Carolina was an assistant research scientist in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. During her MD/PhD training, she studied genome-wide DNA methylation across different tissues of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. After completing a Pediatrics residency at Boston Children’s Hospital and Clinical Genetics and Genomics residency training at NHGRI, she enrolled in the Laboratory Genetics and Genomics Fellowship at NHGRI to develop expertise in clinical cytogenetic and molecular genetic analyses. Her long-term goal is to understand the role of DNA methylation and chromatin alterations in disease to expedite diagnosis and to bring those insights back to clinical care. She likes drawing, eating out, dancing, reading, and sleeping (as a working mom, she wishes siesta pods were more widely available).
Quinn Hauck graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2023. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Chicago studying Human Genetics. Originally from Seattle, WA, he is fascinated by the complexity of genetic information and cellular pathways, and hopes to understand it better through his work. In his free time, he enjoys hiking around Washington state and plays on the men’s ultimate frisbee team at Hopkins
Roham Razaghi completed his PhD in Biomedical Engineering in 2022. He earned his undergraduate degree in Bioengineering from University of California, San Diego (UCSD). His current project involves developing novel technologies for sequencing/discriminating of proteins. He is also interested in working on autoimmune disorders, specifically Type 1 Diabetes. If not in lab, you can certainly find him on the soccer field.
Siqi Chen (Alice) was a PhD student in Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology (BCMB). She obtained her Bachelor’s degrees in Molecular & Cellular Biology and Applied Mathematics from Vanderbilt University. She is interested in most things related to epigenetics and RNA. She likes to cook and eat as well as travel and sleep. She hopes she could exercise more often, and is trying out marathon.
Sam Sholes completed her PhD in the Biochemistry, Cell, and Molecular Biology (BCMB) program in 2022. She is currently working at JHU Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). She earned her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Richmond. Sam also worked in the Greider lab; her thesis project was focused on developing telomere sequencing methods to interrogate proposed mechanisms of telomere length regulation. Outside of lab she enjoys hiking, playing tennis, and trying (unsuccessfully) to convince friends that country music and Shakespeare are cool.
Yunfan Fan completed her PhD in Biomedical Engineering in 2022. She is now at Bristol-Myers-Squibb. Her work in the Timp lab primarily involved leveraging sequencing data in infectious disease and metagenomic settings, both for diagnostic purposes and for understanding pathogenic mechanisms on a molecular level. She fondly hopes that one day, the people of Earth will love her as their benevolent overlord while she rules them from her palace in space.
Ariel Gershman completed her PhD in Biochemistry Cell and Molecular Biology (BCMB) in 2022. She is currently working at Delfi. She completed her Bachelors in Pharmacology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is interested in understanding epigenetic regulation of repetitive regions of the genome and developing pipelines to further decipher the role of repetitive sequences in genome function. When not in lab she enjoys playing soccer, hiking and binge watching medical dramas on Netflix.
Amy earned her Bachelors degree from Goucher College. She previously worked both as a research technician at Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland Baltimore on question of cancer and cancer immunotherapy. She is currently working at PGDx. She is focused on sequencing various different species from bacteria to stingrays to pine trees.
Brittany Pielstick graduated with a Masters in Biochemistry Cell and Molecular Biology (BCMB). She is currently working at Illumina. She previously earned her bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University in microbiology. Her research interests included studying genetics and epigenetics in relation to metabolism and cancer. When not in lab she enjoyed long distance running and trying out new dinner recipes.
Norah Sadowski was a technician in the Timp lab. She earned her Bachelors degree in biotechnology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her previous research includes enzyme characterization and optimization of in vitro toxicology assays. She was ecstatic to return to an academic lab from industry and was focused on DNA and RNA modification research in the Timp Lab. When not in the lab, she was probably backpacking, rereading Sherlock Holmes, binge watching Star Trek, or working on one of her too many ongoing projects. She’s now a graduate student in Brady Maher’s lab at the Lieber Institute here at Johns Hopkins.
Brittany Avin was a PhD student in the Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology (BCMB) Program at the School of Medicine. She completed a double major in Biochemistry and Genetics at Clemson University. Brittany was mentored by Dr. Umbricht and Dr. Zeiger in the Department of Surgery, and she is investigating the role of DNA methylation in the promoter region of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) in alternative splicing in thyroid cancer. In her spare time she enjoys cancer advocacy, playing basketball, and sailing. She is now a Science Policy Fellow at the American Cancer Society Action Network.
Isac Lee was a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He spent most of his days in lab looking at slickdeals and amazon. He was also interested in the relationship between the epigenome and the genome and developing techniques to better observe that relationship, especially in the context of cancer progression. He is now a Senior Computational Geneticist at Pfizer.
✉ Email: ilee29@jhmi.edu
Timothy ‘Gilfunk’ Gilpatrick is a grumpy old grouch man who lives in a cave where he feeds on lawn refuse. Every now and then he comes out to do experiments. He is also currently a resident in Pathology at UCSF. His research interests include epigenetic regulation of transcription and mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance. His aim was to leverage sequencing technologies to better understand how cellular diversity, development, and the response to stimuli are reflected in the transcriptome and epigenome. After finishing his PhD, he returned to complete med school at Johns Hopkins.
Tatiana Gelaf Romer was a biomedical engineering undergraduate from Dover, Massachusetts. Through her research, she’s hoping to get a better understanding of how we can study and manipulate genomes. In her free time, she likes to read, take hikes, build jigsaw puzzles, and cuddle dogs. She is now a Technology Analyst at Roivant Sciences.
Nick Garza was a BME undergraduate from San Antonio, TX majoring in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science. Since starting college he had interests in the technology and software behind DNA sequencing and how it can be used to link genetics with disease. In his free time, he enjoys eating his way through Baltimore, playing violin, and wrangling his three dachshunds at home. He is now a software engineer at Microsoft.
Allison Lemmer was an undergraduate majoring in Biomedical Engineering. She is currently working towards a PhD at MIT. She has a lifelong interest in genetics stemming from being a fraternal twin. In her free time she can be found white water kayaking, hiking, or doing gymnastics. She is now a researcher at the Broad Institute.
Jawara Allen was a MD/PhD student in Biochemistry Cellular and Molecular Biology. He completed his undergraduate studies at Duke University with a major in biology and a minor in evolutionary anthropology. His research project focused on discovering how Bacteroides Fragilis toxin (BFT) alters the epigenome in colon epithelial cells., working primarily in Cindy Sears’s lab. He has since returned to medical school at Johns Hopkins University.
Rachael Workman earned her Bachelors in Biology from West Virginia State University, Masters from Portland State in Oregon, and worked as a summer research assistant at Cornell and Oregon State Universities. After graduate school she farmed for a season in Maine, and was excited to be back in the lab as the tech for the Timp Lab. In her spare time she cares lovingly for her many plants, collects more books than she could ever hope to read in her lifetime and plays her euphonium (it’s like a small tuba, don’t feel bad, no one else has heard of it either). Rachael is now a graduate student in Josh Modell’s lab here at Johns Hopkins.
Stephanie Hao was a Master’s student in Biomedical Engineering. Her work mainly involved infectious disease sequencing on the Illumina MiSeq and Oxford Nanopore MinION. She enjoys reading and experimenting with foods, and on rare occasions can be caught humming tunes from random musicals. She is now an Associate Scientist at the New York Genome Center.
Allison Nice graduated from UCSC in 2012 with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, then worked for a year in cell culture development at Genentech in South San Francisco. She worked as a lab tech in the Timp lab, while completing classes for her Master’s degree in Biotechnology. She has since returned to Genentech in California.
Alannah Lejeune graduated from Johns Hopkins in 2015 with a Bachelor’s in Molecular and Cellular Biology. She has no interests nor hobbies, but enjoys collecting rare and exotic animals and traveling by freight train to escape her problems (which are numerous and crippling). Her work primarily involved preparing bisulfite treated next generation sequencing libraries to examine differential methylation. In the future, she hopes to have a job, or failing that, a small speed boat. She now works in the Baron Lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NYC.
MacIntosh (Tosh) Cornwell graduated from Johns Hopkins in 2015 with a Bachelor’s in Biomedical Engineering. With the very little time he has that is not spent in lab or class, he enjoys playing basketball, binge watching Netflix, and occasionally sailing away on pirate adventures. He worked on a couple projects in lab, the first of which was based in image analysis where he was a part of the creation of a modular code that will be used to analyze fluorescently tagged images such as FISH data and quantify the location and amount of genetic material in the nucleus. He was also involved with the development of next generation sequencing techniques in lab and the creation and implementation of a novel ChIP process. After college he hopes to earn an MD/PhD and become a physician scientist who sees patients and has a lab of his own. He now works in the Brown Lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
Skyler Uhl graduated from Johns Hopkins in 2015 with a Bachelor’s in Molecular and Cellular Biology. His work in lab focuses on the production of proteins to be used for experiments in lab using mammalian cell lines. More recently, he has begun work on the use of ChIP to determine the binding locations of these proteins of interest along the human genome, as well as the effect of mutagenesis and methylation on the binding capacity of protein to these sites. In the future Skyler intends to pursue a PhD and career in research. He now works in the Rosenberg Lab at Rockefeller University in NYC.
Gabriel Deards graduated with a MSE in Biomedical Engineering in 2016. His experiments were designed to examine the binding affinity of endonucleases for DNA sequences in vitro. He has the memory of a dead trout, and is often mistaken for Harry Potter. Neither of these things bother him. In the future, people will still find him perplexing.
Amber Velasco graduated with her B.S. in BME in 2016.. Her work primarily focused on mutagenesis and developing ways to methylate desired regions of the genome in order to further study its effects on certain conditions. She plans on either going to graduate school for BME or pursuing an M.D. to eventually incorporate her work as a BME and help improve people’s quality of life.
Rohil Malpani is a senior majoring in Biomedical Engineering and minoring in Mathematics. He was born and raised in Kolkata, India. He gained wet-lab experience in the Timp lab and working on ATAC-seq(assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing) to try and develop mapping for protein-DNA interactions in different cell types. Rohil is now a medical student at Yale and aspires to be a cardiologist in the future. He also wants to be involved in development of medical devices to make some use of his future BME degree.
Emily Borst is now a masters student in in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins from Westford, Massachusetts. When not studying or doing science, Emily enjoys watching all things Tina Fey-related, planning her next trip to Disney World, or chasing after diabetic children at her summer job as a diabetes camp counselor. Though, if that fails, she is more than ready to put her Biomedical Engineering degree to use and work for the Walt Disney Company.
Qinwen(Wendy) Huang is a sophmore majoring in Biomedical Engineering from Ningbo, China. She is starting off her computational analysis experience here and is working on ChIP-seq which determines methyl specificity of protein binding. In her spare time, she enjoys running and playing piano. She doesn’t really have a plan after college but she wants to use her BME degree to help improve people’s quality of life.