Systems Biology Graduate Program
Our program is designed to train students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in the cutting-edge research techniques that comprise the interdisciplinary research of modern cell biology. Students are provided with rigorous cross training in areas of mathematical, physical, and computational sciences and biology. Systems Biology students take courses, attend seminars and work on interdisciplinary research projects to broaden and strengthen their abilities to do quantitative cell biology research.
The Systems Biology area of concentration is based within the Richard D. Berlin Center for Cell Analysis and Modeling (CCAM) at UConn Health.
Question: I am interested in applying to UConn's graduate program for systems biology. I have a background in pure mathematics (M.S.) and have become interested in mathematical approaches for modelling and studying biological systems. Am I suitable for your program?
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 College About: 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. |
Current Rotation, Project and other Visiting Students
Student | Advisor | Project |
---|---|---|
Nathan Schaumburger | Michael Blinov | Modeling of pigmentation patterns in Mimulus Monkeyflower |
Postdoctoral Fellows
Hasan Baig![]() |
Advisor: Pedro Mendes Education: PhD, Technical University, Denmark About: Dr. Hasan Baig is working on the development of COPASI software. |
Meagan Cauble | Advisor: Ji Yu |
Sherli Koshy-Chenthittayil![]() |
Advisor: Pedro Mendes Education: PhD, (Mathematics), Clemson University, South Carolina, USA About: Dr. Sherli Koshy-Chenthittayil is developing models of mixed-species biofilms. |
Sailasree Rajalekshmi | Advisor: Mike Guertin |
Prem Shresta | Advisor: Ji Yu |
UCONN Undergraduate Student Trainees
2022 | Shreedula Balakrishnan | Lab: Vera-Licone Project: working on tumor reversion in Leukemia using computational biology. |
2021 | Grace Curley-Holmes | Lab: Mayer/Machida
Project: working on SH2 domain mapping. |
2021 | Noah Liguori-Bills **Google Summer of Code Student** |
Lab: Blinov
Project: The Development of ModelBricks website. |
2021 | Nathan Schaumburger | Lab: Blinov Project: Model of aging phenotypes. |
2020 | Amy Flis | Lab: Wu |
2020 | Chandrika Dhavala | Lab: Blinov Project: Visualization of rule-based model. |
2020 | Jennifer Kim | Lab: Mendes
Project: Identification of chaos in nonlinear models by using global |
2019 | Maria Menoutis **HRP Intern** |
Lab: Loew
Project: Rules that govern the assembly of molecular machines. |
2019 | Alexa Monroe | Lab: Yan |
2018 | Gavin Till | Lab: Mayer
Project: developing mathematical models to explore the role of membrane receptor clustering in regulation of signaling pathways. |
Alumni
Graduate Students
Name | Degree | Year | Advisor | Current Position |
---|---|---|---|---|
Aniruddha Chattaraj | PhD | 2022 | Loew | Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University |
Bandita Adhikari | PhD | 2021 | Laubenbacher | Postdoctoral Fellow, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania |
Yuezhe Li | PhD | 2021 | Wu | Research Associate, Metrum |
Judy Bloom | PhD | 2020 | Loew | Medical and Scientific Associate, Chameleon Communications International |
Adam Lafontaine | PhD | 2020 | Mayer | Research Associate, Metrum |
Russel Posner | MD/PhD | 2019 | Laubenbacher | MD student, UConn Health |
Abhijit Deb Roy | PhD | 2018 | Wu | Postdoc, Johns Hopkins Medicine |
Clifford Locke | MD/PhD | 2018 | Wu | Hospital Medicine Specialist, Yale New Haven Health |
Ahmed Elmokadem | PhD | 2017 | Yu | Research Scientist, Metrum |
Marc Rigatti | MD/PhD | 2017 | Kafka/Moraru | Emergency Medicine Resident, UConn Health |
Olena Marchenko | PhD | 2017 | Loew/Dodge | Bioinformatics Engineer, Simons Foundation |
Sofya Borinskaya | PhD | 2015 | Loew | Assistant Professor, Saint Elizabeth University, NJ |
Ronghua Yang | MD/PhD | Loew/Liang | Internal Medicine Resident, Rutgers Medical School | |
Erika Hoyos-Ramirez | PhD | 2014 | Loew | Postdoc, Yale School of Medicine |
Akeisha Belgrave | PhD | 2013 | Wolgemuth | Assistant Professor, Harrisburg University |
Eunji Kim | PhD | 2013 | Yu | Managing Director, Alzheimer’s Consulting & Services |
Jonathon Ditlev | PhD | 2012 | Mayer/Loew | Assistant Professor, University of Toronto |
Sherry-Ann Brown | MD/PhD | 2012 | Loew | Assistant Professor, Medical College of Wisconsin |
Postdoctoral Fellows
Name | Year | Advisor | Current Position |
---|---|---|---|
Sulagna Das | 2014 | Yu | Tenure track faculty position at Emory University |
Undergraduate Students
Name | Program | Year | Advisor | Current Position |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nathan Schaumburger, UConn | PhD Biomedical Science Program, Summer Rotation | 2022 | Blinov | PhD Candidate, Biomedical Sciences, Harvard |
Daniel Fairchild, UConn | PhD Biomedical Science Program, Summer Rotation | 2021 | Acker | PhD Candidate, Biomedical Sciences, UConn Health |
Devin Kot-Thompson, UConn | Health Research Program (HRP) | 2021 | Acker | Completing B.S. in Biomedical Engineering |
Morgan Neydorff, UConn | Health Research Program (HRP) | 2020 | Acker | Graduated, B.S. in Biomedical Engineering |
Google Summer of Code Students
Name | School | Year | Advisor |
---|---|---|---|
Sahil Jha | Amity University, India | 2020 | Blinov |
Saksham Raghuvanshi | J.S.S Academy of Technical Education, India | 2020 | Blinov |
Nikita Mahoviya | National Institute of Technology Hamirpur (H.P.), India | 2021 | Blinov and Cowan |
Noah Liguori-Bills | UConn, Storrs, CT | 2021 | Blinov |