Team

Principal Investigator

José OrdovásMontañés, PhD

Jose grew up in a Spanish household within the Boston area, circling the perimeter with high school in Framingham, MA, college at Tufts University, and graduate studies in the Harvard Immunology program. During his undergraduate, Jose worked in human immunology labs at Biogen Idec, University College London, and Children’s Hospital Boston, where he focused on monogenic immune deficiencies. For his PhD work, Jose trained with Uli von Andrian, studying how the nervous system and the immune system function together as the principal sensory interfaces between the internal and external environments.

Due to his problem of reading a lot, having ignored epithelial cells, and wanting to return to the human system, he decided to take the plunge into the field of single cell genomics to be able to work on all cell types, all the time. As a Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Laboratory of Alex K. Shalek at MIT, the Broad, and the Ragon Institute, he began charting maps of human gut and airway, and discovered how human stem cells can be shaped by, and remember, inflammation. He was supported by a great team of undergraduate students, graduate students, and technicians.​

Postdoctoral Fellow

Samuel Kazer, PhD

Sam is a joint postdoctoral fellow in the Ordovas-Montanes and von Andrian (HMS) labs interested in studying immune memory to viral infections at barrier tissues. Focusing on the upper respiratory tract, Sam’s research aims to characterize and functionally test epigenetic and metabolic mechanisms of trained immunity capable of protecting against viral infection.

After attending grades K-12 across four different states, Sam completed his B.A. at Columbia University, and graduate studies in the Department of Chemistry at MIT. Majoring in Chemical Physics at Columbia, his research applied non-linear spectroscopy to study enzyme-DNA and small-molecule-DNA interactions. At MIT and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT & Harvard, he trained with Alex Shalek, adapting low-input bulk and single-cell RNA-sequencing technologies for acute HIV infection samples to study longitudinal immune dynamics during the earliest stages of HIV disease. He plans to build on his interests in dynamic immune responses and the roles innate immune cells therein during his Postdoctoral Fellowship. Outside lab, Sam brews beer for friends and family, plays and hosts weekly bar trivia, and sits on the board of a science & technology summer camp.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Lillian Juttukonda, MD PhD

Lillian is a physician-scientist performing her fellowship research in the lab studying rhinovirus infection in infants and toddlers. She completed her MD/PhD training at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. For her PhD, she studied nutritional immunity of manganese in mouse models of acute bacterial infection in Eric Skaar’s laboratory. She then moved to Boston for pediatrics residency at Boston Children’s Hospital and is now a second year neonatology fellow in the Harvard fellowship program. She loves to hike, watch baseball, read books, and play piano.
 

CDN Lead Computational Biologist

Marc Elosua-Bayes, PhD

Marc works in the Cell Discovery Network, where he aims to use the power of single-cell and spatially resolved technologies to provide precision medicine treatments. Using high-resolution technologies to interrogate biology, he wants to better understand disease-driving mechanisms, where a patient sits within the disease landscape, and how to effectively treat it. When not in the lab, he loves to be outdoors – trail running is his happy place – playing board games and watching wildlife documentaries.

Before moving to Boston, he majored in Biology and did an MSc in Bioinformatics for the Health Sciences at the UPF in Barcelona. During that time he was also working as a research assistant in the Ramos lab to understand the association between arterial stiffness and cardiovascular diseases. He then carried out his Ph.D. co-supervised by Dr. Ivo Gut and Dr. Holger Heyn at the CNAG, Barcelona. His Ph.D. work centered around developing computational tools to integrate single-cell and spatial transcriptomics technologies to better understand the tumor microenvironment.

PhD Candidate

Peter Lotfy

Peter comes to the lab from Southern California, where he grew up and attended UC San Diego (UCSD) for his BS (Physiology & Neuroscience) and MS (Biology) degrees. At UCSD, Peter worked with Larry Goldstein, modeling neurodegenerative diseases in human stem cell-derived neurons and glia and developing methods for performing genome-wide CRISPR screens in these cell types. He then joined the lab of Patrick Hsu at the Salk Institute, where, as a research technician, he contributed to the metagenomic discovery, characterization, and application of novel RNA-targeting CRISPR systems.

As a graduate student, Peter is interested in expanding on and integrating his background in genome editing, technology development, neurobiology, and stem cell biology to study mechanisms and potential therapeutic opportunities in inflammatory diseases. Outside of lab, Peter loves watching basketball, reading, and listening to podcasts.

PhD Candidate

Andrew Kwong

Andrew is a graduate student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program who is interested in defining how intercellular circuits are formed to maintain health and sustain inflammatory disease. Growing up in Toronto, Canada, he attended McMaster University where he majored in Biochemistry. Here, he worked with Patricia Liaw and investigated the mechanisms of neutrophil extracellular trap release and their involvement in the pathophysiology of sepsis. He spent a summer under Charlie Rice at The Rockefeller University where he explored the antiviral properties of stem cells.

Now, he is broadly interested in systems immunology. Outside of the lab, Andrew loves trying new recipes, reading and running.​

PhD Candidate

Joshua de Sousa Casal

Josh is a grad student in the lab within the department of Immunology at Harvard Medical School. Prior to coming to the United States for school, Josh grew up just outside of the city of Toronto, Canada, in the small town of Stouffville, Ontario. For his undergraduate studies, he attended the University of Toronto where he did a specialist degree in immunology. During this time, he worked in the lab of Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker, and investigated the stromal signals involved in early T cell commitment and aided in the development of a new technology for the generation of T cells from various stem cell sources.

As a PhD student, Josh aims to continue his work to understand the role of stromal-immune cell cross talk, but in the context of barrier protection and chronic disease. He is extremely interested in understanding the role of the immune system in stromal development and how these interactions and environments change throughout life. Outside of science, Josh is an avid basketball fan and in his free time he enjoys sport climbing, reading, and baking a variety of breads.

PhD Candidate

Jaclyn Long

Jaclyn is a graduate student in the Harvard Immunology program and is jointly advised by Jose and Arlene Sharpe. She grew up in Massachusetts and attended Northeastern University for her undergraduate studies, where she completed degrees in Bioengineering and Biology. During her time at Northeastern, Jaclyn developed lymph node-on-a-chip models at the Wyss Institute, applied CRISPR gene editing to natural killer cell therapies at Editas Medicine, and studied CD8+ T cell dysfunction in tumors in the Sharpe Lab at HMS.

As a graduate student, she is interested in understanding how tissue metabolism influences T cells in infectious and inflammatory diseases. Jaclyn is also passionate about science communication and education outreach, and volunteers for Harvard’s Science in the News blog and the Health Professions Recruitment & Exposure Program. In her free time, Jaclyn enjoys cooking, singing, running, hiking, reading, and doing jigsaw puzzles.

PhD Student

Isabelle Oliver

Isabelle is a Biological and Biomedical Sciences graduate student who joined the Ordovas-Montanes lab in 2023. She is broadly interested in understanding how development and morphogenesis set up patterned manifestations of inflammatory skin disease. When she isn’t in the tissue culture hood, Isabelle enjoys drawing and listening to audiobooks.

Associate Computational Biologist

Kyle Kimler

Kyle is the lab’s computational research associate, where he analyzes inflamed pediatric gastrointestinal single-cell RNA sequencing data in a joint project with the Shalek and Kean Labs. Before moving to Boston, he did a MS centered at SciLifeLab in Sweden, where he sequentially worked in the Elsässer lab with unnatural amino acids, the Sonnhammer lab with networks of coexpression in spatial transcriptomics, and the Hudson lab making model chemolithoautrophic bacteria. Before that, he worked for three years in R&D Cell Bio Custom Services at Thermo Fisher. Before Thermo, he researched mosquito vision in the O’Tousa lab while doing a BS at Notre Dame.

Kyle is looking for a deeper understanding of general cell biology, which is why he chose to move into computational biology. He is excited to work with human data, and with so many humans on a joint project. While outdoors, he loves to go aimlessly exploring, foreign and domestic, by running and biking long distances and learning languages. While indoors, he loves reading and making music.

Research Assistant

Faith Taliaferro

Faith is a research technician in the lab. Having decided that she was tired of constantly perfect weather and not having to own winter clothing back home in southern California (the better part of California), Faith attended the University of Pennsylvania where she earned her B.S.E. in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics. Before joining the lab, she worked in the lab of Lawrence (Skip) Brass at Penn, creating computational models in order to study how molecular transport within a hemostatic mass is affected by changes in mass microarchitecture.

She is excited to dive into the world of inflammation and looks forward to studying more human-facing concepts as opposed to those found primarily in physics textbooks. Outside of lab, Faith enjoys taking public transit to new places, listening to podcasts, walking long distances for fun, and reading too much about skincare.​

Research Assistant

Chelsea Asare

Chelsea is from the small town of Cranston, Rhode Island. She is a graduate of Harvard College’s class of 2022, where she majored in human developmental and regenerative biology. Chelsea volunteers at a elementary school in Cambridge as a mentor scientist, where she helps younger girls conduct experiments (safely) and learn more about the world of science! Some of her scientific interests include learning about cell function, and how this function changes under the constraints of disease. Chelsea hopes to attend medical school and become a doctor.

Outside of science, some of Chelsea’s interests and hobbies include reading fictional books, video editing, playing games with friends and family, and listening to music!​

Research Technologist

Amanda Frischmann

Amanda Frischmann is a Research Technologist in the lab. She has a BS in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, did her undergraduate thesis in computational chemistry, and is currently an MS student studying Intelligent Robotic Systems.

Amanda brings expertise in tissue engineering and 3D modeling from her previous cerebral iPSC research with Jeff Golden at Brigham & Women’s and from her experience in R&D at Emulate where she worked on a wide variety of organ-chips including a colorectal cancer model, CAR-T/immune cell recruitment assays, liver validation and more.

In the lab, she looks forward to studying how we can leverage the combination of complex 3D in vitro models with scRNA-seq and other analysis methods to elucidate spatiotemporal immunological memory interactions in nasal and respiratory tissue, particularly in regards to stem cells and rare cell types.

Outside of the lab Amanda teaches dance, is an avid runner, loves to paint and owns 4 different 3D printers which she uses to explore the intersections of AI based design, plant cells, and wearable technology.

Alumni
Ben Doran
Marko Vukovic
Martin Axegård
Ginny Camacho, PhD
Veronika Niederlova
Danny Johnston, PhD

Computational Research Associate, Shalek and Kean Labs
Current PhD student at UChicago

Research Associate, Shalek Lab
Student at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine

Visiting MS Student, Ordovas-Montanes and Shalek Labs
Current medical student at Karolinska Institutet

Postdoctoral Fellow
Current postdoctoral fellow in the Megakaryocytes to Platelets Research Group at Boston Children's Hospital

Visiting PhD Student
Current PhD student in the Lab of Adaptive Immunity at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Visiting Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar
Assistant Professor at the School of Medicine in Trinity College Dublin

Kelsey
Kelsey Chen
Evans Berreondo Giron
Ruben van Esch
Ben Lindsey, MBBS
Maria Sacta, MD PhD
Amanda Hornick

High School Researcher
Student at the University of Toronto

Undergraduate researcher
Cell Therapy Research Assistant at Takeda

Visiting MS Student, Utrecht University
Scientist

Visiting Researcher
Academic Clinical Fellow in Infectious Diseases at the University of Sheffield

Pediatrics Resident and Postdoctoral Fellow
Current Allergy and Immunology Fellow at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

PhD Candidate
PhD Candidate in the Birnbaum Lab at MIT

Erica
Erica Langan

Research assistant
MD/PhD Student at Harvard-MIT