Current Fellows

Current Fellowship Recipients

The 2025 Helen Hay Whitney Foundation fellowships have been granted to:

Brennan G. Ashwood, Ph.D.

For training at Columbia University with Dr. Ruben Gonzalez Jr. Molecular Mechanisms by which Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 3 Facilitates Translation Initiation.

Gavyn Chern Wei Bee, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. Ken Cadwell. Developmental timing of virus exposure as a calibrator for barrier homeostasis.

Miles H. Black, Ph.D.

For training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Dr. Michael Laub. Phage Subversion of AAA+ Proteases to Counter Bacterial Immunity.

Jing Cai, Ph.D.

For training at New York University with Dr. Dayu Lin. Investigate the neural mechanisms supporting the benefits of winning.

Allison E. Daly, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Dr. Ravi Majeti. Reprogramming Cancer Cells into Antigen Presenting Cells with Circular RNA as a Personalized Immunotherapy.

Emma Dann, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Drs. Jonathan Pritchard and Alexander Marson. Detecting causal regulators of cells altered in disease with CRISPR screens and cell atlases.

Joshua L. Dickerson, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, Berkeley with Dr. Bronwyn Lucas. Developing in situ laser phase plate cryoEM and 2D template matching to visualize microtubule-associated proteins inside axons.

James E. Fifer, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, San Diego with Dr. Noah Rose. Urban Adaptations of the Dengue and Zika Mosquito Aedes aegypti.

Alice L. Herneisen, Ph.D.

For training at Johns Hopkins University with Dr. Gira Bhabha. Determining Features of Microsporidian Mitosomes.

Mengyu Liu, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Dr. Karl Deisseroth. Brain-wide neural circuit alterations in postmenopausal depression.

Victoria M. Marando, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Suzanne Walker. Dissecting OGT's Essential Cellular Functions.

Christopher P. Marang, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Dr. Alexander Dunn. Order from Chaos: Sarcomere biogenesis of Z-discs and the molecular mechanisms underlying normal and pathological cardiomyocyte development.

Jorge A. Moreno, Ph.D.

For training at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research with Dr. Alejandro Alvarado-Sanchez. The evolutionary origins and genomic basis of life-cycle reversal in the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii.

Zekun Mu, Ph.D.

For training at The Rockefeller University with Dr. Gabriel D. Victora. Mechanisms of the development of protective antibody responses in chronic viral infection and viral-associated cancer.

Peter Mussells Pires, Ph.D.

For training at Boston Children's Hospital with Dr. Michael Crickmore. Visualizing the neural determinants of a decision in Drosophila.

Lila Neahring, Ph.D.

For training at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center with Dr. Jennifer Zallen. Mechanisms of rosette-mediated epithelial morphogenesis.

Aleksandar Radakovic, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Chicago with Dr. Joseph Thornton. Reconstructing the evolution of the genetic code with ancestral aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase/tRNA pairs.

Haley E. Randolph, Ph.D.

For training at Columbia University with Dr. Dusan Bogunovic. Characterizing the extent of natural type I interferon variation across individuals.

Josue M. Regalado, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, San Francisco with Drs. Massimo Scanziani and Loren Frank. Integration of bottom-up and top-down input within an ancient visual structure.

Jingyi Ren, Ph.D.

For training at Boston Children's Hospital with Dr. Yi Zhang. Understanding hematopoietic stem cell aging through spatially-resolved cell lineage tracing.

Jaspreet S. Sandhu, Ph.D.

For training at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research with Dr. Jonathan Weissman. Unraveling Genetic and Intercellular Mechanisms in Hepatic Adaptation to Metabolic Stress.

Bowen Tan, Ph.D.

For training at the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics with Drs. Karel Svoboda and Tim Wang. Molecular and cell type basis of the three-factor learning rule that governs behavioral flexibility.

Tajinder Ubhi, Ph.D.

For training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with Dr. David Pellman. Defining mechanisms contributing to rapid genome evolution.

Bastijn J.G. Van den Boom, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Bernardo Sabatini. The transformation of cortical activity in basal ganglia circuits for the production of behavior.

César D.M. Vargas, Ph.D.

For training at Emory University with Dr. Samuel Sober. Brains, bodies, and the emergence of new motor codes across evolution.

Jiaxi Jake Zhao, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard University with Dr. Olivier Pourquié. Comparative Developmental Biology: Deciphering Developmental Scaling Mechanisms Across Species Using Stem-Cell Based Systems.

The 2024 Helen Hay Whitney Foundation fellowships have been granted to:

Katherine D. Bauman, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Dr. Michael Fischbach. Engineering the skin microbiome for low-cost pneumococcal vaccination.

Kaustav Bera, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Colorado, Boulder with Dr. Kristi Anseth. Harnessing spatiotemporally controllable biomaterials to decipher nuclear mechano-transduction in intestinal crypt homeostasis and colorectal cancer.

Emma E. Boxer, Ph.D.

For training at Caltech with Dr. David Anderson. Mechanisms of plasticity in an innate social behavior circuit.

Andrew L. Cangelosi, Ph.D.

For training at Duke University with Dr. Christopher Newgard. Zonation of mitochondrial function: unraveling zone-specific liver metabolism and disease mechanisms.

Zhendong Cao, Ph.D.

For training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with Dr. Charles Sawyers. Lineage specification and prostate cancer progression by a pioneer transcription factor.

Dillon J. Cislo, Ph.D.

For training at The Rockefeller University with Dr. Eric Siggia. Shaping fate: geometric methods for cell fate transitions and tissue patterning in vertebrate development.

Nicholas W. Hubbard, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Utah with Dr. Nels Elde. Dissecting inflammatory pathology with new wholeorganism models of disease.

Hannah Jeckel, Ph.D.

For training at Caltech with Dr. Dianne Newman. Investigating whether phenazines are keystone metabolites that shape the plant rhizobiome.

Byungwoo Kang, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Bernardo Sabatini. The evolution of brain-wide neural interactions during learning.

Sora Kim, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Washington, Seattle with Dr. Monica Guo. Mechanisms of Topoisomerase-Induced Bacterial Mutagenesis.

Rachel M. Kratofil, Ph.D.

For training at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai with Dr. Shruti Naik. Jekyll and Hyde: Bacterial toxins as drivers epithelial healing?

Felichi Mae Peach Arines, Ph.D.

For training at the Broad Institute with Dr. Anna Greka. The role of the TMED9 cargo receptor in membrane protein quality control and aging.

Brandon F. Malone, Ph.D.

For training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with Dr. Richard Hite. Investigating the mechanistic basis of V-ATPase mediated mTORC1 recruitment.

Kathleen A. Martin, Ph.D.

For training at UC San Diego with Dr. Matthew Lovett-Barron. State-dependent modulation of sensory decisions in natural environments.

Ljubica Mihaljevic, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Washington, Seattle with Dr. David Baker. De novo design of selective and gated ion channels.

Loranzie S. Rogers, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard University with Dr. Nicholas Bellono. Exploiting amphibian metamorphosis to understand cellular adaptation and function.

Charlie Shi, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Michael Greenberg. Molecular principles governing the expression of immediate early genes.

Douglas Wassarman, Ph.D.

For training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with Dr. Philip Kranzusch. Regulation of innate immunity through nucleobase modification.

Sophia R. Wienbar, Ph.D.

For training at Boston Children's Hospital with Dr. Michael Tri Do. Channel biophysics of a mammalian spiking photoreceptor.

Julia I. Wucherpfennig, Ph.D.

For training at the Whitehead Institute with Dr. Ruth Lehmann. How Wolbachia manipulate their Drosophila host: An evolving endosymbiosis.

James R. Xue, Ph.D.

For training at MIT with Drs. Gene-Wei Li and Jonathan Weissman. Decoding the regulatory architectures of bacterial 5′ UTRs.

The 2023 Helen Hay Whitney Foundation fellowships have been granted to:

Mroj S. Al Assaf, Ph.D.

For training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center with Dr. Akhila Rajan. Fat-brain energy coupling: a possible novel role for mitochondrial particles as adipokines.

Eddy Albarran, Ph.D.

For training at Columbia University with Drs. Rui Costa and Darcy Peterka. A Synaptic Basis for Reinforcement Learning.

Joshua M. Ames, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Washington with Dr. Andrew Oberst. Death or dysfunction: Neurons that survive infection as a source of chronic inflammation.

Nipun S. Basrur, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Drs. Stephen Liberles and Ruslan Medzhitov. Sensing homeostatic sleep drive through the interoceptive nervous system.

Alessio Caruso, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard University with Dr. Daniel Kahne. Using Natural Products as Tools to Study Lipopolysaccharide Transport.

Juan Carvajal Garcia, Ph.D.

For training at Vanderbilt University with Dr. Houra Merrikh. Role of oxidative damage in the evolution of antibiotic resistance.

Amelia J. Christensen, Ph.D.

For training at the Washington University in St. Louis with Dr. Adam Kepecs. The neural circuit mechanisms underlying confidence guided time-investment.

Joshua C. Cofsky, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Andrew Kruse. Molecular mechanisms of nutrient sensing in bacterial spores.

Elizabeth C. Eck, Ph.D.

For training at Yale University with Dr. Antonio Giraldez. Revealing the dynamic regulation of transcription by pioneer factors and chromatin restructuring during zygotic genome activation.

KeHuan K. Edmonds, Ph.D.

For training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Dr. Feng Zhang. A systematic, high-throughput approach to discover and apply new transcriptional regulators of mitochondrial physiology.

Rikki M. Garner, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Sean Megason. Cell-mechanical regulation of patterning in the developing neural tube.

Elizabeth M. Hart, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Thomas Bernhardt. Elucidating the mechanisms of mycomembrane protein assembly.

Shuonan He, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard University with Dr. Hopi Hoekstra. The genetic basis of hair morphology evolution driven by altitudinal adaptation in the deer mouse Peromyscus maniculatus.

Helen T. Hobbs, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, Irvine with Dr. Chang Liu. Investigation of the maintenance and emergence of allostery in tryptophan synthase.

Shelly Kalaora, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Steven Gygi. New approaches to understanding cancer drivers via protein interaction networks of mutated genes.

Jineun Kim, Ph.D.

For training at the California Institute of Technology with Dr. David Anderson. Dissecting body-to-brain neural principles of competing motivational drives underlying innate behaviors.

Lyle E. Kingsbury, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard University with Dr. Naoshige Uchida. Neural Mechanisms of Flexible Foraging Strategies in Prefrontal Cortex.

Fanny Matheis, Ph.D.

For training at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine with Dr. Jonas Schluter. Investigation of epigenetic inheritance as a mediator of host-microbiome co-evolution.

Martin I. McLaughlin, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Dr. Michael Fischbach. Discovery of novel genome-modifying machinery by large-scale genome and metagenome mining.

Aleena L. Patel, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Dr. Alistair Boettiger. How genome architecture mediates gene regulatory interactions in Drosophila.

Jasper Phelps, Ph.D.

For training at the EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland with Dr. Pavan Ramdya. Reverse engineering limb motor control in Drosophila.

Daniel S. Saxton, Ph.D.

For training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Dr. Michael Laub. Identify and characterize phage defense systems derived from the microbiome.

Boya Wang, Ph.D.

For training at the California Institute of Technology with Dr. Lulu Qian. Rapid, robust, and parallel synthetic nucleic-acid circuits.

Mikal A. Woods Acevedo, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Pittsburgh with Dr. Terence Dermody. Microbiota Regulation of Viral Neuropathogenesis.

The 2022 Helen Hay Whitney Foundation fellowships have been granted to:

Tamanash S. Bhattacharya, Ph.D.

For training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center with Dr. Harmit Malik. Identifying viral elements involved in overcoming immune restriction during host-switching.

Oscar A. Campos, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, San Francisco with Dr. Wendell Lim. Synthetic epigenetic differentiation circuits: engineering signal induced fate changes and bifurcation.

Jingyi Chi, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Stephen Liberles. Neural Control of Liver Metabolism.

Mark Dombrovskiy, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, Los Angeles with Dr. S. Lawrence Zipursky. Towards understanding mechanisms of precise synaptic connectivity in sensorimotor neural circuits.

Danielle N. Gallagher, Ph.D.

For training at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich with Dr. Jacob Corn. Understanding and Controlling Chromatin Structure to Advance CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Editing.

Kevin A. Guttenplan, Ph.D.

For training at the Oregon Health and Science University with Dr. Marc Freeman. How do astrocytes regulate neuronal circuits?

Caitlin Hanna Kowalski, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Oregon with Drs. Matthew Barber and Brendan Bohannan. Antimicrobial activity of skin-associated fungi alters pathogen adaptation.

Sai Harsha Krovi, Ph.D.

For training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital with Dr. Vijay Kuchroo. Elucidating the Role of Chronic Inflammatory Cues in Driving Autoimmunity.

Kelsey L. Hickey, Ph.D.

For training at the Harvard Medical School with Dr. Wade Harper. Early intervention: Elucidating cellular kinetic response mechanisms during toxic protein aggregation.

Kyu Hyun Lee, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, San Francisco with Dr. Loren Frank. Brain-wide dynamics during hippocampal non-local representations.

Luke W. Koblan, Ph.D.

For training at the Whitehead Institute with Dr. Jonathan Weissman. Tracking cell state across time using multichannel molecular recorders and counters.

Sierra S. Marable, Ph.D.

For training at the California Institute of Technology with Dr. Marianne Bronner. Comparative Analysis of Gene Regulatory Networks Guiding Cranial & Trunk Neural Crest Formation.

Sean E. McGeary, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Allon Klein. Uncovering the Cell-Cell Adhesion Code in Vertebrate Development.

Jason W. Millington, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Drs. Lucy O’Brien and Kerwyn Huang. Inner conflict: The starvation-induced transition from host-microbe mutualism to antagonism in the Drosophila gut.

Teja Pratap Bollu, Ph.D.

For training at the Salk Institute with Dr. Martyn Goulding. Role of cutaneous and proprioceptive feedback systems in the control of skilled movement.

Kali M. Pruss, Ph.D.

For training at Washington University in St. Louis with Dr. Jeffrey Gordon. Defining immunometabolic mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of environmental enteric dysfunction by the small intestinal microbiota.

M.M.Gayani K. Senevirathne, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard University with Dr. Terence Capellini. Development of the Human and mouse pelvis using genetics and genomic approaches.

Aditi Shukla, Ph.D.

For training at the Whitehead Institute with Dr. Sebastian Lourido. Control of chronic Toxoplasma infection by translational regulation.

Janet Song, Ph.D.

For training at Boston Children’s Hospital with Dr. Christopher A. Walsh. Genomic approaches toward understanding human brain evolution.

Munyaradzi Tambo, Ph.D.

For training at Washington University in St. Louis with Dr. Carolina Lopez. Not so defective viral genomes: Resolving copyback Defective Viral Genome functional heterogeneity in Sendai virus infection.

Diana P. Valverde, Ph.D.

For training at Duke University with Dr. Seok-Yong Lee. Structural and physiological studies on the human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 3.

Bradley M. Wierbowski, Ph.D.

For training at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research with Dr. David Bartel. Molecular Determinants of mRNA Stabilization by Decapping Resistance.

Max E. Wilkinson, Ph.D.

For training at the Broad Institute with Dr. Feng Zhang. Structural and functional characterisation of an RNA-guided nuclease found in transposons.

Lu Xu, Ph.D.

For training at Columbia University with Drs. Maria Tosches and Elizabeth Hillman. Systematic investigation of odor representation in Pleurodeles waltl.

Anna Yoney, Ph.D.

For training at Columbia University with Dr. Kristin Baldwin. The identity, stability and decay of cell intrinsic neuronal attractor states.

Jason Z. Zhang, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Washington with Dr. David Baker. De novo designed tools to map the activity and function of endogenous and oncogenic Ras signaling.

Zhaoyue Zhang, Ph.D.

For training at the Rockefeller University with Dr. Jeffrey Friedman. Towards understanding the mTOR regulation of leptin resistance.

The 2021 Helen Hay Whitney Foundation fellowships have been granted to:

Erika C. Anderson, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, San Francisco with Dr. Elphege Nora. Unraveling cohesin loading to manipulate chromosome architecture.

Oscar M. Arenas Sabogal, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, Berkeley with Dr. Ellen Lumpkin. Cellular and Molecular Basis for Mechanoreception in a Primitive Nervous System.

Tristan A. Bell, Ph.D.

For training at Massachusetts General Hospital with Dr. Luke Chao. Structure and molecular function of Prominin-1/CD133 in photoreceptor membrane homeostasis.

Jeffrey N. Carey, V.M.D., Ph.D.

For training at the University of Washington with Drs. Matthew Parsek and Ajai Dandekar. Evolution and impact of social cheating in structured bacterial communities.

Almudena Chaves, Ph.D.

For training at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center with Dr. Scott Lowe. Dissecting the role of radiation-induced senescence in pancreatic therapy resistance.

Linlin Fan, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Dr. Karl Deisseroth. Probing synaptic and circuit plasticity mechanisms underlying learning with all-optical electrophysiology.

Nandan S. Gokhale, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Washington with Dr. Ram Savan. The Architectural Role of RNA in Innate Immune Signaling Complexes.

Daisy X. Ji, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard School of Public Health with Dr. Eric Rubin. In vivo mechanisms of gene regulation by PhoP, a master regulator of virulence in M. tuberculosis.

S. John Calise, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Washington with Dr. Justin Kollman. Structure and function of the purinosome, a multi-enzyme membraneless compartment.

Jodi S. Kraus, Ph.D.

For training at Princeton University with Dr. Sabine Petry. How are microtubules generated to find kinetochores during cell division?

Mable Lam, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Drs. Brad Zuchero and Michael Bassik. Determining the mechanisms of myelin membrane expansion.

Piero Lamelza, Ph.D.

For training at the University of Pennsylvania with Drs. Michael Lampson and Mia Levine. Testing the functional consequences of rapid centromeric DNA and protein evolution.

Zebulon G. Levine, Ph.D.

For training at the Whitehead Institute with Dr. Jonathan Weissman. Examining Ribosome Damage, Repair, and Removal by Temporal Ribosome Labeling.

Robert L. McPherson, Ph.D.

For training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Dr. Laura Kiessling. Human Intelectin-1 in Host-Microbe Interactions.

Bojan Milic, Ph.D.

For training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with Dr. David Pellman. The impact of intracellular contractile force on the epigenetic state of chromatin.

Arda Mizrak, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard School of Public Health with Drs. Tobias Walther and Robert Farese. Bridge traffic: Protein trafficking from the endoplasmic reticulum to lipid droplets through membrane bridges.

Paul Ogongo, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, San Francisco with Dr. Joel Ernst. High resolution analysis of human Mycobacterium tuberculosis specific T cells.

Xuyu Qian, Ph.D.

For training at Boston Children’s Hospital with Dr. Christopher Walsh. Charting Cell Type-Specific Enhancer Activities of Human Accelerated Regions (HARs) In Brain Development.

Frederick A. Rubino, Ph.D.

For training at the New York University School of Medicine with Drs. Ruth Lehmann and Gira Bhabha. The mechanisms of Wolbachia infection.

Harleen Saini, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Danesh Moazed. Molecular mechanism of transcriptional adaptation in response to mRNA degradation.

Hailing Shi, Ph.D.

For training at the Broad Institute with Dr. Xiao Wang. Visualizing epitranscriptome in the 3D brain by in situ sequencing.

Marielena Sosa, Ph.D.

For training at Stanford University with Dr. Lisa Giocomo. Flexible encoding of goals in the brain’s cognitive map.

Stephen C. Thornquist, Ph.D.

For training at The Rockefeller University with Dr. Gaby Maimon. Biochemical principles for computation in the Drosophila central complex.

Stephanie L. Tsai, Ph.D.

For training at the Massachusetts General Hospital with Dr. Jenna Galloway. Achieving perfect regeneration of matrix-rich tissues with proper Wnt modulation.

Javier Valdes Aleman, Ph.D.

For training at the University of California, Los Angeles with Dr. Larry Zipursky. Development of specificity in neuronal connectivity in Drosophila melanogaster.

Rui Yan, Ph.D.

For training at Harvard Medical School with Drs. Clifford Tabin and L. Mahadevan. Resolving the physical and cellular mechanisms of tracheoesophageal separation through quantitative live imaging.