{"id":118,"date":"2026-01-28T16:12:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/genome.ucsd.edu\/?page_id=118"},"modified":"2026-01-29T10:43:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T18:43:53","slug":"lab-members","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/genome.ucsd.edu\/index.php\/about\/people\/lab-members\/","title":{"rendered":"Current"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Scientists<\/h3>\n

Dawn Cotter<\/span> is an information management systems programmer and developer of website, documentation and educational modules for Lipid Maps and Metabolomics Projects.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Eoin Fahy<\/span><\/a>, PhD <\/span><\/a><\/span> is a project coordinator for the Metabolomics Workbench\/National Metabolomics Data Repository and is an advisor for the LIPID MAPS project. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Shakti Gupta, PhD<\/span><\/a>  is a bioinformatics programmer analyst working in systems biology research.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mano Maurya, PhD<\/span><\/a><\/span>  <\/span> is a bioinformatics programmer working on the development and applications of bioinformatics tools and resources.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Manish Sud<\/span>  <\/span>is a lead research analyst for Lipid Maps and Metabolomics Projects.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ken<\/span><\/a>an Azam<\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/span>is a scientific programmer with experience in bioinformatics, web technologies and system administration.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Andrew Caldwell, PhD <\/span><\/a>is interested in the integration of multiple types of \u2018omics\u2019-level datasets. Currently, he is using a systems-approach to analyze publicly available Alzheimer\u2019s omics data. The approach here is to determine differentially expressed genes across multiple Alzheimer\u2019s disease transcriptomic studies and further determine the regulation and development of Alzheimer\u2019s disease through the integration of SNP, Methylation, and Exome sequencing studies.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Post Doctoral Researchers<\/h3>\n

Nassim Ajami, PhD<\/span> <\/span><\/a> is a postdoctoral scholar in the Bioengineering department. His current research focuses on studying the responses of endothelial cells under shear stress using multi-omics data.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Maryam Masnadi-Shirazi, PhD<\/span> <\/span><\/a> is a postdoctoral scholar in the department of Bioengineering. She completed her PhD degree in the ECE Dept. at UCSD in 2018. Her research interests include, Statistical Learning, Parameter Estimation, Data mining and their applications to Bioinformatics and Systems Biology. She is currently working on building predictive models from biological data that can decipher the dynamics of biological systems.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Kavitha Mukund, PhD<\/span><\/a> is a Bioinformatics and Systems biology researcher, currently focusing on utilizing systems approaches to understanding skeletal muscle pathophysiology. Kavitha\u2019s past work include gaining mechanistic insights into the effects of Botox treatment on muscle; high-throughput sequencing analysis of fibrosis mechansims in muscle; network theoretic approaches to understanding a chronic muscle disorder- Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Her most recent work, focused on gaining a holistic view of functional and mechanistic similarities across 20 muscle diseases utilizing network theory and was published in Frontiers in physiology. Kavitha, is currently working on utilizing high throughput genomics to understand scoliosis. Kavitha earned her BE in 2006 from Visvesvaraya Technological University, India and her MS in 2009 from Arizona State University and her PhD from University of California, San Diego in 2016.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Tejaswini Narayanan, PhD<\/span><\/span> studies Hierarchical Modularity in Evolution and Function<\/em>. Her research involves building robust analytical and algorithmic infrastructure for domain inference to complement existing (experimental) domain data, and developing techniques for inferring modularity and functional coherence in domain interaction data. In addition, deciphering biological modules, studying how they combine in a quantitative manner to yield function, and describing their hierarchy in producing larger phenotypes are the different components that she works on. Her prior research in the lab involved contributions to the field of Community Detection Algorithms in Biological Networks. Tejaswini worked as a Data Scientist in the field of Cyber Security for over 3 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Priya Nayak, PhD<\/span><\/span> is researching molecular mechanisms of the myogenesis of induced pluripotent stem cells, and downstream applications such as cell transplantation for muscle injury and disease.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Natalia Syulyukina, PhD <\/span><\/span>completed her doctorate in Engineering Physics at UCSD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. Her postdoctoral research has been focused on use of deep learning neural networks and feature reduction methods to study colorectal cancer. In particular, identify stage specific biomarkers that will help to monitor the progression of cancer and finding the right treatment for individual patient at every stage as opposed to generic treatment. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Graduate Student Researchers<\/span><\/h3>\n

Balaji Anantharaman is a grad student researcher at UC, San Diego.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Shamim Mollah<\/span><\/a><\/span> is a fifth year Bioinformatics and Systems Biology PhD student. Her research is focused on applying network analysis based models on multi-omics data using dynamic modeling, graph-theory algorithms and machine-learning techniques to characterize drug responses in cancer cells. She is interested in the poly-pharmacology effects of various drugs on cancer cells to understand the kinetic signatures of key proteins and their involvements in cell signaling pathways.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ashay Patel<\/span><\/span> is a PhD student seeking to understand neurodegenerative mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease using transcriptomic datasets. Currently he is utilizing microarray data from human patient derived neurons to assess transcriptomic abnormalities that contribute to Alzheimer’s pathophysiology.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sara Rahiminejad<\/span><\/span> is a third year PhD Mechanical Engineering student. Her research focus is finding modules in complex dynamic networks.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mohammad Samavat<\/span><\/span> is a third year PhD Electrical & Computer Engineering student.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Undergraduate Student Researchers<\/h3>\n

Mitchell Kong is a Junior majoring in Bioengineering: Biosystems.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Diego Quintero is a second year transfer Senior majoring in Bioengineering: Bioinformatics.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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