Alumni

Catherine Landers, B.A.

​Kiki was a Research Associate working with Dr. Tothova between 2016-2018. She was instrumental in developing different model systems of myeloid malignancies using CRISPR genome engineering and explored potential therapeutic vulnerabilities of cohesin mutant leukemias. Kiki is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Nutritional Sciences at University of Connecticut. 

Anastasia Tishena

Anastasia was a recipient of the Williams-Whitehead scholarship to work in the Tothova lab during the summer of 2018. She investigated therapeutic vulnerabilities of cohesin-mutant leukemias in the context of combination treatments. Anastasia has since graduated from Williams College and entered medical school in the summer of 2021.

Mounica Vallurupalli, M.D.

​Mounica was a hematology/oncology fellow in the Tothova lab prior to her chief medical residency at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. Mounica's work in the lab was focused on understanding the role of DNA damage repair as a therapeutic vulnerability in cohesin-mutant cancers. She was instrumental in the development of new models of cohesin-mutant MDS and AML using syngeneic transplants and patient-derived xenografts. 

Ben Maron

Ben was a Williams-Whitehead fellow during the summer and winter of 2019-2020. He is a rising senior at Williams College majoring in biology and mathematics, where he also studies the role of ASAP1 in regulating integrin adhesion complex dynamics. His project in the Tothova lab focused on understanding the effect of cohesin complex mutations on nascent transcription. Ben is originally from Sudbury, MA. In his spare time, he is an on-call firefighter in Williamstown, plays the viola, and enjoys hikes and long distance running. 

Rebecca Gorelov, B.A.

Rebecca Gorelov was a Research Associate in the Tothova Lab from 2018-2020. Prior to joining the Tothova lab, Becca graduated from Williams College where she majored in biology. At Williams, she was a biology teaching assistant as well as a tour guide at the Williams College Museum of Art. In the lab, Becca made significant contributions to our team's investigation of the basic biology of cohesin complexes and their role in transformation of hematopoietic stem cells. Becca is currently pursuing a PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard Medical School.

Florence Verbeek, B.A.

​Florence Verbeek was a visiting graduate student from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. She completed her masters degree in Biomedical Sciences in our lab and is currently in the process of completing her degree in medicine in the Netherlands. Her work in the lab focused on therapeutic targeting of cohesin-mutant MDS and AML. 

Marisa Winkler, M.D., Ph.D.

​Marisa joined the lab as an internal medicine resident at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She grew up in Western Pennsylvania and completed her undergraduate work at Bryn Mawr College. She completed her MD/PhD at Case Western Reserve University where she studied antibiotic resistance mechanisms in multi-drug resistant Gram-negative rods. In the lab, Marisa was interested in evaluating the relationship between chromatin mutations and the development of leukemia as well as the response to therapy. Marisa is currently pursuing fellowship training in infectious disease in the combined BWH/MGH fellowship program.

Dylan Millson, B.A.

Dylan was a research associate in the Tothova Lab from 2020-2021. He grew up in North Carolina and graduated from Williams College in 2020 with degrees in chemistry and biology. He was a four-year member of Williams wrestling team. Dylan completed his undergraduate thesis in the lab of Prof. Ben Thuronyi, where he developed a modular DNA toolkit to enable fluorescent proteins to form phase condensates in E. coli. In the Tothova lab, Dylan made significant contributions in setting up and validating a system for protein degradation. He joined Trinity Partners, LLC as an associate consultant.

Karin Golan, PhD

Karin was a Postdoctoral fellow in the Tothova Lab from 2019-2022. She received her B.A. in Medical sciences from Tel-Aviv University and then joined the Weizmann Institute of Science for her M.Sc. and PhD studies in biology. At the Weizmann Institute she worked in the lab of Prof. Tsvee Lapidot on the role of Sphingosine 1-Phosphate in hematopoietic stem cell motility, and the influence of light and darkness on the dynamic physiological function of hematopoietic stem cells and on mitochondrial transfer between hematopoietic stem cells and their bone marrow microenvironment. In the Tothova lab, Karin investigated the role of cohesin mutations as progression lesions in RUNX1-mutant familial platelet disorders. She was awarded the Helen Gurley Brown Fellowship to support her postdoctoral studies in the Tothova lab. She is currently a principal scientist at Astra Zeneca.

Will Doyle, BA

Will was a research associate in the Tothova Lab from 2020-2022. He grew up in Arlington, MA and graduated from Williams College in 2019 with a major in biology. For his undergraduate thesis in the lab of Prof. Lois Banta, he studied the connected roles of a plant defense hormone and the bacterial type VI secretion system in Agrobacterium tumefaciens infection. In the Tothova lab, Will led and contributed to countless projects focused on understanding of epigenetic dysregulation in leukemia development, in addition to steering the lab through the pandemic and a move. Will is currently pursuing a PhD in biology at Rockefeller University.

Amy Wang, BA

Amy was a computational research associate in the Tothova Lab from 2020-2022. Originally from Seattle, she graduated from Brown University in 2020, where she majored in computational biology and completed an undergraduate thesis involving a comparative analysis of various genetic fusion detection programs. Amy made significant contributions to multiple projects in the lab as a computational lead. She is currently pursuing an MD at Washington State University. 

Emily Wheeler, PhD

Emily was a postdoctoral fellow in the Tothova lab from 2020-2023. She completed her PhD in Gene Yeo's lab at UC San Diego studying the role of cancer-associated point mutations in splicing factor proteins on RNA recognition and alternative splicing. Additionally, she developed a technology (CRaft-ID) utilizing microraft arrays with high-throughput imaging to perform a CRISPR-screen for regulators of cytoplasmic protein-RNA assemblies in cells. In the Tothova lab, she investigated the cross-talk between RNA splicing and cohesin function and identified mechanisms underlying sensitivity of cohesin-mutant cells to SF3B1 splicing modulators. Emily was supported by the F32 postdoctoral fellowship in the Tothova Lab. She is currently a computational scientist at Genentech.

Sofia Neaher, B.A.

Sofia spent the summers of 2020 and 2021 in the Tothova Lab as a Williams-Whitehead scholar and returned as a research associate from 2022-2023. She graduated from Williams College where she majored in Biology, alongside a concentration in Spanish. She completed her honors thesis in Dr. Lois Banta’s lab, investigating the impact of the Type VI secretion system in Agrobacterium tumefaciens on defensive signaling in A. thaliana. Sofia investigated the effect of SF3B1 splicing modulators in STAG2-mutant models of AML. 

Rick Li, A.B.

Rick is a first year MD-PhD student in the Harvard-MIT HST program. He graduated from Harvard College in 2021 with an A.B. in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology and continued work as a Research Assistant until the beginning of his program. During those years, he worked in Dr. Vijay Sankaran’s lab at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Broad Institute characterizing regulators of fetal-to-adult hemoglobin switching. He is excited to pursue questions related to cancer biology and human development over the coming years. He did his first MD/PhD rotation in our lab in the summer of 2023.
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Molly Moore, B.A.

Molly was a first-year graduate student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program rotating in the lab in the fall of 2023. Prior to starting graduate school, Molly was a Research Associate in the lab of Dr. Fadi Najm at the Broad Institute, where she worked on developing and applying CRISPR-based technologies to characterize how regulatory elements shape gene expression. Molly completed her bachelor’s degree in Biology and English at Bowdoin College, where she studied 3D genome organization in fruit flies in Dr. Jack Bateman's lab. During her time in the Tothova Lab as a rotation student, she explored the role of transposable elements and chromatin topology in myeloid malignancies. 

Veronica Hsu, B.A.

Veronica was a first-year graduate student in Immunology rotating in the Tothova Lab in the fall of 2023. Before joining the Immunology Program at HMS, she was a technician in Dr. Jianzhu Chen's lab at MIT developing next-generation natural killer cell immunotherapeutics. During her rotation, Veronica worked on a project to characterize the genomic landscape of cohesin-mutant MDS mice.

Caroline Pitton, B.A.

Caroline was a research associate in the Tothova lab from 2022-2024. She is originally from Seattle, WA and graduated from Wesleyan University in 2022 with a double major in Biology and French Studies and a minor in Informatics & Modeling. At Wesleyan, Caroline was a research assistant in Professor Joe Coolon's lab investigating gene regulation and dietary specialization in Drosophila using RNA-Seq. In the Tothova lab, she made major contributions to development and characterization of mouse models of cohesin-mutant MDS, and led independent project focused on therapeutic targeting of cohesin-mutant MDS and AML. She is starting a PhD program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) at Harvard Medical School in the fall of 2024.​

Ben Braun, B.S.

Ben was a computational research associate in the Tothova lab from 2022-2024. He is originally from Germany and graduated from Clemson University with a Bachelor of Computer Science and minors in Biology and Genetics. At Clemson, Ben worked with Dr. Pingshan Wang on applied machine learning and signal processing for microfluidic sensor systems. In the Tothova lab, he made major contributions in co-leading a project on the role of R loop associated transcription coupled genotoxic stress, and the formation of transposable elements. Ben started a PhD program in computational biology at University of Colorado Boulder in the fall of 2024.

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