Aye Lab Alumni

Former Postdoctoral Researchers

Xin-Qiang Fang, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (later Assistant Professor at the Fujian Research Institute)

Ph.D. 2009, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, China

Xinqiang was with us from 2012 Sept till 2013 Aug and contributed to one of our first manuscripts as a co-first author (JACS 2013 Fang et al.). Our electrophile program would not have been initiated so quickly without Xinqiang’s ability to successfully develop novel synthesis routes toward functional small-molecule probes. As of Fall 2013, Xinqiang established his independent laboratory at the Fujian Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is currently a full professor: http://www.fjirsm.cas.cn/fangxinqiang/
Homeland: China

Hong-Yu Lin, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (later Associate Professor at Xiamen University)

Ph.D. 2012, Brandeis University, USA

Hongyu is originally from China, came to our lab from Brandeis, and was with us until May 2015. Hongyu made numerous contributions, most notably to the T-REX Electrophile Toolbox. In our lab, Hongyu contributed to first and second-author publications in 2015 JACS Lin et al., 2016 Nature Protocols Parvez & Long et al., 2014 ChemBioChem Fu et al., 2017 Cell Chemical Biology Long & Lin et al., and a couple of more contributed-author papers currently in revision. Hongyu is now an associate professor at Xiamen University, Chinese Academy of Sciences: https://chem.xmu.edu.cn/en/info/1010/1365.htm
Homeland: China

Jiayang Li, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (later Assistant Professor at the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing)

Ph.D. 2013, Brandeis University, USA

Jiayang hailed from materials science background as a graduate from Brandeis University. During a short time that Jiayang was with us (Oct 2013 – Feb 2014), she rapidly learned molecular biology and biochemical techniques and contributed to successful completion of a project in collaboration with Saba Parvez and Dr. Yuan Fu (JACS 2015 Parvez et al.). Jiayang went on to independently initiate a new project! As of 2014, Jiayang began her Research Assistant Professorship position at the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, China.
Homeland: China

Soura (Souradyuti) Ghosh, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (later Assistant Professor at Bennett University, India)

Ph.D. 2015, Johns Hopkins University, USA

Soura hailed from india, and upon completion of his PhD program at Johns Hopkins, Soura spent a year with us from August 2015 till Sept 2016, and contributed to setting up some key foundational stones for our C. elegans T-REX projects. Soura is a co-author of our inaugural worm paper in preparation. Soura also assisted in the preparation of an invited review article that highlights chemical tools in subcellular redox targeting in cultured cells and model organisms (2017 ACS Chem Biol Long et al.). As of early 2017, Soura began his assistant professorship position back in his homeland, India (at Bennett University). Since 2023, he has been associate professor at Mahindra University, Hyderabad, India: https://www.mahindrauniversity.edu.in/faculty/dr-s-ghosh/
Homeland: India

Yuan Fu, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (later Assistant Professor at Tianjin Medical School)

Ph.D. 2012 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

B.S. 2008 Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Yuan is a native of China. He started alongside Yimon upon graduation from UIUC. Yuan is one of our two dedicated founding postdoctoral members of the Aye Lab. Yuan’s contributions were instrumental in helping us hit the ground running in our starting years. Yuan carried away several first-author/co-first-author publications from his time in our lab (Fu et al. 2013 ACS Biochemistry; Fang et al. 2013 JACS; Parvez et al. 2015 JACS; Fu et al. 2014 ChemBioChem; and Fu & Long et al. 2018 Nature Chemical Biology). As of fall-2018, Yuan began his own independent lab as an assistant professor in Tianjin Medical University, School of Basic Medical Sciences, China.
Homeland: China

Dziyana (Diana) Hnedzko, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (March 2017 – December 2018)

Ph.D. 2017 Binghamton University, SUNY, USA

Diana grew up in the Republic of Belarus. She joined the Aye lab upon completing her PhD studies in Professor Eriks Rozners’ laboratory at Binghamton University. During her tenure in the Aye lab, Diana rapidly learned the ropes of cell biological and mechanistic biochemical studies involving the enzyme RNR in the realms of our genome regulation research program and contributed to a nominated review article (2018 ChemBioChem — ChemBio Talents special issue). Following a subsequent short stint as a postdoctoral researcher at College of Williams & Mary, Diana further studied for an MS degree in Computing Science. As of 2023, Diana began her position as a Research and Development Engineer at Kryptowire Labs.
Homeland: Belarus

Marcus Long, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (November 2014 – July 2018)

Ph.D. 2014 Brandeis University, MA, U.S.A.

Undergraduate degree in Chemistry 2003, Honors School of Chemistry, University of Oxford, UK

Marcus is a native of Yorkshire, England. During his PhD studies at Brandeis University, Marcus collaborated with Yimon in her postdoctoral research involving cell-based studies of RNR-enzyme. Marcus continued to be an active collaborator of the Aye Lab prior to joining us as a postdoctoral member in late 2014. Marcus was a key leader in successfully extending our REX technologies to use in complex living models. During his tenure in the Aye lab, he trained and collaborated with many postdoctoral, graduate students and undergraduate researchers in both electrophile signaling and genome regulation research programs. In electrophile signaling research program, Marcus’s contributions resulted in 8 original research publications (including Parvez & Long 2016 Nature Protocols and Long & Parvez 2017 Nature Chemical Biology) with 5 additional manuscripts presently in revision/peer review, and 13 perspectives/review articles published. In genome biogenesis research program, Marcus contributed to two co-first author original research papers, including 2018 Fu & Long Nature Chemical Biology, and 3 invited reviews/perspectives.
Homeland: UK

Xiaopeng Yin, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (January 2018 – December 2018)

Ph.D. 2017 Michigan State University, MI, USA

B.S. 2011 Nanjing University, China

Xiaopeng hailed from China. He took up the challenge to switch his research focus from organic synthesis during his phD studies to join the Aye lab and learn to work in an interdisciplinary research project. Xiaopeng’s key contributions allowed us to successfully complete the Phase I of our industrial collaborative project. Following his short yet successful tenure in our lab, Xiaopeng joined Prof. Justin Kim’s lab at the Dana-Farber Institute, to further pursue his research interests in chemistry and biology. As of fall 2019, Xiaopeng began his new job in pharma industry in the bay area (California), and he has been working as a senior R&D scientist at Arcus Biosciences for the past several years.
Homeland: India

Xuyu Liu, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (January 2017 – July 2019)

Ph.D. 2016 University of Sydney, Australia

M.S. 2011 Victoria University of Welington, New Zealand

B.S. 2008 Victoria University of Welington, New Zealand

Xuyu grew up in China but emigrated to New Zealand to receive his higher education, first at Victoria University Wellington for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biomedical sciences, followed by his pursuit of a doctoral degree at the University of Sydney in Australia. Xuyu joined our team at Cornell University USA in early 2017, and his work enabled the team to successfully translate the principles and products of REX technologies into precision medicine applications. Xuyu subsequently moved with our team to EPFL and was a key leader in successfully overseeing the lab’s relocation and installation. During his time on our team, Xuyu contributed to several pedagogical review articles, invention disclosure, and an original research paper (2020 Liu et al., ACS Central Science). The latter constitutes the first successful proof-of-concept of targeted covalent inhibitors derived from precision electrophilic-metabolite signaling. As of late 2019, Xuyu began his new position as a cardiovascular research fellow in the School of Chemistry and Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sidney, Australia, https://www.sydney.edu.au/science/about/our-people/academic-staff/xuyu-liu.html and https://www.hri.org.au/our-research/cardiovascular-protective-signalling-and-drug-discovery/dr-xuyu-liu
Homeland: New Zealand

Yi Zhao, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (November 2014 – October 2020)

Ph.D. 2014 National University of Singapore, Singapore

B.S. 2009 Sichuan University, China

Yi is a native of China, specifically from the famous region of Sichuan. Just like Sichuan cuisine, Yi’s tenure in the team spiced up our team’s research directions on multiple fronts, from evolution of REX technologies toward endogenous target profiling to deeper mechanistic studies of how native electrophiles modulate kinase signaling and ubiquitin pathways. Yi is a co-author and first-author of several original research papers as well as a perspective article that was selected for the 2020 International Open Access Week collection. Despite having been a dedicated organic research chemist for almost a decade prior to joining the Aye team, Yi, with the right mindset and fearless attitude, and his performance in our team, is an exemplary model of how organic chemists, given the right opportunities, close guidance, and training, are able to quickly become mechanistic chemical biologists and interdisciplinary scientists. As of late 2020, Yi began his new appointment as an associate research fellow in the Shenzhen Bay Laboratory in Shenzhen, China.
Homeland: China

Chaosheng Luo, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (October 2019 – December 2020)

Ph.D. 2015 Peking University, China

M.S. 2012 Peking University, China

B.S. 2011 Beijing Technology and Business University, China

Chaosheng is currently working as a scientific editor in Tetrahedron Chem, Elsevier.
Homeland: China

Amogh Kulkarni, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (January 2020 – July 2021)

Ph.D. 2020 Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, India

M.S. 2014 IISER, Pune, India

B.S. 2012 DES Fergusson College, Pune, India

Amogh is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany.
Homeland: India

Krishna Tripathi, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral Researcher (December 2021 – December 2023)

Ph.D 2020 Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India

M.S. 2013 University of Allahabad, India

B.S. 2011 University of Allahabad, India

Krishna is currently a research scientist at Sai Life Sciences Ltd, India.
Homeland: India

Former PhD Students

Sine (Somsinee) Wisitpitthaya

Graduate student (Spring 2013 – January 2017)

B.S. and M.S. 2011 Chemistry, Chulalongkurn University, Thailand

Sine is a native of Thailand. Sine represents one of the 3 founding graduate-student members of the Aye Lab. Sine worked on our nucleotide signaling research program and contributed to a first-authored publication and two co-authored manuscripts during her time in lab. We bid farewell to Sine along with three of our graduating seniors in May 2017. Sine recently began her postdoctoral research scientist position at Wolfe Laboratories, Inc., MA. Sine is a Anandamahidol Foundation Scholar (2015 – Spring 2017).
Homeland: Thailand

Joe (Joseph) Haegele

Graduate student (Spring 2013 – July 2017)

M.S. 2012 Biomedical forensic science, Boston University School of Medicine, USA

B.S. 2010 Chemistry, Rensselaer Polytech Institute, N.Y., USA

Joe is one of the 3 founding graduate-student members of the Aye Lab. He is a NIH-CBI T32 Training Program Fellow (2013 fall – 2015 spring). Joe in collaboration with Marcus, Soura, Daniel, and Shiv contributed to the development and applications of our T-REX precision redox perturbation tool in live C. elegans animal models. Joe recently began a research scientist position at Forma, MA.
Homeland: USA

Saba Parvez

Graduate student (Spring 2013 – December 2017)

B.S. 2012 Chemistry, Bates College, USA

Saba was one of our founding graduate student members and a key contributor in building our lab’s T-REX system from the ground up, both in cultured cells alongside Yimon and in zebrafish models, alongside Marcus and Jesse. Saba moved onto a postdoc position in Prof. Randall Peterson’s lab at the University of Utah in December 2017. He is a HHMI Predoctoral Fellow (2015–2017). In 2023 Saba received several attractive academic job offers for tenure-track assistant professorship positions from a few institutions in the US, and has just accepted to join Northwestern University (at the prestigious Feinberg School of Medicine), https://sites.northwestern.edu/parvezlab/team/
Homeland: India

Jesse Poganik

Graduate student (Spring 2015 – April 2020)

M.S. 2012 Biomedical forensic science, Boston University School of Medicine, USA

B.S. 2010 Chemistry, Rensselaer Polytech Institute, N.Y., USA

Jesse was a major driver in transforming our teams early effort in studying stress-dependent RNA biology to successful outcomes in projects investigating RNA-protein interactions and transcriptomics analyses. He is a NIH-CBI T32 Training Program Fellow (Fall 2015 – Spring 2017). Jesse was also a critical member who successfully passed on the team’s technical know-hows underpinning REX technologies and their applications in larval zebrafish to newer team members who joined us at EPFL. Beyond lead- and co-author published and pending original research manuscripts, Jesse made outstanding pedagogical contributions through several reviews and perspectives during his time in the team. Following his successful thesis defense in Spring 2020, Jesse started his postdoctoral position in Prof. Vadim Gladyshev’s laboratory at Longwood Medical School, Harvard University, USA, and in 2023, he was promoted to an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School https://www.poganik.com/
Homeland: USA

Daniel Urul

Graduate student (Spring 2016 – December 2020)

B.S. 2014 Chemistry, University of Florida, USA

Daniel joined our team as a graduate student at Cornell University and a US NSF GRFP fellow (Summer 2017 – 2020), and subsequently moved with the team as an EPFL exchange student. He also got the Cornell Graduate Fellowship Awardee (Fall 2016 – Spring 2017). Daniel contributed to several of our C. elegans research team projects. Daniel’s highly effective collaborations with several team members, in particular with Sanjna and Marcus, resulted in a series of co-first and co-2nd authorship papers, and a technology-based book chapter. As of December 2020, Daniel successfully defended as our team’s last member with an official Cornell PhD degree. As of Spring 2021, Daniel is working as an R&D scientist at AssayQuant Technologies, Inc. (co-founded by Professor Barbara Imperiali) in Massachusetts, USA.
Homeland: USA

Lingxi Wang

Graduate student (July 2017 – August 2021)

M.S. in Chemical Biology, 2018, Cornell University, USA

B.S. in Chemistry, 2017, Tsinghua University, China

Lingxi joined our team first as a graduate student at Cornell University and transferred to EPFL graduate program as she relocated with the team to EPFL. Lingxi critically assisted with the successful revision of our team’s important proof-of-concept paper demonstrating direct relevance of precision electrophile signaling to precision medicine development (2020 Liu et al.). Lingxi also contributed to an invited pedagogical review article, and initial explorations in structure/function studies, protein-tags design, prior to her thesis defense in late 2021. Following return to her homeland, China, Lingxi is starting her career as a project manager at a global biopharmaceutical company based in her hometown, Suzhou.
Homeland: China

Former Master and Undergraduate Students

William Blessing

Undergrade student (July 2012 – June 2014)

Class of 2014, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Engineering

William completed his PhD degree in Bioengineering at Boston University with Professor Mark Grinstaff, and subsequently pursued his postdoc training at Massachusetts General Hospital, Division of Thoracic Surgery with Dr. Yolonda Colson. William is currently a scientist at Novartis (NBIR) in Cambridge, MA, USA.
Homeland: USA

Lisette Gallegos

Undergrade student (Summer 2012 – fall 2012)

Class of 2013, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry & Chemical Biology

Lis is now working as a program development assistant at the Chemical Educational Foundation (CEF), a non-profit organization focusing on enhancing chemistry education.
Homeland: USA

Tyler Peterhansel

Undergrade student (Summer 2012 – Spring 2013)

Class of 2013, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry

Tyler is now with the ‘Teach for America’ non-profit organization promoting quality education in low-income communities.
Homeland: USA

Eva Ge

Undergrade student (Summer 2012 – Spring 2013)

Class of 2013, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry

Eva was later a graduate student in Professor Tom Muir’s laboratory at Princeton University. Then she moved to University of California Berkeley as a postdoctoral scholar. In 2023, Eva began her independent laboratory at University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
Homeland: USA

Dustin Lee

Undergrade student (Spring 2013 – Spring 2015)

Class of 2015, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry & Asian Studies

Dustin subsequently joined the Stony Brook Medical School program starting fall 2016 and he is currently a resident physician at Virginia Mason Internal Medicine.
Homeland: USA

Pra Bhattacharyya

Undergrade student (Summer 2013)

Class of 2016, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Physics

Pra was later a graduate student and a postdoctoral scholar in Physics at UC Berkeley.
Homeland: USA

Gene Hu

Undergrade student (Fall 2013 – Spring 2015)

Class of 2015, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry & Psychology

Gene has joined the UT Southwestern Medical School program (starting fall 2015).
Homeland: USA

Elaine Fletcher

Undergrade student (Spring 2015 – Spring 2016)

Class of 2017, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry

Elaine subsequently received her MD degree and is currently a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Homeland: USA

Yiran Wang

Undergrade student (Summer 2015 – Spring 2016)

Class of 2016, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry

Yiran later pursued her MD degree at Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine.
Homeland: USA

Aohan Dang

Undergrade student (Summer 2016 – Fall 2016)

Class of 2018, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Biochemistry

After exploring wet chemical biology research, Aohan decided to pursue his keen interest in computational biology. He was involved with computational and system biology research at Cornell until graduation in May 2018. Aohan has been a systems developer at InterSystems since 2018.
Homeland: USA

Shivansh Chawla

Undergrade student (Summer 2015 – Spring 2017)

Class of 2017, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry, Biology

Shiv subsequently received an MD degree from the UNC School of Medicine.
Homeland: USA

Vanha Pham

Undergrade student (Spring 2014 – Spring 2017)

Class of 2017, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry

Vanha started her PhD program in Chemical Biology at the College of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley (as an NSF GRFP fellow!). As of 2024, Vanha began her postdoctoral training in Princeton University.
Homeland: USA

Michael Disare

Undergrade student (Spring 2014 – Spring 2017)

Class of 2017, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry, Biology

Michael started his PhD program in Chemical Biology at the Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, in the fall of 2017. Then he continued as a postdoctoral scholar there.
Homeland: USA

Sanjna Surya

Undergrade student (Fall 2015 – Spring 2018)

Class of 2018, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Biology

Sanjna began her medical school (MD physician) training at Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, USA in 2018.
Mentors: Daniel A. Urul & Dr. Marcus J. C. LongFavorite Pastimes: Taking walks, reading, solving number puzzles
Homeland: USA

Lining Zheng

Undergrade student (Spring 2016 – Spring 2018)

Class of 2018, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry

Lining began her doctoral thesis studies in Chemical Biology at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA in 2018.
Mentor: Dr. Dziyana (Diana) HnedzkoFavorite Pastimes: Reading, cooking, sudoku
Homeland: USA

Paul Huang

Undergrade student (Summer 2016 – Spring 2018)

Class of 2018, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Majors: Chemistry, Biology

Paul began his doctoral thesis studies in Chemical Biology at University of California, Berkeley, USA in 2018.
Mentor: Dr. Yi ZhaoFavorite Pastimes: Playing violin, listening to music, exploring new places
Homeland: USA

Anthony Duruewuru

HHMI CHAMPS Summer Internship member (Summer 2017)

Class of 2020, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University

Major: Human Biology, Health and Society

Mentors: Daniel A. Urul & Sanjna L. SuryaFavorite Pastimes: Gaming, cooking, and exploring new places
Homeland: USA

Islam Elsaid

Undergrade student (Summer 2017 – Spring 2018)

Class of 2020, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry

Islam begins his medical school (MD/PhD program) training at University of Pennsylvania, USA in 2022.
Mentor: Dr. Marcus J. C. LongFavorite Pastimes: Basketball, listening to music, comedy
Homeland: USA

Andreas Pintado-Urbanc

Undergrade student (Fall 2017 – Spring 2018)

Class of 2020, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Chemistry

Paul began his doctoral thesis studies in Chemical Biology at University of California, Berkeley, USA in 2018.
Mentors: Dr. Xuyu Liu & Dr. Xiaopeng YinFavorite Pastimes: Playing/Watching tennis and soccer, listening to music, hiking
Homeland: USA

Nicholas (Nick) Krasnow

Undergrade student (Spring 2018)

Class of 2021, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University

Major: Biology with concentration in Biochemistry

Nick begins his doctoral thesis studies at Harvard University (with Prof. David Liu), USA in 2021.
Mentor: Jesse PoganikFavorite Pastimes: Running, fly fishing, skiing
Homeland: USA

Thomas Jordan

Part-time master student (Spring 2019)

Class of 2020, EPFL

Major: Chemistry

Thomas began his doctoral thesis studies in synthetic biology at ETH Zürich, Switzerland in 2021.
Mentors: Jesse Poganik & Chloé RoggFavorite Pastimes: Eating chocolate, reading, watching films
Homeland: Switzerland

Jean-Alexandre David

Part-time master student (Fall 2019 & Fall 2020)

Class of 2021, EPFL

Major: Chemistry

Mentors: Alexandra Van Hall-Beauvais & Dr. Amogh KulkarniFavorite Pastimes: Reading, visiting art expositions, volleyball
Homeland: France

Gabriele Casagrande Raffi

Part-time master student (Fall 2020)

Class of 2022, EPFL

Major: Chemistry

Gabriele started his doctoral studies in cancer biology in Prof. Rene Bearnard’s laboratory at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam in 2022.
Mentor: Kuan-Ting (Tim) HuangFavorite Pastimes: Go out with friends, all kinds of sports
Homeland: Italy

Jiajun Li

Part-time master student (Fall 2020)

Class of 2020, EPFL

Major: Chemistry

As of 2022 Fall, Jiajun began his doctoral research training with Prof. Michael Nash’s laboratory, University of Basel, Switzerland.
Mentor: Jinmin LiuFavorite Pastimes: Cooking, traveling
Homeland: China

Anne Laura Pedersen

Part-time master student (Spring 2019)

Class of 2022, EPFL

Major: Chemistry

Following graduation from EPFL master program, Anne Laura joins Nestle, Lausanne, as a research scientist.
Mentor: Phillippe LyFavorite Pastimes: Cooking, hiking, farm work
Homeland: Norway

Mahdi Assari

Full-time master thesis student (Spring 2021)

Class of 2021, UNIGE/EPFL (NCCR)

Major: Chemical Biology

Mahdi begins his doctoral thesis studies in Chemical Biology at the University of Chicago, USA, in July 2021, jointly mentored by Professors Tao Pan and Chuan He.
Mentor: Chloé RoggFavorite Pastimes: Playing volleyball, hiking, dancing
Homeland: Iran

Jonathan Held

Full-time master thesis student (Spring 2021)

Class of 2021, ETH Zürich

Major: Chemistry

As of 2022 Fall, Jonathan started his doctoral research studies at Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Mentors: Jinmin Liu and Phillippe LyFavorite Pastimes: Music, photography
Homeland: Switzerland

Milica Mihailovic

Full-time master thesis student (Spring 2021 – Fall 2021)

Class of 2022, UNIGE/EPFL (NCCR)

Major: Chemical biology

Milica began her doctoral thesis studies in Biology at Max Perutz Laboratories, Vienna BioCenter, Austria, in June 2022.
Mentor: Kuan-Ting (Tim) HuangFavorite Pastimes: Traveling, reading, climbing
Homeland: Serbia

Riyaz Khan

Full-time master student (Spring 2021 – Fall 2021)

Class of 2022, UNIGE/EPFL (NCCR)

Major: Chemical biology

Riyaz began his doctoral thesis studies in immunoengineering at ETH Zürich, Switzerland in 2024.
Mentor: Dr. Dalu ChangFavorite Pastimes: Reading, basketball, hiking
Homeland: India

Simon Liétar

Part-time master student (Fall 2021)

Class of 2022, EPFL

Major: Life Sciences Engineering

Currently a research scientist at Adaptyv Biosystems, Lausanne, prior to starting his doctoral school training in the USA.
Mentor: Jinmin LiuFavorite Pastimes: Playing the piano, reading, running
Homeland: France

Emma Vernizeau

Full-time master thesis student (Spring 2022); Master enhancement intern (Fall 2022)

Class of 2022, EPFL

Major: Molecular and Biological Chemistry

B.S. in Chemistry and Chemical engineering, 2020, EPFL, Switzerland

After joining Prof. Cao laboratory at EPFL, Emma is now working for a local start-up, Rea Diagnostics.
Mentor: Kuan-Ting (Tim) HuangFavorite Pastimes: Gardening, walking, reading
Homeland: France

Olesia Omelko

Exchange master student (Fall 2022)

M.S. in Biochemistry, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany

B.S. in Biochemistry, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany

Olesia is now a co-founder of AIRGAE, Germany.
Mentor: Kuan-Ting (Tim) Huang
Homeland: Russia

Naura Antariksa

Full-time master thesis student (Fall 2021– Spring 2022); Master enhancement intern (Fall 2022)

Class of 2022, EPFL

Major: Molecular and Biological Chemistry

B.E. in Applied Chemistry, 2020, Kyushu University, Japan

Naura won the highly-competitive Presidential PhD Scholarship from Imperial College London and she started her doctoral research studies there in Prof. Marco di Antonio’s laboratory, following a short research internship with Prof. Julius Fredens at the National University of Singapore.
Mentor: Phillippe LyFavorite Pastimes: Reading, traveling, baking
Homeland: Indonesia

Spencer Frome

Master enhancement intern (Fall 2022)

M. Sc in Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, USA

Spencer started his medical school program in New York University Medical School.
Mentor: Kuan-Ting (Tim) HuangFavorite Pastimes: Hockey, reading and guitar
Homeland: USA

Xiao Han

Master enhancement intern (Fall 2022 – Spring 2023)

M.S. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry, Shanghai University of Chinese Medicine, China

Xiao is currently pursuing her doctoral research degree in Germany.
Mentor: Phillippe LyFavorite Pastimes: Traveling, skating, and watching movies
Homeland: China

Enguerran Majerus

Full-time master thesis student (Spring 2022); Master enhancement intern (Fall 2022 – Spring 2023)

Class of 2022, EPFL

Major: Molecular and Biological Chemistry

B.S. in Chemistry and Chemical engineering, 2020, EPFL, Switzerland

Enguerran joined Prof. Beat Fierz lab as a doctoral student in EPFL, Switzerland in 2023.
Mentor: Jinmin LiuFavorite Pastimes: Football, music, traveling
Homeland: France

Gianluca Quargnali

Master enhancement intern (Fall 2022 – Spring 2023)

Class of 2022, EPFL

Major: Molecular and Biological Chemistry

B.S. in Chemistry, 2020, University of Trieste, Italy

Gianluca is currently a doctoral student in Prof. Pablo Rivera-Fuente’s laboratory, University of Zurich.
Mentor: Pierre Miranda H.Favorite Pastimes: Reading, playing the piano
Homeland: Italy

Maude Guggisberg

Master thesis student (Spring 2023 – Fall 2023)

Class of 2023, EPFL

Major: Molecular and Biological Chemistry

B.S. in Chemistry and Chemical engineering, 2021, EPFL, Switzerland

Mentor: Pierre Miranda H.Favorite Pastimes: Playing the flute, skiing and travelling
Homeland: Switzerland

Damir Berbic

Full-time master student (Jan 2023 – Jan 2024)

Class of 2024, UNIGE/EPFL (NCCR)

Major: Chemical Biology

B.Sc. in Chemistry, University of Belgrade, Serbia

Damir is currently a doctoral student in Prof. Miriam Stoeber’s laboratory, University of Geneva.
Mentor: Jinmin LiuFavorite Pastimes: Board games, pottery and fencing
Homeland: Serbia

Ananya Biswas

Full-time master thesis student (Jan 2022 – July 2023)

Class of 2023, UNIGE/EPFL (NCCR)

Major: Chemical Biology

B.S. in Chemistry, 2021, University of Shiv Nadar, India

Mentor: Jinmin LiuFavorite Pastimes: Traveling, art-house film analysis
Homeland: India

Former Team Members on

Short-term or Visiting Appointments

Carl Schlitz (BMCB, Fall 2014)

Tonieh Ingram (HHMI CHAMPS Program, Summer 2015)

Jake Usery (BMCB, Summer 2015)

Jordana Bloom (BMCB, joint with Prof. Bob Weiss’s lab, Spring 2015)

Steve Pisano (BMCB, Spring 2015)

Inna Sirota (BMCB, Spring 2015)

Henry Le (CCB, Jan 2014 – Feb 2015)

Chester Wrobel (CCB, Nov 2017 – Jul 2018)

Alexandra Van Hall-Beauvais – Graduate student (Spring 2017 – Jun 2019)

Bo Kyoung Kim – Doctoral candidate (Sept 2018 – Feb 2019)

Dr. Yong Chen – Postdoctoral Researcher (Feb 2019 – Jun 2019)

Dr. Paulina Ciepla – Postdoctoral Researcher (Mar 2020 – Jan 2021)

Balázs Novotny – Doctoral candidate (Nov 2020 – Aug 2021)

Dr. Yuchen Qiao – Postdoctoral Researcher (Jun 2021 – May 2022)

Dr. Chiranjeevi Barreddi – Postdoctoral Researcher (Jul 2021 – Sep 2021)

Tony Hu (Excellence Internship Program – EPFL / ThinkSwiss Scholarship Awardee, Summer 2022)

Máté Visegrádi (EPFL Summer 2022 Internship)

Maddalena Elia – Doctoral student (May 2021 – Feb 2023)

Chananya (Jojo) Suwathep – Visiting Researcher from VISTEC, Thailand (Aug 2022 – Feb 2023)

Mengying Deng – Visiting Professor from China Scholarship Council (Aug 2022 – Jul 2023)

Sicong Chen – Visiting PhD Student from Peking University, China (Aug 2022 – Jul 2023)

Yuqing Jia – Visiting PhD Student from Leiden University, The Netherlands (Nov 2022 – Feb 2023)

Wenfeng Liu – doctoral candidate (Nov 2022 – Feb 2024)

Shujie Li – doctoral candidate (Nov 2022-March 2023)

Najia Sherzay – Research Scholar from Scholar at Risk program (Jan 2023 – Apr 2024)

Xia Liu – Master Enhancement Intern (Fall 2023)

Minghui Zhu – Master Enhancement Intern (Spring 2024)

Alex Gao – PhD student (2022-2024) remaining in CH post lab relocation to Oxford

Song Chen – PhD student (2022-2024) remaining in EU post lab relocation to Oxford

Lianghui Li – PhD student (2022-2024) remaining in CH post lab relocation to Oxford

Page updated

Report abuse