Alumni

Ian was a PhD student in the Chemical & Physical Biology program. He received his BS in physics from the University of Richmond where he conducted research in a systems biology laboratory studying signal propagation in genetic networks and cellular behavior under stress. His interests, broadly speaking, are in computational structural immunology and systems immunology. Currently, he is working as an associate scientist in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

Amyn Murji received his undergraduate degree from UNC Chapel Hill in 2013. He was first introduced to antibody-based drug discovery while working for Vascular Pharmaceuticals, Inc. under Dr. Laura Maile. His assistance resulted in the humanization of their antibody designed to treat diabetic nephropathy and its subsequent transition to human clinical trials. His interest prompted him to simultaneously pursue a Master’s degree in an immunology lab under Dr. Jeffrey Yoder at NC State University. Amyn is currently a student in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program at Vanderbilt University and hopes to pursue an academic career in drug discovery.

Wyatt McDonnell received his undergraduate degree from Hillsdale College in 2015, where he studied photodynamic therapy of S. aureus mediated by hemoglobin precursors via blue and red light in the lab of Frank Steiner. Wyatt was a graduate student in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a member of the labs of Simon Mallal (MBBS, FRACP, FRCPA) and Ivelin Georgiev, PhD. His research interests center on the interface between T and B cell receptors, at the intersection of human genetics, immune differentiation, and antibody development. When outside of lab, Wyatt enjoys playing piano and guitar, brewing beer at home, and traveling internationally. Currently, he is working as a Computational immunologist in 10X Genomics

Originally from upstate New York, Kelsey received her undergraduate degrees in Biochemistry and French from the University at Buffalo in 2016. Kelsey joined the Georgiev Lab in 2017 to complete her thesis research investigating the discovery and characterization of antibody and vaccine candidates against a number of pathogens. She received her PhD from Vanderbilt University in March 2022 and joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow shortly after, where she is now working to expand the discovery capabilities of LIBRA-seq. Outside of lab, Kelsey can be found hiking or baking.

Kevin received his B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Missouri-Columbia. His undergraduate research consisted of peptide targeted imaging techniques by phage display under the direction of Dr. Susan Deutscher. Upon graduation, Kevin worked at Confluence Discovery Technologies on the Biochemistry team where he worked on mechanistic enzymology projects with an emphasis on drug discovery. At Vanderbilt, he hopes to pursue research in the drug discovery field and eventually work in the pharmaceutical industry. In his free time, Kevin likes to follow and play sports and is an avid St. Louis Blues and Cardinals fan.

Rohit received his A.B. in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis. Following graduation, he worked as a research assistant under Dr. Antonis Rokas at Vanderbilt University before joining the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in 2015. He joined as a graduate student in the Chemical and Physical Biology Program, he is interested in computational immunology and technology development and aspires to pursue a career as a physician innovator. Outside of lab, Rohit enjoys dancing, hitting up the local Orangetheory gym, and cheering on his hometown Tennessee Titans.

Josh received an A.A. in Culinary Arts at the Art Institute and cooked all around Nashville before a major career change. Reviving his earlier interests in programming, he completed his B.S. in Computer Science at Middle Tennessee State University in 2015. During his undergraduate education and after, Josh worked in the Healthcare, Agribusiness, Finance, and Social Media sectors of private industry as a Software Developer. Josh is currently a PhD candidate in the Computer Science Department at Vanderbilt and hopes to pursue research in computational biology. In his free time, Josh enjoys cooking, food and wine, gaming, and cats.

Andrea Shiakolas was a postdoctoral fellow in the Georgiev laboratory. She completed her PhD at Vanderbilt in the Georgiev laboratory in 2022. Her research focused on developing and applying antibody discovery technologies (LIBRA-seq) against a variety of viral pathogens, including HIV, influenza, and SARS-CoV-2. She is originally from Dallas, Texas and obtained her undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt in 2015. She also worked at the Vaccine Research Center in Dr. John Mascola’s group at the NIH studying the antibody/virus co-evolution in the context of HIV. Outside of the lab, she loves playing with her puppy Doug, drinking wine, and going hiking.

Lauren received her undergraduate degree in biology from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. After graduation, she worked as a research technician at UNC-Chapel Hill for 2 years where she studied T cell biology in the context of HIV infection. She started at Vanderbilt in 2018 with the IGP and is now studying in the lab of Dr. Ivelin Georgiev where she researches vaccine development and antibody discovery for HIV-1 infection. Outside of the lab she enjoys visiting parks with her dog, rock climbing and exploring Nashville.

Alexandra is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Georgiev lab. She received her B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Georgia in 2018, where she worked in the lab of Dr. Ted Ross supporting the evaluation of next generation influenza vaccines. Alexandra received her Ph.D. in Microbe-Host Interactions from Vanderbilt University in the spring of 2024. During her graduate studies, Alexandra studied antibody-antigen interactions in the context of several viral pathogens, with a special interest in Pneumoviridae viruses, namely RSV and hMPV. Outside of lab, Alexandra enjoys running, ice skating, and the company of her two fur friends.

Steven Wall is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Georgiev lab. He received his B.S. in Biology from Belmont University in 2019. He performed his graduate research in the Georgiev lab studying and characterizing the B cell response to SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses. He completed his PhD in the Microbe-Host Interactions program at Vanderbilt University in 2024 and aspires to one day have a career in research with the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He also has an interest in the pharmaceutical industry, particularly in the development of antibodies as prophylactic or therapeutic agents. Beyond the confines of the laboratory, Steven finds joy in exploring the vibrant craft brewery and restaurant scene that Nashville offers. He balances his scientific pursuits with leisure activities such as reading, board games, cooking, and baking.

Matt graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara with a degree in Pharmacology. Following graduation, he worked as a Senior Research Associate at Aptitude Medical Systems on the discovery and characterization of nucleic acid aptamers. Matt completed his PhD at Vanderbilt University in the laboratory of Ivelin Georgeiv, where he studied HIV-1 vaccine design and cross-reactive antibody discovery/ characterization. In his free time he likes to ride his bike.

Nagarajan completed his Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India, in the area of Computational analysis of protein-nucleic acid interactions. Earlier, he worked as a project assistant in Bioinformatics centre, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, where he mainly focused on the computational analysis of protein structures and interactions. He have completed both his undergraduate and postgraduate in Bioinformatics in Bharathidasan University, India. Nagarajan joined Dr. Georgiev‘s laboratory as a post-doctoral research fellow in April 2016 and focused on computational immunology research. Currently, he is working as a staff scientist and mainly focusing on antibody repertorie analysis of infected/vaccinated donors, particularly Covid-19 and Neutralization fingerprinting application development for dengue.

Allie completed her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology. During her graduate studies, she used mass cytometry to study the systems immune response of melanoma patients undergoing immunotherapy and targeted therapy. Allie’s interest in the immune system and antibodies is long-standing. Prior to graduate school, she worked at Janssen studying bacterial mechanisms of immune evasion whereby secreted enzymes cleaved the IgG hinge region, resulting in a loss of function. Outside the lab, Allie enjoys camping, CrossFit, and photography. Currently, she is working as a Postdoctoral Fellow in University of Pennsylvania

Sanjay completed his Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University in the Chemical and Physical Biology. In the graduate school, he studied small heat shock proteins (sHSPs) for their role in the stress response and aging. Using protein engineering and CRISPR knockout strategies, he showed that sHSPs have conserved roles among vertebrates, and sHSPs have evolved possibly under the organellar and organismic proteostatic demands. When not in lab, Sanjay moonlights as a Data Scientist and a popular science writer.

Surya obtained her Ph.D. from Osmania University, India, in the area of biochemistry of ferritins. She previously worked as a Postdoc/Staff Scientist/Lab Manager in the laboratory of Dr. Sundarmoorthy at the University of Kansas and later at Vanderbilt University, where she focused her efforts on cloning, expression, purification and crystallization of pathogenic bacterial enzymes.  Surya later joined Ingrid Verhamme's laboratory at the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt University, where she performed research on the biochemistry of hemostatic serpins. There, she was the first to optimize the production of human heparin cofactor II (HCII) in E. coli, in addition to designing and carrying out production of other human proteins using bacterial, yeast, and mammalian expression systems.

Surya joined Dr. Georgiev‘s laboratory as a Lab Manager in September 2015, and she is responsible for student training, wet lab management, and the expression and purification of various antigens and antibodies.

Emilee is from Augusta, Georgia, and earned her Master's degree in May 2018 from Georgia College. During her undergraduate studies at Augusta University, she conducted research on the proliferation of pancreatic cancer cell lines, and her graduate thesis research focused on the re-localization of cellular proteins during adenovirus infection. Emilee has received awards for her work from both the American Physiological Society as well as the Georgia College Department of Biological Sciences. She has a particular interest in virology and immunology; her publications can be found in the Georgia Journal of Science and Molecular Carcinogenesis. Outside of the lab, Emilee enjoys traveling, geocaching, and hiking with her wife.

Pilar received her Biology Bachelor and Biochemistry Master from Universidad Nacional de Colombia and then a Ph.D in Medical Science from Karolinska Institutet. She is now an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Medical Parasitology, University of Copenhagen, and a visiting faculty at Dr. Georgiev’s lab where she will continue her work studying the immune response against malaria antigens as a tool to guide the design of new preventive and therapeutic measures to control this disease. Outside the lab she enjoys running, knitting and baking.

Yukthi completed her Master’s in computer science from University of Illinois at Chicago and graduated in the year 2020. During her grad days, she worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at UI Health Scientific Computing Core helping software development and computational analysis for Bioinformatics department. She also has 3 years of software development experience with corporate industry. She conducted research in field of numerical computation at Lopez Lab at Vanderbilt University involving cancer. She is now involved in computational research at the Vaccine center. Outside of lab, Yukthi likes to go hiking, paint and watch movies. 

Emma was a Research Assistant in the Georgiev lab. In December 2022, she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Emma plans to pursue a Ph.D. for biomedical sciences. Outside of her time in the lab, she enjoys baking, reading, and exploring Nashville with friends.

Juliana is an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology. She fostered an interest in immunology under Dr. Liang Qiao at Loyola University Chicago, studying pseudovirus-based vaccine development. In her free time, Juliana enjoys playing tennis and piano, watching soccer, and eating spicy food.

Juhi is an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University majoring in Computer Science and Medicine, Health and Society. She is interested in developing products that utilize innovative technology to address equity gaps in the healthcare industry. Juhi hopes to pursue a job in the healthcare tech R&D sector after graduating, and she enjoys playing golf and cooking in her free time.

Ivan is an undergraduate student majoring in computer science and economics. He serves on the VSG Public Safety and Transportation Committee. He is part of the research and development committee for the VU Blockchain club and he is interested in blockchain applications in healthcare. After college, he hopes to work in the tech industry with a socio-economic or health impact on society. He enjoys mountain biking, chess, and reality TV shows.

Ariel is an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt double majoring in Biochemistry and Neuroscience. After college Ariel plans to pursue biomedical research in juxtaposition with clinical research. Outside of lab, Ariel likes to bake, travel, and listen to music. 

Charlotte is an undergraduate student majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Engineering Management. She’s currently on the cheerleading team at Vanderbilt. After college, Charlotte plans to pursue a job in Computer Science possibly related to biological computing or app development. Outside of the lab, she likes to listen to music, watch Netflix, and try new restaurants.

Mason is an undergraduate student majoring in Computer Science and Economics with a minor in Spanish. He is interested in leveraging computation to better determine solutions to biological and economic questions. After college he hopes to combine these interests to aid development in other parts of the world. In his free time Mason likes to listen to music and play rugby and chess.

Varun is an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University majoring in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, with a minor in Business. He's interested in doing research that harnesses machine learning/artificial intelligence to help advance disease treatment/prevention. Varun hopes to pursue a job in the healthcare tech field after graduating, and in his free time, he loves to travel, hike, and go to concerts.

Katie is an undergraduate student double majoring in Medicine, Health and Society and Human and Organizational Development. After college, Katie plans on going to medical school. Outside of the lab, she likes to hike, read, and play with dogs.

Austin is a Computer Science and Audio Engineering Technology double major at Belmont University.  While passionate about recording music, Austin loves designing neural networks, data analysis, and information visualization. Post-graduation, Austin hopes to pursue further education in computer science and mathematics. In his downtime, you will catch him rock climbing, mountain biking, and running.