Training Grants

MTCR Program Alumni

MTCR Alumni (since 2003)

  • David VanderWeele, MD-PhD 2007 (Advisor, Charles Rudin) – Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology and Oncology), Northwestern University
  • John Joslin, PhD 2006 (Advisor, Michelle LeBeau) – Executive Director, Lead Discovery & Biotechnology, Novartis
  • Jennifer Brace, PhD 2006 (Advisor, Charles Rudin) – Assistant Professor, Instruction, Northwestern University
  • Christy Hagan, PhD 2006 (Advisor, Charles Rudin) – Associate Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Kansas
  • Ryan Hansen, PhD 2006 (Advisor, Eileen Dolan) – Director, Pharmacology, Boundless Bio, San Diego CA
  • Cindy Leung Tsao, PhD 2006 (Advisor, John Crispino) – Associate Director, Worldwide Publications, Bristol Myers Squibb
  • Ben Spike, PhD 2007 (Advisor, Kay Macleod) - Assistant Professor, Oncological Sciences, the Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah
  • Jeff Knight, PhD 2009 (Advisor, Ken Onel) – Senior Scientific Project Manager, Center for Translational Data Science
  • Susan Ferrari, PhD 2009 (Advisor, Doug Bishop) – Assistant Vice President of Corporate, Foundation and Government Relations, Grinnell College
  • Bernard Liu, PhD 2009 (Advisor, Piers Nash) – Director of Biotherapeutics, Paragon Therapeutics
  • James Knabb, PhD 2010 (Advisor, Kay Macleod) – Associate Director, Business Development, Profluent
  • Kristin Tracy, PhD 2010 (Advisor, Kay Macleod) was a Senior Scientist, BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, San Francisco
  • Matt Walker, PhD 2010 (Advisor, Geof Greene) – Head of Element Genomics, UCB
  • Mrinal Shah, PghD 2010 (Advisor, Lucy Godley) –  Director, Clinical Scientist, Intellia Therapeutics, Inc.
  • Chika Nwachukwu, PhD 2010 (MD 2014) (Advisor, Funmi Olopade) – Assistant Professor, Radiation Oncology, University of Texas Southwestern
  • Colleen Doci, PhD 2011 (Advisor, Mark Lingen) – Associate Professor, De Pauw University, Indiana
  • Marion Curtis, PhD 2011 (Advisor, Ernst Lengyel) - Associate Professor, Mayo Clinic
  • Brooke Sylvester, PhD 2011 (Advisor, Fumni Olopade) – Global Medical Asset Lead, non-small cell lung cancer, Amgen
  • Kin Leung, PhD 2012 (Advisor, Richard Jones) – National Sales Manager, Adva Tech Group
  • Wenndy Hernandez, PhD 2012 (Advisor, Rick Kittles) – Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh
  • Timothy Best, PhD 2012 (Advisor, Ken Onel) – Senior Director - Global Medical Affairs, Kite Pharma, Inc.
  • Erika Moen, PhD 2014 (Advisor, Eileen Dolan) – Associate Professor, Dartmouth University
  • Sapana Vora, PhD 2014 (Advisor, Ken Onel) – Senior Professional Staff Member, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
  • Ayelet Sivan, PhD 2015 (Advisor, Tom Gajewski) – Physician Scientist, Medical Director Oncology R&D, AstraZeneca
  • Lynn Shen, MS 2013 (Advisor, Pete Savage) - Pediatric Dentist
  • Colles Price, PhD 2015 (Advisor, Janet Rowley) was an associate scientific director, Takeda Oncology and is currently a public science communicator.
  • Kate Wolak, PhD 2015 (Advisor, Ken Onel) Biotech Scientist
  • Erin Smithberger, MS 2013 (Advisor, Deborah Lang) - PhD Duke University, Scientist
  • Steve Kregel, PhD 2015 (Advisor, Don Vander Griend) – Assistant Professor, Loyola University Chicago
  • Aparajita Chourasia, PhD 2016 (Advisor, Kay Macleod) – Senior Vice President, Development and Biology, BioTheryx Inc, San Diego CA
  • Dan Leventhal, PhD 2016 (Advisor, Pete Savage) – Principal Consultant, Tactyl Consulting
  • Tim Fessenden, PhD 2017 (Advisor, Margaret Gardel) – Executive Editor, Life Science Alliance Journal
  • Alan Chang, PhD 2017 (Advisor, Maciej Lesniak) – Staff Machine Learning Scientist, Bioinformatics, SandboxAQ!
  • Amy Gill, MS 2015 (Advisor, John Cunningham) - PhD student, Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins
  • Dan Rabe, PhD 2017 (Advisor, Marsha Rosner) – Senior Scientist, Biological Modeling, Tempus AI
  • Keston Aquino-Michaels, PhD 2016 (Advisor, Nancy Cox) – Data scientist, Continua AI
  • Funmilola Adewale, Director, Core Facility, Sana Biotechnology
  • Hannah Brechka, PhD 2017 (Advisor, Don Vander Griend) – Publication Manager, Costello Medical, Cambridge, England
  • Marianna Johnson, PhD 2017 (Advisor, Suzanne Conzen) – Associate Director, Publication Development, Pizer, Inc.
  • Ashley Sample, PhD 2017 (Advisor, Yu-Ying He)  –  Director, ThinkGen
  • Dana Gilmore, PhD 2017 (Advisor, Pete Savage) – Senior Scientist - Autoimmunity, Chroma Medicine
  • Anna Dembo, PhD 2019 (Advisor, Geof Greene) – Senior Manager, Intellectual Property and Technology Development, Polsky Center, UChicago
  • Yuanyuan Li, PhD 2019 (Advisor, Xiaoyang Wu) – FDA Consumer Safety officer, Chicago
  • Calvin Van Opstall, PhD 2019 (Advisor, Don Vander Griend) – Lead Scientist, Labcorp Drug Development
  • Lindsey Ludwig PhD 2019 (Advisor, James LaBelle) – Senior Principal Scientist, Regeneron
  • Maya Springer, PhD 2019 (Advisor, Kay Macleod) – Senior Scientist - Applied Research, Abbott
  • Alexander Ling, PhD 2019 (Advisor, Stephanie Huang) – Instructor, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard
  • Logan Poole, PhD 2021 (Advisor, Kay Macleod) – Scientist, Abbott Research Cooperation
  • Kyle Delaney, PhD 2020 (Advisor, Yingming Zhao) - Medical Writer Medpace, Inc.
  • Stephen Arnowitz, PhD 2022 (Advisor, Lucy Godley) - Scientist, Biotech Stealth Mode
  • Eric Bueter,  PhD 2021 (Advisor, Russell Szmulewitz) - Research Scientist, Seattle Children's Hospital
  • Jeff Dewey, PhD 2021 (Advisor, Bryan Dickinson) - Postdoctoral Researcher, Argonne National Lab
  • Jessica Fessler, PhD 2021 (Advisor, Tom Gajewski) - Postdoctoral NIH Fellow, Stanford University
  • Katrina Maxcy, PhD 2022 (Advisor, James LaBelle) – Postdoctoral Fellow, Sloan Kettering
  • Mathew Perez-Neut, PhD 2021 (Advisor, Yingming Zhao) - Research Scientist, Evozyne
  • Rebecca Sturey, MS 2018 (Advisor, Marsha Rosner) - Science Writer and Editor
  • Jill Rosenberg, PhD 2021 (Advisor, Jun Huang) – Principal Scientist, Regeneron
  • Rosie Huggins, PhD 2023 (Advisor, Geof Greene) – Assistant Director, Cancer Education, University of Chicago
  • Christopher Lee, PhD 2024 (Advisor, Ray Moellering) - Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Chicago
  • Rosy Liao, PhD 2023 (Advisor, James Labelle) – Biotech Equity Senior Research Associate, Guggenheim Partners
  • Alexandra Smith, MS 2020 (Advisor, Kay Macleod) – Chemistry and Biology Teacher, Palmer Trinity School
  • Jimmy Lee, PhD 2022 (Advisor, Xiaoyang Wu) – Assistant Professor, University of Taiwan
  • Julian Lutze, PhD 2022 (Advisor, Steve Kron and Megan McNerney) – Senior Life Sciences Specialist, LEK Consulting
  • Cara Anderson, PhD 2025 (Advisor, Raghu Mirmira) - Grant Writer
  • Juan Apiz, PhD 2023  (Advisor, Alexander Muir) - Managing Director, Medvec & Associates
  • Nicholas Asby, PhD 2024 (Advisor, Jun Huang and Barbara Kee) - Scientist, Century Therapeutics
  • Anthony Carlos, PhD 2025 (Advisor, Ray Moellering) - Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Chicago
  • Althea Bock-Hughes,  (Advisor, Kay Macleod) is an NRSA F31 Fellow, still in training.
  • Juan Ibarra, PhD 2023 (Advisors, Shannon Elf and Scott Oakes) – Postdoctoral Researcher, Eli Lilly And Company
  • Patrick Jonker, PhD 2025 (Advisor, Alexander Muir) - Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Chicago
  • Benjamin Nicholson (Advisor, Phoenix Miao) is an NRSA F99 Fellow, still in training.
  • Colin Sheehan (Advisor, Alexander Muir) is an NRSA F31 Fellow, still in training.
  • Emma Wilkinson, PhD 2025 (Advisor, Yu-Ying He) is an NRSA R00 Fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
  • Maia Clare, still in training (Advisor, Brandon Faubert)
  • Josh McKeever, still in training (Advisor, Andrew Koh)
  • Freya Zhang, PhD 2025 (Advisor, Jing Chen) - Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Chicago
  • Leah Ziolkowski (Advisor, Kay Macleod) is an NRSA F31 Fellow, still in training.
  • Nia Hammond, still in training (Advisor, Brandon Faubert)
  • Sidney Wang, still in training (Advisor, Justin Kline)
  • Sara Woessner, still in training (Advisor, Jun Huang)
  • Isabel Alcazar, still in training (Advisor, Ernst Lengyel)
  • Cole Barrett, still in training (Advisor, Thomas Gajewski)
  • Nicholas Zolnerowich, still in training (Advisor, Justin Kline)
  • Marta Storl-Desmond, still in training (Advisor, Simon Schwörer)