2022 Alumni

(From Left to Right) Top row: Aziz Ur Rehman Zafar, Sydney Woods, Kiara Johnson, Yuxi Long, Sanjana Kotha, Yutaro Tanaka; Bottom row: Mitchell Witt, Amber Pospistle, Afsana Rahman, Chujun (Julia) Zhao, Zhiyue Zhang

Kiara Johnson
Carleton College
Mentor: Dan Landau
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Approximate Bayesian Computation Determines Comparative Fitness of Tumor Clones

Sanjana Kotha
UC Berkeley
Mentor: Ekta Khurana
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Key transcription factors revealed at sites with variable nucleosomal protection detected using circulating tumor DNA

Yuxi Long
Duke University
Mentor: Sohrab Shah
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Towards Predicting Neuroblastoma Progression with Interpretable Multiple Instance Learning

Rhea Malhotra
Stanford University
Mentor: Sohrab Shah
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Simulation of Cancer Evolution in Single Cells: Phylogenetics & Chromosomal Instability in High Grade Serous Ovarian Carcinoma

Amber Pospistle
University of South Carolina Columbia
Mentor: Ben Greenbaum
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Examining Differences in Tumor and Age Distributions in Li-Fraumeni Syndrome

Kyle Pu
UC Los Angeles
Mentor: Wesley Tansey
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Identifying Promising Tumor Treatment Candidates Using Bayesian Tensor Filtering

Yutaro Tanaka
Columbia University
Mentor: Li Zhao
Institution: Rockefeller University
Project: Comparative Analysis of Transposable Elements in Drosophila reveals Distinctive Evolution of Chromosome Size and Telomere Maintenance Mechanism

Arielle Tycko
California Institute of Technology
Mentor: John Chodera
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Assessing the impact of pretraining with quantum chemical datasets on building more data-efficient structure-based machine learning models of ligand binding affinity for antiviral discovery

Mitchell Witt
Purdue University
Mentor: Iman Hajirasouliha
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Evaluation of Metagenomic Read Partitioning Methods of Nanopore Reads

Sydney Woods
UC Davis
Mentor: Mike Berger
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Age Associated Clinical and Somatic Molecular Alterations across Cancers

Aziz Ur Rehman Zafar
Colgate University
Mentor: Quaid Morris
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Ensemble Learning: Diagnosis of Rare Tumor Types using MSK- Impact data

Zhiyue Zhang
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Mentor: Niki Schultz
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Predicting Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Responses Using Multivariate Models Beyond Tumor Mutation Burden

Chujun (Julia) Zhao
Columbia University
Mentor: Dana Pe’er
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: ATAC Velocity: Inferring Directionality in Single Cell Data via Regulatory Mechanisms
2021 Alumni

Zade Akras
Yale University
Mentor: Sohrab Shah
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Mechanisms of Gene Coexpression in Cancer

Yasa Baig
Duke University
Mentor: Dana Pe’er
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Nonlinear Categorial Factor Analysis of Single Cell Transcriptomes

Taykhoom Dalal
University of California, Los Angeles
Mentor: Michael Berger
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Classifying the pathogenicity of germline variants

Anissa Dallmann
Cornell University
Mentor: Samie Jaffrey
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Leveraging DepMap Datasets for Biological Insights

Chenlian (Tom) Fu
Harvey Mudd College
Mentor: Quaid Morris
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Identifying out-of-distribution cancer samples from the MSK IMPACT dataset

Tonatiuh Gonzalez
Harvey Mudd College
Mentor: Nikolaus Schultz
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Inframe Splice Mutations and cBioPortal

Ji Yun (Estelle) Han
Brown University
Mentor: Ed Reznik
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Explaining Patterns of LOH across Cancer Types

Aparajita Kashyap
Johns Hopkins University
Mentor: Christina Leslie
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Characterization of the EZH2 Mutant in the Germinal Center through Multiome data

Alex Li
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mentor: John Chodera
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Bayesian Learning for Laboratory Experimentation

Pranav Murugan
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mentor: Wesley Tansey
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Hierarchical Independence Testing for Improved Feature Selection in Data with Latent Confounders

Lucinda Paddock
Harvey Mudd College
Mentor: Steven Josefowitz
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Altered Hematopoietic Trajectories in post-severe COVID-19

Matthew Shabet
Harvard University
Mentor: JJ Gao
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Spatial Analysis of the Tumor Microenvironment

Caitlin Timmons
Smith College
Mentor: Quaid Morris
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Tracking mutational signature activity across tumor genomes

Jiayi (Maggie) Zhang
Williams College, Carnegie Mellon
Mentor: Marcelo Magnasco
Institution: Rockefeller University
Project: Automatic ALS Detection through hyper-resolution spectrogram
2020 Alumni

Vanesa Getseva
American College of Greece, Ramapo College
Mentor: Iman Hajirasouliha
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Weakly-supervised tumour purity prediction from H&E stained slides

Tonatiuh Gonzalez
Harvey Mudd College
Mentor: Ekta Khurana
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: ATAC Seq Cancer Genomics

Ciaran Hassan
Yale University
Mentor: Christopher Mason
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Cancer genomics & Epigenomics

Mikako Inaba
Princeton University
Mentor: Dan Landau
Institution: NY Genome
Project: Modelling RNA Editing in MPN Patients Treated with Interferon-a

Ketan Jog
Columbia University
Mentor: Marcin Imielinski
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Algorithms SCNA Markers

Ishaani Khatri
Brown University
Mentor: Michael Berger
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Machine Learning-Based Tumor Type Prediction from MSK-IMPACT Data

Lior Kofman
Tufts University
Mentor: Olivier Elemento
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Applying Machine Learning to Determine Cancer Susceptibility Scores

Qianzi Li
Carleton College
Mentor: Sohrab Shah
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Assessing Single Cell Cancer Phylogeny Trees Using Sankoff Parsimony

Michael Luo
The College of New Jersey
Mentor: Benjamin Greenbaum
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Quantify Fitness Levels in Evolving Immune Response Networks Using ϕ-evo

Joshua Morin-Baxter
Augustana College
Mentor: Samuel Jaffrey
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: The m6A Pathway and Cancer

Kathleen Navas
University of California Berkeley
Mentor: Quaid Morris
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Improving outcome predictions in head and neck cancers by classifying new-onset auto-immunity using peripheral blood values

Felix Steinruecke
Duke University
Mentor: Nikolaus Schutlz
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Investigating Mutations in the Context of Whole-Genome Doubling

Yingxuan (Jason) Tan
Rice University
Mentor: Christina Leslie
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Learning Immune Cell Differentiation with Deep Learning
2019 Alumni

(From Left to Right) Top row: Noah Lee, Darshan Kalola, Darnell Granberry, Benjamin Lee, Rafe Batchelor, Viraj Rapolu; Bottom row: Druv Patel, James Xu, Lindsey Hall, Manaswitha Edupalli, Ronit Langer, Uriel Restrepo

Rafe Batchelor
Bucknell University
Mentor: Ekta Khurana
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Using Nucleosome Positioning Derived from Cell-free DNA for Cancer Detection

Manaswitha Edupalli
Carnegie Mellon University
Mentor: Eduard Reznik
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Metabolic Determinants of Immune Cell Infiltration in the Tumor Microenvironment

Darnell Granberry
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mentor: John Chodera
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: A Customizable Sandbox for Developing and Evaluating Active-learning Algorithms for Computational Drug Discovery

Lindsey Hall
University of Rochester
Mentor: Dan Landau
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Discovery of Sequence Motifs associated with DNA methylation cell-to-cell variability in Glioblastoma

Darshan Kalola
The College of New Jersey
Mentor: David Christini
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Optimizing the optimization protocol to build better cell-specific cardiac myocyte models

Ronit Langer
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mentor: Elli Papaemmanuil
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Detecting FLT3-ITD in AML from Tumor Sequencing Data

Benjamin Lee
Harvard University
Mentor: Barry Taylor
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: In silico Analysis of Cancer Hotspot Immunogenecity

Noah Lee
Carnegie Mellon University
Mentor: Michael Berger
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Analyzing MMR Genes with MINNI-FLWR

Druv Patel
University of Texas Austin
Mentor: Sorabh Shah
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Classification of mutational signatures from whole-slide histology images using deep learning

Viraj Rapolu
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Mentor: Christina Leslie
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: CITE-Space: a word embedding approach for unsupervised clustering of CITE-seq data

Uriel Restrepo
New York University
Mentor: Christopher Mason
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Nanopore Sequencing and Fast Similarity Search on DNA Long Reads

James Xu
Columbia University
Mentor: Nikolaus Schultz
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Routine Identification of Mutational Hotspots in Large Cancer Genomics Datasets
2018 Alumni

(From Left to Right) Top row: Richard Mortenson, Elliot Youth, William Khomtchenko, Zining Chen, Siddharth Annaldasula, Brennan Lee, Waris Barakzai (not pictured); Bottom Row: Madison Darmofal, Max Zhou, Marjorie Liebling, Hurlink Vongsachang, Ana Berthel, Jocelyn Ao

Siddharth Annaldasula
Carnegie Mellon University
Mentor: Samie Jaffrey
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: High-throughput computational screen for genetic perturbations that alter ribosomal RNA chemical modifications

Jocelyn Ao
Binghamton University
Mentor: Travis Hollman
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: The application of cancer immunotherapy

Waris Nabi Barakzai
New York University
Mentor: Iman Hajirasouliha
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: A New Method for Barcode Deconvolution of Linked Read Sequencing Data Sets

Ana Berthel
Mount Holyoke College
Mentor: Andrea Ventura
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: A Tale of Two RNAs: Generating CRISPR guide RNAs to Target microRNA Binding Sites

Zining Chen
Cornell University
Mentor: Alex Kentsis
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: ProteomeGenerator 2.0: open and scalable framework for comprehensive proteogenomics

Madison Darmofal
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mentor: Ekta Khurana
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: A machine learning approach for identifying chromatin loop regions from gene expression data

William Khomtchenko
University of Tennessee
Mentor: Eric Lai
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Genome-wide Analysis of the m6A Pathway in Drosophila melanogaster

Brennan Lee
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mentor: John Chodera
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Dimension Reduction of Time Series Data for Metastable Protein Dynamics

Marjorie Liebling
Yeshiva University
Mentor: Thomas Fuchs
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Deep Learning for Morphology-Based Subtyping of Brain Tumors

Robert Mortenson
Duke University
Mentor: Marcin Imielinski
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Software gGnome to help visualize DNA segments

Hurlink Vongsachang
Harvard University
Mentor: Michael Berger
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Assessing Collapsing Methods for High-Sensitivity Cell-Free DNA Sequencing

Elliot Youth
Brown University
Mentor: Elli Papaemmanuil
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: A Diagnostic Framework for Computational Detection of FLT3 Internal Tandem Duplications

Max Zhou
Cornell University
Mentor: Amber Simpson
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: A Deep Learning Approach to Identify MSI Status from CT Images in Colon Cancer
2017 Alumni

(From left to right) Top row: Vincent Liu, Alice Thum, Anna Jacobson, Elena Gavrila; Bottom row: Daniel Alarcon, Rajesh Bollapragada, Parisa Samareh, Kylie Getz

Daniel Alarcon
New York University
Mentor: Christina Leslie
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Modeling the effect of methylation on in vitro transcription factor binding affinities

Rajesh Bollapragada
Cornell University
Mentor: Ekta Khurana
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Cornell Noncoding Driver Database

Elena Gavrila
College of William and Mary
Mentor: Andrea Ventura
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: CRISPR and Gene Editing using GuideScan

Kylie Getz
The College of New Jersey
Mentor: Christopher Mason
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Comparison of Diagnosis and Relapse Methylation Patterns within Pediatric Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Patients

Anna Jacobson
Tufts University
Mentor: David Christini
Institution: Weill Cornell Medicine
Project: Computationally Optimizing Models of the Human Ventricular Myocyte

Vincent Liu
Columbia University
Mentor: Dana Pe’er
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: SCRAS: Single Cell RNA Analysis Suite

Parisa Samareh
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Mentor: Michael Berger
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Creating a Quality Control Module for the Multiple Steps Involved in Sequencing

Alice Thum
Barnard College
Mentor: Nikolaus Schultz
Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Project: Genome Nexus: A web resource for the comprehensive annotation of cancer variants