Graduates of the Program in Genetics

Dexter Adams (2018)

As a graduate student in the Joshua-Tor lab at CSHL, Dexter 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 is currently the Head of Protein Chemist and Engineering at Vandstrom in Gaithersburg, MD. 6/12/26

Disha Aggarwal (2017)

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. 6/12/26

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. 6/12/26

Emmanuel N. Asare (2009)

Emmanuel 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, where he is currently a Staff Scientist. 6/12/26

 

Kimberly Bell (2010)

Kim worked on enhancer-promoter interactions mediated by the transcription factor Runt during Drosophila development in the Gergen lab. She received her PhD in December 2015 and is a Teaching Assistant Development Specialist in Stony Brook's Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. 6/12/26

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 became a postdoctoral fellow at University of Utah and was the recipient of a prestigious National Cancer Institute F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award. 7/26/23

Rachel Caston (2010)

Rachel received her PhD in December 2017. Her dissertation was titled 'Base excision DNA repair in the mitochondria of differentiated neuronal cells,' and she was advised by Bruce Demple. She then moved on to a postdoctoral position at Indiana University, followed by a mamagerial position at FORCE Communications. 6/12/26

Frank Celeste (2014)

Frank studied the emergence of drug tolerance in cancer cell populations in the lab of Scott Powers. He graduated in December 2020 and is now a Senior Scientist at Merck. 6/12/26

 

 

Sudipto Chakrabortty (2008)

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 is the Co-Founder and Director of Research and Development at EVolv Diagnostics in Waltham, MA. 6/12/26

Chuankai Chen (2017)

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 (2014)

Derek, a member of the MSTP, studied interactors of oncogenic K-Ras via proximity labelling in pancreatic cells under the guidance of David Tuveson at CSHL. He received his PhD in December 2018 and is now completing a fellowship in nephrology at Temple University. 6/12/26

 

Charlie Chung (2018)

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 joined Stony Brook’s MSTP 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 school training in 2025. Cristian is now a resident in internal medicine at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine. 6/12/26

Ana Paula Delgado (2015)

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. 6/12/26

 

Miriam Fein (2010)

Miriam joined the Egeblad lab at CSHL 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. 6/12/26 

Moises Guardado (2014)

Moises studied the mechanism of action of an anti-cancer drug that targets mitochondrial metabolism under the direction of Paul Bingham and Zuzana Zachar. He graduated in August 2019 and is a Regional Marketing Manager at Cytiva. 6/12/26

 

Diana Guimet (2009)

Diana pursued her doctoral work in Patrick Hearing’s lab, focusing on the adenovirus L4-22K protein, a master regulator for several aspects of adenovirus infection. Diana received her doctorate in December 2014, completed  a postdoctoral fellowship at UC San Diego, and is now a Senior Principal Scientist at Inovio Pharmaceuticals. 6/12/26

 

Xiao Han (2019)

Xiao completed her dissertation work in the lab of Dr. Mikala Egeblad. Her project studied pancreatic cancer metastasis to the liver, with a focus on cancer cell dormancy. Xiao was awarded her PhD in August 2025 and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Xiao is the recipient of a prestigious National Cancer Institute F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award. 6/12/26

Chenjun He (2022)

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. 6/12/26

 

Samantha Henry (2019)

Sam carried out her dissertation research in the lab of Dr. Camila dos Santos at CSHL, where she used scRNA-seq and organoid models to investigate the impact of aging on mammary gland development and oncogenesis. Sam received her PhD in August 2024 and is now an adjunct faculty member at Roxbury Community College. 6/17/26

Kelly Hills-Muckey (2016)

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 received her PhD in May 2022. She currently serves as a Proposal Development Specialist in Stony Brook's Office of Proposal Development. 6/12/26

Reuben Hoffmann (2011)

Reuben worked in Aaron Neiman's lab studying sporulation in the budding yeast S. cerevisiae and was awarded his PhD in August 2017. Reuben is now a Postdoctoral Scholar at Oregon Health and Science University. 6/12/26

 

Chad Hogan (2016)

Chad's research at Stony Brook focused on gammaherpesviruses, which are associated with human cancers, in the lab of Laurie Krug. Chad studied the roles of the host transcription factor STAT3 in this infection and 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. 6/12/26

Shruti Iyer (2016)

Shruti 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 graduated in May 2023 and is now a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Yang Lab at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 6/12/26

 

Nuri Kim (2017)

As an MSTP student here at Stony Brook, Nuri 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 (2015)

Young Jin. a member of the MSTP, was mentored by Adrian Krainer at CSHL. His dissertation was titled 'Targeting nonsense-mediated mRNA decay for cystic fibrosis therapy,' and he received his PhD in May 2020. Young Jin is currently a Clinical Fellow in allergy/immunology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. 6/12/26

Brian Kinney (2012)

Brian's research focused on neuromesodermal development in zebrafish, and he was mentored by Benjamin Martin. He graduated in December 2018 and moved on to postdoctoral positions at CSHL and University of North Carolina.

Michael Klingener (2012)

Mike's work, performed in the lab of Adan Aguirre, studied oligodendrocyte development and central nervouse system myelination. He earned his PhD in May 2018 and then enrolled in the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, where he is now a resident in family medicine. 6/12/26

Abraham Kohrman (2013)

Abraham carried out his research in the lab of David Matus, and his dissertation was titled 'Quantitative measurement of the cell cycle: insights into differentiation and basement membrane invasion.' He was awarded his PhD in May 2020. Abe is now an Applications Specialist for Biological Microscopy at Bruker FM. 6/12/26

Erik Lavington (2009)

Erik worked in Walt Eanes' lab, where he studied the patterns of adaptation in Drosophila melanogaster core metabolic genes.  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. 6/12/26

Steven Lewis (2021)

Steven joined the MSTP at Stony Brook in 2019. Steven worked in the lab of Dr. Camila dos Santos at CSHL, where he combined 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. 6/17/26

 

Meng Lin (2012)

Lemon carried out her research, entitled 'Elucidating the genetic architecture and evolution of quantitative traits in South African populations with genomic data', under the guidance of Dr. Brenna Henn. She received her PhD in December 2017 and is currently a Senior Research Scientist in Biomedical Informatics at University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. 6/17/26

Lingjie Liu (2019)

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. 6/17/26

 

Devon Lukow (2016)

Devon carried out his dissertarion research in the Sheltzer Lab at CSHL, 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. 6/17/26

Fu Luo (2017)

Fu (Maze) 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. 6/17/26

Craig Marshall (2019)

Craig joined the MSTP in 2017 and 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 currently a resident in anesthesiology at Stony Brook. 6/17/26

Taylor Medwig-Kinney (2016)

Taylor was a graduate student in the David Matus laboratory, where she studied the transcriptional and cell cycle control of invasive differentiation. Taylor was awarded her doctoral degree in May 2022, pursued postdoctoral studies at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and will soon join the faculty of University of Wisconsin - Lacrosse as an Assistant Professor. 6/17/26 

Sitapriya Moorthi (2011)

Sitapriya 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. Sita was awarded her doctorate in August 2017. She is currently a Staff Scientist in the Data Science Lab at Fred Hutchison Cancer Center. 6/17/26

Philip Moresco (2019)

Phil 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 a resident in internal medicine at University of Pennsylvania. 6/17/26

Cara Moravec (2010)

Cara 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.  Cara is now a Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate at University of Wisconsin - Madison. 6/17/26

Kaustav Mukherjee (2009)

Kaustav worked in Janet Leatherwood’s lab, where he studied post-transcriptional gene regulation in fission yeast. He was co-mentored by Bruce Futcher.  He received his doctorate in December 2015 and pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Kaus is currently an Assistant Professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 6/17/26

 

Mansa Munshi (2012)

Mansa completed her dissertation work in the laboratory of Maurizio Del Poeta.  Her research focused on the role of ceramide synthases in the pathogenicity of Cryptococcus neoformans. Mansa is now a Senior Manager of Scientific Communications at Amgen. 6/17/26

 

Jamina Oomen-Hajagos (2010)

Jamina carried out her doctoral work in Jerry Thomsen's lab, studying the effect of the PQBP1 protein on early neural development in Xenopus. 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 and Clinical Analyst at GeneDX. 6/17/26

Jason O'Rawe (2013)

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. 6/17/26

 

Jordan Pearson (2021)

Jordan joined the MSTP at Stony Brook in 2019. In 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. 6/17/26

 

Shaobo Qin (2018)

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. She currently works at AbbVie in the areas of computational onclogy research and bioinformatics. 6/17/26

Christian Ruiz (2013)

Christian's dissertation, entitled 'Metabolic signatures associated with mutant KRAS in non-small cell lung cancer', was carried out in the laboratory of Geoffrey Girnun. Christian was awarded his PhD in August 2019 and is now an Associate Research Scientist at Yale University. 6/17/26

Ioana Rus (2011)

Ioana 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. 6/17/26

Joanne Saldanha Martis (2019)

Joanne carrid out her doctoral research under the mentorship of Hyungjin Kim. Her project focused on the role of TIMELESS in the suppression of single-stranded DNA gaps and mutagenesis. Joanne was awarded her PhD in May 2024 and is currently an entrepeneur in the Bay Area. 6/17/26

Jia Shen (2014)

Jia studied plasticity of the dentate gyrus and was advised by Shaoyu Ge and co-advised by Qiaojie Xiong. She received her PhD in May 2020 and is currently a Postdoctoral Associate at Columbia University. 6/17/26

 

Nitin Shirole (2011)

Nitin worked in Raffaella Sordella’s lab at CSHL, where his research focused on understanding the role of p53 isoforms in tumor initiation and progression.  Nitin earned his PhD in May 2017 and currently holds the title of Instructor, Medical Oncology, at Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School. 6/17/26

Zunaira Shuja (2009)

Zunaira completed her dissertation work in the Thomas White lab, where she studied  how genetic alterations to connexin proteins result in epidermal disorders.  Zunaira graduated with her PhD in August 2015. Zunaira received postdoctoral training at Columbia University and is now a Pharmaceutical Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Kenvue in Summit, NJ. 6/17/26

Jayson Smith (2015)

Jay conducted his dissertation studies under the guidance of Dave Matus. His research focused on chromatin remodeling and invasive gene regulatory networks in C. elegans. Jay completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago and is now an Assistant Professor at Syracuse University. He has established his lab there with the help of a prestigious NIH K99/R00 award. 6/17/26

Joshua Steinberg (2018)

Josh joined the MSTP in 2016 and 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, returned to medical school to complete his training, and is now a resident in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Morningside-West. 6/17/26

Gaurang Trivedi (2017)

As a technician with Lingbo Zhang at CSHL, Gaurang found a way to increase self-renewal capacity of erythroid progenitors to develop new treatments for bone marrow failure. Gaurang  continued in Dr. Zhang's lab for his dissertation research and was awarded his doctoral degree in May 2022. He is now a Senior Research Investigator at Incyte in Wilmington, DE. 6/17/26

Dillon Voss (2020)

In 2018, Dillon joined the MSTP at Stony Brook and did his doctoral training  with Adrian Krainer at CSHL, where he studied the role of alternative splicing in the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma. He earned his PhD degree in May 2024, returned to medical school to complete his training, and is currently a resident in internal medicine at University of Pennsylvania. 6/17/26

Xiaoli Wu (2015)

Sky joined the laboratory of Chris Vakoc at CSHL, where 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 Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School. 6/17/26

 

Yiyang Wu (2011)

Yiyang’s dissertation research focused on investigating the mechanisms underlying Ogden syndrome, using patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models. She was advised by Gholson Lyon. Yiyang received her degree in May 2017 and is now an Associate Data Scientist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 6/17/26

Robert Wysocki (2012)

Bobby joined Stony Brook's Medical Scientist Training Program in 2010. His dissertation work was peformed in the laboratory of Mikala Egeblad at CSHL. 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. 6/17/26

Lucia Yang (2021)

Lucia joined the MSTP at Stony Brook in 2019 and undertook her dissertation work in 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. 6/17/26

Allen Yu (2014)

Allen, a member of the MSTP, studied under the guidance of David Spector at CSHL. His research focused on characterization of long non-coding RNAs in pluripotency and hepatocellular carcinoma. Allen received his PhD in August 2019 and is now a General Surgery Resident at Mount Sinai Hospital. 6/17/26

 

Jia-Ray Yu (2009)

Jia-Ray conducted his doctoral research in Linda Van Aelst's lab at CSHL. His focus was on the regulation of Rho family small GTPases during cancer metastasis.  Jia-Ray received his PhD in May 2015 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU School of Medicine. Jia-Ray is now an Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. 6/17/26

John Yuen (2019)

John joined the MSTP in 2017. He 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. 6/17/26

 

Narges Zali (2018) 

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. 

Andrew Ziesel (2017)

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. 6/17/26