Sophia Liu

Principal Investigator (Bio | CV)

sophia.liu@mgh.harvard.edu

B.S., Chemical-Biological Engineering; minor in Biology, MIT (2017)

Ph.D., Biophysics, Harvard University (2023)

• Early Independence Fellow and Core Faculty, Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham, MIT, and Harvard
• Affiliate Member & BroadIgnite recipient, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Victoire Boulat

Postdoctoral Researcher

B.S., Biological Sciences; M.Res., Cellular and Molecular Biosciences, Imperial College London (2021)

Ph.D., Immunology, Francis Crick Institute, UK (2025)

During her Ph.D., Vickie discovered that tumor-secreted lactate blocks B cells from entering tumors by inhibiting their ability to respond to chemokines. At the Ragon Institute, Vickie will continue working on B cells, in the context of vaccinations. She is particularly interested in germinal center responses and lymph node architecture, and will be using spatial transcriptomics to map B cell responses to different antigens.

Jaewon Lee

Postdoctoral Researcher

B.S., College of Science, Purdue University (2014)

M.S./Ph.D., Biological Sciences, Sungkyunkwan University (2024)

Gabriella Cerna

Graduate Student

B.S., Biochemistry; B.S., Microbiology, Arizona State University (2024)

Ph.D. student, Biology, MIT

• Co-advised by Facundo Batista
• NSF GRFP Fellow

In the Liu lab, Gabby is investigating B cells. Beyond the lab, she enjoys any sport as long as she can get a tutorial, but her favorites are rock climbing and calisthenics.

Gaeun Kim

Graduate Student

B.S., Bioengineering and Mathematics; M.S., Bioengineering, Stanford University (2022)

Ph.D. student, Systems, Synthetic, and Quantitative Biology, Harvard University

• Co-advised by Debora Marks

Gaeun is interested in developing machine learning models to understand the relationship between antibody affinity maturation, structure, and reactivity. She is also working on creating informative embeddings of spatial transcriptomics data.

Ryan Lim

Graduate Student

B.S.E., Bioengineering; minors in Philosophy and Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania (2024)

Ph.D. candidate, Medical Engineering and Medical Physics (MEMP), Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology (HST)

• Co-advised by Facundo Batista
• NSF GRFP Fellow

Kenneth Wei

Graduate Student

B.S., Biological Engineering; minor in Computer Science, MIT (2023)

Ph.D. candidate, Medical Engineering and Medical Physics (MEMP), Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology (HST)

• Co-advised by Sebastian Lourido

Kenneth is building approaches for host-pathogen interaction recording to measure the dynamics of cell interactions over infection.

Shorna Alam

Master's Student

B.S., Computer Science; minor in Biology, MIT (2025)

Master's student, Computer Science, MIT (2027)

Shorna is broadly interested in deep learning methods for molecular biology applications, including therapeutics discovery.

Jerry Gao

Master's Student

B.Sc., Anatomy & Cell Biology, McGill University (2025)

M.M.Sc. student, Immunology, Harvard Medical School

Jerry is interested in applying computational and structural approaches to questions in immunology. In the Liu Lab, he is beginning work on machine-learning-informed approaches for studying antibody structure and antigen recognition.

Mukerrem Tufekcioglu

Research Technician

B.A. and M.S., Computer Science, University of Chicago (2025)

Mukerrem is excited to join the Liu Lab and build computational tools to understand the immune system.

Aadya Gujja

Undergraduate Researcher

B.A., Molecular and Cellular Biology & Economics, Harvard College (2028)

Erika Ruiz

Undergraduate Researcher

B.S., Brain and Cognitive Sciences; minors in Biology and Computer Science, MIT (2029)

Erika is broadly interested in the biology of aging and how the immune system shapes disease. In the Liu Lab, she is working under Ryan Lim on research related to HPV.

Tyler Malkin

High School Student

Greenwich High School

Tyler is interested in developing biotechnology to suppress or stimulate the immune system and address health conditions. In the Liu Lab, he is working under Jaewon Lee to investigate the role of tertiary lymphoid structures in autoimmunity and build computational tools for tertiary lymphoid structure identification.