistant in the Tuschl Lab at The Rockefeller University. At Stony Brook, Josh pursued his doctoral work in the lab of Dr. Rob Martienssen at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he is studied the role of tRNA fragments in gene expression. He received his PhD in May 2024 and has returned to medical school to complete his training. 10/17/25
Gaurang Trivedi (2017)
Gaurang earned his Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, India, and Master’s degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from Long Island University. As a technician with Dr. Lingbo Zhang at CSHL, Gaurang found a way to increase self-renewal capacity of erythroid progenitors to develop new treatments for bone marrow failure. His project received a feasibility award in 2016 from the NIH REACH and the Center for Biotechnology. Gaurang continued in Dr. Zhang's lab for his dissertation research and was awarded his doctoral degree in May 2022. He is a Senior Research Investigator at Incyte in Wilmington, DE. 10/17/25
Dillon earned his BS in Biology from California University of Pennsylvania in 2013 and an MS in
Medical Physiology from Case Western Reserve University in 2017. While at Case Western, in the lab of Dr. Eli Bar, he worked on identifying cancer stem cell maintenance pathways in glioblastoma cells in the hypoxic tumor microenvironment. In 2018, Dillon joined the MSTP at Stony Brook and did his doctoral training with Dr. Adrian Krainer at CSHL, where he studied the role of alternative splicing in the pathogenesis hepatocellular carcinoma. He earned his PhD degree in May 2024 and has returned to medical school to complete his training. 10/17/2025
Xiaoli Wu (2015)
Xiaoli (Sky) received her B.S. in Biology from Sichuan University in 2014 and studied at University of Washington as an exchange student in 2013. She took a year off and studied at Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology before joining the Genetics Program. At Stony Brook, Sky joined the laboratory of Dr. Chris Vakoc at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Her project focused on identifying transcriptional regulation in normal and malignant tuft cells. Her PhD was awarded in May 2022. At present, she is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School. 10/17/25
Yiyang Wu (2011)
Yiyang entered the Graduate Program in Genetics at Stony Brook in 2011, after receiving both her M.D. and M.S. degrees from
China. She joined the Lyon lab in the summer of 2012. Yiyang’s dissertation research focused on investigating the mechanisms underlying Ogden syndrome, using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models. Yiyang also worked on analyzing human genetic variation and its role in rare disorders. Yiyang received her degree in May 2017 and is now an Associate Data Scientist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 10/17/25
Robert Wysocki (2012)
Bobby earned his B.A. in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology at Hamilton College in 2007. He then worked at the Rockefeller University until 2010, when he joined Stony Brook's Medical Scientist Training Program. In 2012, he began his dissertation work in the laboratory of Mikala Egeblad at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He studied the effect of neutrophils on breast cancer metastasis, as well as the importance of the tumor vasculature on the response of tumors to chemotherapies. Bobby received his PhD in May 2016 and subsequently completed his MD degree. Bobby is now a pulmonologist at Indiana University Health. 10/17/25
Lucia graduated with a BS in Neuroscience and a minor in global studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2019. As an undergrad, she worked in the
lab of Dr. X. William Yang investigating the pathological cell-cell interactions in Huntington’s disease and characterizing the pathways behind Huntington’s disease modifiers. She joined the MSTP at Stony Brook in 2019 and undertook her dissertation work in Dr. Adrian Krainer’s lab at CSHL. Her research focused on exploring the potential of anti-sense oligonucleotides to treat brain tumors. She received her PhD in May 2025 and is now completing her medical training.
Allen Yu
Awaiting completion
Jia-Ray received his B.S. from National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. He conducted his doctoral research in Dr. Linda Van Aelst's lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Jia-Ray's dissertation research focused on the regulation of Rho family small GTPases during cancer metastasis. Jia-Ray received his PhD in May 2015 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Danny Reinberg at NYU School of Medicine. Jia-Ray is now an Assistant Professor in the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech. 10/17/25
John Yuen (2019)
John earned his BA in Biology from New York University in 2016. He did research in the lab of Dr. Matthew Rockman, also at NYU, focusing on the molecular and evolutionary mechanisms that shape heritable phenotypes in Caenorhabditis nematodes, before joining Stony Brook’s MSTP in 2017. John worked under the guidance of Dr. Jingfang Ju on the role of microRNAs in the tumor microenvironment. He was awarded the PhD in May 2023 and his MD in 2025. He is now doing his residency in internal medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 10/17/25
Narges Zali (2018)
Narges graduated with a B.S. in Zoology from Shahid Beheshti University, Iran, in 2008. She earned an MA in Molecular and Cell Biology from CUNY and an MPH focusing on epidemiology and research methods from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She then worked as a Research Associate at Mount Sinai. Her research focus has been on rare genetic disorders, infectious diseases, and hereditary colorectal cancer. Narges pursued her doctoral research in the laboratory of Bruce Stillman at CSHL, where her project identified origins of replication in the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica. She graduated with her PhD in May 2025 and is beginning a position as Scientific Program Adminstrator at the American Association for Cancer Research. 10/17/25
Andrew Ziesel (2017)
Andrew graduated summa cum laude from Binghamton University with a B.S in Biochemistry. As an undergraduate, he worked in Heather Fiumera's lab studying nuclear-mitochondrial genome interactions in S. cerevisiae. At Stony Brook, Andrew was a member of Nancy Hollingsworth's lab, where he used S. cerevisiae to investigate the role of the meiotic recombination checkpoint in promoting viable gamete production. After receiving his PhD in December 2022, worked for two years at Meiogenix. He is currently a Research Assistant Professor at Binghamton University. 10/17/25