Team

I was born and raised in Mexico City where I graduated from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México with a major in Biology. I received a Master's in Science degree from Vanderbilt University where I studied the immune response to Trypanosoma cruzi. I moved to New York University to study regulatory T cells in the laboratory of Dr. Juan J. Lafaille, and obtained a Ph.D. degree from this institution. I joined the laboratory of Dr. Luc Van Kaer in Vanderbilt University Medical Center to investigate the role of the thymus leukemia in mucosal immune responses. In 2017 I opened my laboratory where we study the biology of intraepithelial lymphocytes and their role during inflammatory processes.

I was born in Vermont, but my family moved to the Nashville area when I was four. I received my B.S. degree from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. After college, I stayed in Birmingham and pursued graduate studies in the laboratory of Dr. Prescott Atkinson at UAB. Upon obtaining my Ph.D. degree in 2003 studying the role of Mycoplasma infections in childhood asthma, I moved back to Nashville and joined the laboratory of Wasif Khan at Vanderbilt, where I investigated B cell signaling and development. I then did another short postdoctoral appointment in the lab of Dr. Eric Sebzda, investigating the role of the transcription factor KLF2 in B cell development and function. In 2011, I joined the lab of Dr. Andrew Link, to work in a large clinical trail aimed at defining the transcriptional proteomics profiles of different human cell types after influenza vaccination. In 2017, I joined the Olivares-Villagomez lab, where I am currently investigating the role of granzymes in intestinal inflammation.

I was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. I received my B.S. from the University of Arkansas, where I double majored in Chemistry and Biology. I joined the Vanderbilt IGP in 2019, and subsequently joined the Molecular Pathology & Immunology graduate program in 2020. In the Olivares-Villagomez lab, I am investigating the role of the breastmilk protein osteopontin in the development of the infant gut microbiota. 

I am from Tampa, Florida. I am a sophomore at Vanderbilt, majoring in Biology and Medicine, Health and Society. I have been in the Olivares-Villagómez lab since summer 2021.

I was born and grew up in Egypt. I earned a Bachelor's degree in Poultry Production and a Master's degree in Poultry Breeding from Ain Shams University in Cairo. Then, I moved to the University of California Davis where I earned a Ph.D. in Animal Biology, primarily focused on chicken immune responses against viral diseases. In 2017, I started my first postdoctoral training in Dr. Olivares-Villagómez laboratory at Vanderbilt University Medical Ccenter. My current research investigates the roles of iCD8alpha cells and osteopontin in the survival of intraepithelial lymphocytes during homeostasis and inflammation in mice and humans.

I was born and raised in Wyoming, Michigan. I double majored in Computer Science and Mathematics at Vanderbilt University before receiving a Master’s of Science degree in Biomedical Informatics from Vanderbilt. Currently, I am a Ph. D. student in the Bioinformatics Department at Vanderbilt University. I joined the laboratory of Dr. Danyvid Olivares-Villagómez Lab in 2017 to do the bench part of my thesis. In Dr. Olivares-Villagómez lab I investigate the relationship between osteopontin, intraepithelial lymphocyte survival, and the gut microbiome.