TBG President

Isabelle Neisewander

President GSBS TBG, PhD Candidate Isberg Lab

Isabelle (Izzy) is a PhD candidate in the Isberg lab where she is using CRISPRi to interrogate the role of essential genes in Acinetobacter Baumannii‘s ability to persist antibiotic treatment. She graduated Boston College with a B.S. in Biochemistry, where she was the senior managing editor of the school’s Life Sciences Journal. Prior to her current work at Tufts University, she worked at Addgene, where she was part of the viral vector team, and Sanofi, where she worked in protein production and optimization.

Isabelle.Neisewander@tufts.edu

TBG Members

Chantal Aaron

TBG member, PhD Candidate Byrnes Lab

Chantal was born in Kingston, Jamaica and moved to the United States in 2014 where she received her Bachelor of Science degree from Ferrum College in Virginia in 2019. She pursued a Post Baccalaureate in Neuroscience from Boston University School of Medicine. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience department at Tufts University. Her thesis project investigates the role of the endogenous opioid system in compulsive behavior in rodents prenatally exposed to oxycodone. She is an active member in the Tufts organizations Black in Neuro and Graduate Women in Science. She is a Neuroscience Scholars Program Associate. She is also avid reader and plant enthusiast, and her newest hobby is creating youtube videos.

Rebecca Condruti

Former President GSBS TBG, PhD Candidate Nair Lab
Rebecca (Bec) works in the Nair Lab with a focus on protein engineering for enhanced stability as well as broadening substrate specificity in the enzyme phenylalanine ammonia-lyase. She graduated with her B.S. in Microbiology from Arizona State University in 2020. 

Rebecca.Condruti@tufts.edu 

Jon Hacker

Co-VP of Biotech, PhD Student Yang Lab

Jon is a PhD student in the Yang Lab at Tufts University. He received his BA in neuroscience from Hamilton College in 2020. His current research focuses on key proteins involved in microglia exosome biogenesis and how exosomes are involved in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Tien Huynh

TBG Member, PhD Candidate Isberg Lab

Tien is a PhD student in the Isberg lab at the Microbiology department of Tufts GSBS. His thesis work involves characterizing Legionella-containing vacuole (LCV) as a pre-replication compartment, and the roles of DupA/B, SidJ, SdjA effector proteins in mediating LCV breakdown and access to host factors. Before attending Tufts, Tien was at George Washington University where he got a double degree in Molecular Biology and Cognitive Neuroscience.

Jinglin (Doris) Ji

VP of Consulting, PhD Candidate Moss Lab

Doris is a neuroscience PhD student at Moss Lab. She studies neuro-immune interaction and the mechanism of post-seizure neuronal death. Doris got her BSPH in Nutrition at Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Archana Nagarajan

VP of Venture Capital, Postdoctoral Researcher Kaplan Lab

Archana received her B.A. in Biochemistry from Columbia University. She received her PhD from the lab of Christine Larry at Tufts where she identified novel pathways using biostatistical and computational biology tools to research co-occurence of Alzheimer’s disease and osteoporosis. Currently, she is a postdoc in the Kaplan lab studying cellular agriculture. 

Erin Sanders

Co-VP of Biotech, PhD Candidate Alcaide Lab

Erin is a PhD candidate in Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She received her BS from Tufts University in Biology in 2018. Prior to graduate school, Erin worked at Addgene in Watertown, MA. Currently, she is studying the cell specific role of a highly inflammatory protein in heart failure pathogenesis.

Navita Shivsawak

TBG Member, PhD Candidate Mecsas Lab

Navita Shivsawak is a PhD student in the Mecsas lab. She graduated from Hofstra University with a B.S. and M.S. in Biology. Her current research focuses on examining antibiotic combination therapy in different media conditions that model tissue environments and the rates of persister cell formation under the same conditions in Klebsiella pneumonie.

Panorea Tirja

Co-VP of Pharma, PhD Student Dulla Lab

Panorea graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a BS in Chemistry. Currently, she is a graduate student at Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in the Neuroscience program. She joined the Dulla lab, and her research project involves exploring the role of atypical astrocytes in Alzheimer’s Disease and aging.

Ioannis Siokas

Co-VP of Pharma, PhD Candidate Degterev Lab

Ioannis is a graduate student in Tufts University’s Genetics, Molecular & Cellular Biology PhD Program. He received his BS in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst in 2019. His thesis work in Dr. Alexei Degterev’s Lab focuses on a form of cell death called necroptosis and the development of inhibitors against this pathway for application against various diseases.

TBG Alumni

Yuzo Kevorkian

Former President of TBG

Yuzo graduated from Tufts University’s Molecular Microbiology PhD Program in 2022. His thesis work in Dr. Shumin Tan’s Lab focused on elucidating the environmental cues sensed by Mycobacterium tuberculosis as part of its interactions with the host. Yuzo has since been a senior consultant at Simon-Kutcher & Partners, and has recently begun a new adventure by co-founded Stealth startup.