LAB ALUMNI

Margaret Eliot | Research Technician II

Margaret graduated in 2017 from Virginia Tech with a B.S. in Biochemistry and a minor in Chemistry. She joined the lab in June of 2018. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, live music, and running outdoors.

Stephanie Lundgren | Research Technician II

Stephanie graduated from Virginia Tech in 2017 with a B.S. in Biological Systems Engineering and a minor in Biomedical Engineering. She joined the lab in October of 2017. She went on to start her own vegan food company, Kind Roots.

Tae-In Lee| Graduate Student

Tae-In joined the lab in September 2019. He is currently attending Boston University School of Graduate Medical Sciences for his master's degree.

Cameron Moore | Graduate Student

Cameron joined the lab in September of 2019. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in Neuroscience and attended Boston University School of Graduate Medical Sciences for his master’s degree. He plans on attending medical school to become a forensic psychiatrist.

Riddhi Shah | Graduate Student

Riddhi joined the lab in September 2019. She graduated in 2017 with a B.S. in Molecular Biology. Riddhi attended Boston University School of Graduate Medical Sciences for her master's degree.

Joshua Merai | Graduate Student

Joshua joined the lab in September 2019. He graduated from the Boston University School of Graduate Medical Sciences with his master's degree in spring of 2020.

Christa Osuna | Instructor

Christa began her fellowship with the Whitney Laboratory in May of 2014 and became an Instructor of Medicine in April of 2019. She is currently a Senior Scientist at Cellular Immunology.

Sein Ahn | Summer Intern

Sein joined the lab as a summer intern in 2019. She is a student at Ewha Women's University in Seoul, South Korea.

Sumin Kim | Summer Intern

Sumin joined the lab for the summer of 2019. She is a graduate student studying pharmacology at Ewha Women's University in Seoul, South Korea.

Jun Ma | Research Technician III

Jun received her bachelors degree in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and her Masters in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University. She joined the Whitney Laboratory in June 2017. She then went on to a Research Associate position at QLB Biotherapeutics in October of 2018.

Oscar Alcoreza | Graduate Student

Oscar joined the Whitney lab in 2014, where he conducted his master’s thesis research for his Master’s in Medical Science program at Boston University. The skills and scientific curiosity that he cultivated in the Whitney lab led him to pursue a MD/PhD at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. At VTCSOM he joined the Sontheimer lab and was awarded the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Medical Research Fellowship to conduct research focusing on characterizing the role of glial cells in the pathology of acquired epilepsy. His current research project seeks to investigate the potential of targeting non-neuronal processes for the treatment of acquired epilepsy. Specifically, he is investigating the effects of using sulfasalazine, an FDA approved drug for Crohn’s disease, to inhibit the astrocytic glutamate antiporter, system xc, in mouse models of acquired epilepsy.

Jessica Kublin | Postdoctoral Fellow

Jessica received her BS degree in Biology from the University of Maryland in 2011 and completed her PhD at Boston College in 2016. She then joined the Whitney Group was at the Whitney lab as a post-doctoral fellow until 2018. She is currently a Scientist at Skyhawk Therapeutics working on autoimmune disease drug development.

Frances Chiang | Graduate Student

Frances joined the lab in 2014 while completing her master's degree at Boston University School of Medicine. After her time in the lab, she attended medical school at AT Still University and is currently a pediatric resident at Oregon Health & Science University.

Jessica Nguyen| Graduate Student

Jessica is a Bay Area native. She completed her B.S in Biological Sciences at UC Santa Barbara and M.S in Medical Sciences at Boston University. She then went to the lively city of New Orleans to complete her medical degree at Tulane University School of Medicine. Jessica has returned to her native California to complete an emergency medicine residency at UCSF Fresno. In her free time, she loves to cook, bake, and hike the outdoors.

Pratik Vikhe | Postdoctoral Fellow

Pratik is interested in understanding the immune pathology response against infections in order to develop an effective/ novel treatment against these diseases. His background is in cellular microbiology focusing on host-microbe interaction and he has developed a cellular and molecular immune-phenotyping pipeline for upper respiratory tract inflammation and infection models.

Daniela Silva-Ayala | Postdoctoral Fellow

Daniela is interested in developing new therapeutic approaches to fighting viral infectious diseases that affect human health worldwide, such as Lentivirus and Flavivirus infections. As a virologist, she is eager to investigate the molecular mechanisms employed by different viruses to infect, spread, and uphold latency in their host; a detail understanding on these viral strategies will lead to a deep comprehension of the pathogenesis of such viral infections. One of her research goals is to combine basic knowledge on viral infection dynamics with state-of-the-art genetic engineering tools, to develop novel and better-designed therapies able to disrupt these systemic viral hijackings.