Skip to Main Content

Postdoctoral Scholars

Krisha Aghi

Ph.D., Neuroscience (2022) - University of California, Berkeley

Research Interest:

Spatiotemporal dynamics of gonadal steroid-sensitive neural circuits that regulate thermogenesis and energy expenditure

Gulistan Agirman

Ph.D., Neuroscience (2020), University of Geneva and University of Liege

Research Interest:

Gut-brain interaction in neurodevelopmental disorder.

Kofi Amoah

Ph.D., Bioinformatics (2023) - University of California, Los Angeles

Research Interest:

RNA biology, Genetic variants

Jae Bahn (Assistant Project Scientist)

Ph.D., Comparative Experimental Medicine (2010) - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Research Interest:

RNA editing, splicing, and modifications

Montgomery Blencowe (Assistant Project Scientist)

Ph.D., Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology (MCIP) - University of California, Los Angeles

Research Interest:

Systems Biology and Integrative Genomics

Alexandra Cara

Ph.D., Molecular & Integrative Physiology (2021), University of Michigan

Research Interest:

The temporal and spatial dynamics of estrogen signaling in the hypothalamus.

Laura Cortes

Ph.D., Neuroscience (2022) - Georgia State University.

Research Interest:

The neural underpinnings of thermoregulatory changes accompanying pregnancy

Ricardo Aparicio Crespo

Ph.D., Molecular Biology (2012) - Universidad Autonoma de Madrid

Research Interest:

Understanding the role of autophagy/mitophagy in neurodegenerative diseases and aging

Pablo Currea

Ph.D., Developmental Science (2021) - Florida International University

Research Interest:

Visual motion perception in flies and their underlying neural circuits

Graciel Diamante

Ph.D., Environmental Toxicology (2017) - University of California, Riverside

Research Interest:

The complex interplay of metabolic disease and environmental factors.

Milan Fiala (Project Scientist)

M.D.

Research Interest:

Therapies for patients with infectious and autoimmune diseases

Giovanni Frighetto

Ph.D., Psychological Sciences (Neuroscience) (2020), University of Padova (Italy)

Research Interest:

Visual feature detection and visuomotor integration

Ting Fu

Ph.D., Molecular, Cellular & Integrative Physiology (2022) - University of California, Los Angeles

Research Interest:

Function of genetic variants and RNA editing in cancer

Daniel (Sung Min) Ha

Ph.D., Bioinformatics & Bacterial Genomics (2019), Seoul National University

Research Interest:

Host-microbiome interaction using multi-omics systems biology approach.

Michelle Henricks (Project Scientist)

Ph.D., Integrative Biology & Physiology (2002) - University of California, Los Angeles

Research Interest:

I am interested in the inflammatory mechanisms that drive muscle development, growth and repair and contribute to muscle damage, disease and aging.

Mayuri Khandelwal

Ph.D., (2020) - Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi)

Research Interest:

Impact of Traumatic Brain Injury in brain and peripheral tissues

Leonila Lagunes

Ph.D., Biological Sciences (2020), University of California Irvine

Research Interest:

Computational approaches to understand cell signaling

Zhiheng Liu

Ph.D., Bioinformatics (2020), Peking University

Research Interest:

Bioinformatics, RNA biology, Sequencing technology

Ravinder Malik (Assistant Project Scientist)

Ph.D. Biotechnology (2013), National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali (S. A. S. Nagar), Punjab, India.

Research Interest:

Drug discovery, small molecule enhancers of sarcospan to ameliorate Duchenne muscular dystrophy, limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, biomarker research in muscular dystrophy, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Ekaterina Mokhonova (Associate Project Scientist)

Ph.D., Molecular Biology (2001), D.I.Ivanovsky Institute of Virology (Moscow, Russia)

Research Interest:

Drug discovery, Biomarker research, Skeletal muscle biology

Thuy Linh Nguyen

Ph.D., Life Science (2020) - Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Research Interest:

Double-stranded RNA editing and sensing

Sam Norris

Ph.D., Bioengineering (2019) - UCLA

Research Interest:

Cultured Meat, Tissue Engineering, and Polymer Chemistry

Takahiro Ohara

Ph.D., Immunology (2023) - Washington University in St. Louis

Research Interest:

Mechanisms of gut-brain communication

Ezgi Özcan

Ph.D., Food Science (2019), University of Massachusetts Amherst

Research Interest:

Interaction of food components with microbes in the gut and this interaction's effect on the brain function and neurodegenerative disease.

Cheng Qian

Ph.D., Biology (2021) - Tsinghua University (China)

Research Interest:

Microbiota-gut-brain axis

Joe Reynolds

Ph.D., Biology of Aging (2020), University of Southern California

Research Interest:

Skeletal Muscle Biology

Vartika Sharma

Ph.D., Molecular and Human Genetics (2021) - Banaras Hindu University, India

Research Interest:

Understanding the mechanistic relationships between intestinal barrier dysfunction, aging, and age-onset neuroinflammation

Jennifer Soto (Assistant Project Scientist)

Ph.D., Bioengineering (2016) - UC Berkeley-UCSF

Research Interest:

Cancer biology, mechanobiology, epigenetics

Pavan Thapak

Ph.D., Pharmacology and Toxicology (2019), National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), S.A.S. Nagar, India

Research Interest:

To understand the cellular and molecular dynamics underlying neurodegenerative disorders associated with drug discovery.

Giovanni Quinones Valdez

Ph.D., Bioengineering (2021) - University of California, Los Angeles

Research Interest:

Development of computational methods, genetic variants, RNA processing

Ivy Xiong

Ph.D., Systems Biology (2021) - University of Oxford

Research Interest:

Oscillatory dynamics in renal physiology

Guanglin Zhang

Ph.D., DNA damage response (2012) - Zhejiang University (China)

Research Interest:

Traumatic brain injury, Nutrigenomics, Multiomics