Graduate Students
Milda Stanislauskas |
Advisor: Yi Wu Education: BA/MA Hunter College About: Before joining the graduate program at UConn Health, Milda worked at a skin disease research center studying Merkel cells, which are mechanoreceptive cells responsible for sensing light touch. Her research interests include how cells sense physical cues from the external environment and convert them into chemical signals, and how these signals affect various cellular processes, and disease pathogenesis. |
| Thank you to Milda for sharing her humor and drawing skills by adding such great cartoon art around CCAM. | |
Siyu Sun |
Advisor: Michael J Guertin Education: BS-SUNY Stony Brook; MS-New York University About: Siyu Sun is a 2nd year PhD student at UConn Health. Before joining UConn Health, Siyu worked on a project focused on topoisomerases I/II’s role in regulating chromosome structure and transcription repression dosage compensation. Her current research focuses on ER-mediated transcriptional regulation through advanced sequencing techniques and bioinformatic analysis. |
Rudradeep Mukherjee |
Advisor: Michael J Guertin Education: BE Computer Science (BIT Mesra, Ranchi); MSc Neuroscience (NBRC, Gurgaon) About: Rudradeep Mukherjee worked for some years as a software engineer. During M.Sc. he studied resting state networks of individuals with autism by using a maximum entropy model on fMRI data. He is currently interested in understanding transcriptional roles of Twist family of factors. In his free time, he reads about the history of science, follows Japanese manga and jogs during the beautiful summer evenings. |
Jinhong Dong |
Advisor: Michael J Guertin Education: BA Carleton CollegeAbout: After doing metagenomics research sparked an interest in bioinformatics, Jinhong is now focused on analyzing DNA- and RNA-sequencing data to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms of transcription regulation and initiation. |
Edwin Moses Appiah |
Advisor: Eran Agmon Education: BSc. Agricultural Biotechnology, Mphil. Biodata Analytics and Computational Genomics (KNUST, Ghana)About: Edwin is a first year Biomedical Science PhD student. Before joining the UConn health, Edwin worked on how the gastric microbiome influences gastric carcinogenesis focusing on bacterial diversity, co-occurrence patterns and predictive models. Currently, Edwin works on microbiome at the Agmon lab at CCAM with special focus on building multi-scale computational models for the gut microbiome. |
| Neyamat Khan Tanvir
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Advisor: Eran Agmon Education: BSc. and MSc. in Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering at Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. About: Before joining the graduate program (Ph.D. in Biomedical Science) at UConn Health, Neyamat Khan worked on the whole-genome sequencing and comparative analysis of Citrobacter werkmanii strain NIB003, uncovering unique tRNA-binding domains and N⁶-adenine DNA methylases with implications for virulence and pathogenesis. He now models community dynamic flux-balance analysis (cdFBA) in the Vivarium Python framework to investigate metabolic cross-feeding and diauxic shifts in microbial communities. Outside the lab, he enjoys hiking, follows international soccer(EPL,Laliga), delights in thoughtful discussions on life’s philosophical dimensions. |
| Rashmi Kaldera Dissasekara
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Advisor: Eran Agmon
Education: BSc. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (University of Colombo, Sri Lanka)
About: Before joining the PhD program at UConn Health, I worked on determining the structural dynamics of GPCRs using both experimental and computational approaches. Now I am interested in building muti-scale models that incorporate cellular to population level dynamics which can be used for useful scientific predictions. Outside of the lab, I enjoy taking a walk during warm weather or reading a good book at home with a warm cup of tea.
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Maya Abdalla
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Advisor: Eran Agmon
Education: BSc. Biology, Minors in Data Analytics and Public Health at Emmanuel College, Boston MA
About: Maya is a first year Biomedical Science PhD student. Before joining UConn, Maya worked as a research assistant in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she managed and analyzed CT scans and imaging data for participants in the Framingham Heart Study. She previously participated in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Summer Program in Biostatistics and Computational Biology, where she developed a SNP scoring algorithm based on the 1000 Genomes Project under the mentorship of Dr. Rafael Irizarry—an experience that sparked her passion for data science and computational biology. Currently she has joined the Agmon Lab, where she focuses on multiscale modeling and programming using the Vivarium framework. Outside of the lab, Maya enjoins cooking, traveling, and watching basketball.
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Karen Osei-Boamah
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Advisor: Dr. Pedro Mendes
Education: BS in Biology & Biochemistry - Xavier University of Louisiana
About: Before UConn Health, Karen worked on characterizing DNA mismatch repair variants in S. cerevisiae. She is now focused on making models on intracellular iron regulation and metabolism. In her free time, Karen enjoys trying out different cuisines and local eateries across the Northeast.
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Postdoctoral Fellows
| Arnab Mutsuddy
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Advisor: Eran Agmon Education: PhD in Chemical Engineering, Clemson University, South Carolina, United States; BS in Chemical Engineering, BUET, Dhaka, BangladeshAbout: In my PhD, my work was primarily focused on the application of single cell pharmacodynamic modeling as a tool to predict drug response for cancer cell lines. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Agmon Lab, I am currently working towards the implementation of simulation-based inference methodology for the discovery of unknown gene functions in E. coli. |
| Tasnif Rahman
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Advisor: Eran Agmon Education: B.S. in Medical Microbiology and Bacteriology at the University of South Florida (2018); PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute under Dr. Leo Wan (2024)About: Tasnif is a postdoc working on developing multi-scale computational models of bacterial communities and their interactions with host tissues. His PhD training at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was in tissue engineering and computational biomechanics, and his thesis work involved creating multicellular mechanical models to study symmetry breaking in tissue and organ morphogenesis. He looks forward to developing his computational skills is excited about revisiting his expertise in bacteriology developed during his undergraduate studies in Microbiology. Outside of the lab, Tasnif enjoys video games, basketball and dance music! |
