TEAM

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Summer 2019
Kemal_Achour

Kemal Achour

Specialist

Kemal is an assistant specialist in optics in the ABC lab since November 2023, he is very excited about working with lasers and microscopes ! In his free time, Kemal loves exploring and visiting new places and he also loves watching and playing football (or soccer here I guess…)

Eric Betzig, PhD

Co-Founder

After going to Caltech for undergrad, Eric did a PhD at Cornell with a thesis on the development of near-field optics – the first method to break the diffraction barrier in light microscopy. His work has revolutionized the industry from his Nobel Prize winning PALM technology to his latest work on LLSM and AO applications.

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Xavier Darzacq, PhD

Co-Founder

Xavier received his BS at Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris), his Masters & PhD at Université Paul Sabatier (Toulouse) and performed his postdoctoral research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with Robert Singer. Xavier’s enjoys kayaking when not performing research. Tjian + Darzacq group studies transcription, focusing on the role imposed by nuclear architecture on the molecules regulating it. They use a model system of cellular differentiation of human primary dermal fibroblasts into myofibroblasts, which is relevant to wound healing. Among the specificities of this system, they show that the maintenance of the fibroblast state depends on a specialized non-canonical mediator complex, which is becoming one of the central projects of the group.
Read more about his lab’s research here: https://www.tjian-darzacq.mcb.berkeley.edu

Hugo Hamilton

Rotation Graduate Student

Hugo received his Bachelor’s degree in mathematics and biology from Columbia University in the spring of 2024. He has previously worked on applying machine learning to problems in cancer and developmental biology and is excited to be developing deep learning models at the ABC to combine machine learning and cutting-edge imaging systems to accelerate the pace of biological discovery.Read more about his lab’s research here: https://www.tjian-darzacq.mcb.berkeley.edu

Marianne Harrison

Lab Admin

Marianne studied English and Social Geography in her undergraduate education at Berkeley but was drawn to the industry of lab management from the start of her professional career. She is the proud mother of 3 children and additionally the whole lab. In essence her work ensures that the researchers are able to perform their tasks with ease and all operations of the lab run smoothly. 

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Amir Hay, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher

Amir received his BA from Williams College and Masters from Kyoto University. He recently completed his PhD in Genetics at the University of Cambridge where he worked on DNA methylation and how it is maintained as cells divide. He joined the ABC team towards the end of 2023 and plans to apply superresolution imaging techniques to uncover the kinetics of DNA methylation machinery.

HyoJung (Hazel) Heo

Undergraduate researcher

Hazel is a UC Berkeley student focused on Molecular Cell Biology and Data Science. The application of computational biology in neurological sciences excites her, and she loves working in the lab with functional materials. Hazel also has a keen interest in global policies and Telehealth and how biological discoveries can benefit the majority. She loves to try out new restaurants and nearby beaches with friends during breaks.

Jason Hong

Jr. Specialist

Jason joined the ABC in August 2023 shortly after graduating from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology. He is currently taking advantage of his time at the ABC to explore the biophotonics and bioimaging fields, having had a long-standing interest in how advancements in mathematics, physics, and computation can be applied for biological discovery. When not in the lab, he likes to relax by tending to his ever growing carnivorous plant collection and plays the french horn. He can also sometimes be found building historical and sci-fi scale models and tries to stay in shape by playing recreational tennis with friends.
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Ana Milunovic Jevtic, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Researcher

Ana received DVM degree from the University of Belgrade in Serbia and PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Wyoming in Laramie USA, where she studied microtubules and mitotic spindle under the supervision of Dr. Jay Gatlin. She did a short postdoc in the lab of Dr. Polina Lishko at UC Berkeley where she studied the role of DYNLT1 protein in human sperm and the role of ABHD2 protein in mouse ovarian stroma. Ana is currently working on developing transgenic zebrafish expressing fluorescent combinatorial hues unique for individual cells in the organism. She is interested in harnessing the power of AI, deep learning in microscopic image processing and analysis that could lead to the development of an output pipeline comprehensibly addressing biological, cellular scenarios of interest. Ana enjoys music and loves to spend time with her family.

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Doug Koshland, PhD

Executive Director

Doug received his bachelors in Chemistry from Harverford College, his PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and performed his postdoctoral research at University of Washington with Leland Hartwell and University of California, San Francisco with Marc Kirschner.
His laboratory uses budding yeast to study fundamental processes in cell biology. Their approach has been to develop novel genetic reagents and cell biological methods to analyze these complex processes in vivo, coupled with the development and exploitation of in vitro assays to reveal underlying molecular mechanisms. Read more about his lab’s research here: http://mcb.berkeley.edu/labs/koshland/index.html

Gaoxing Liu

Gaoxing Liu, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher

Gaoxiang obtained his Bachelor in Chemistry at Fudan University, China. He then went to Johns Hopkins University, where he studied gas-phase clusters by photoelectron spectroscopy. After getting his Ph.D in Physical Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University, he decided to transfer from researching the invisible and untouchable gas-phase clusters to studying real-world biological dynamics with the best optical tools. At ABC, he is responsible for constructing and operating the MOSAIC microscope. When not at work, he enjoys going to the gym and watching movies.

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Dave Matus, Ph.D.

Researcher

Dave got his undergrad degree in biology at Wesleyan University and then moved to Hawaii to study marine mammal biology as a post-bac. He did his master’s and PhD research in Mark Q. Martindale’s lab at the Kewalo Marine Lab studying evolution and development (Evo-Devo) of body plan patterning and phylogenomics in marine invertebrates. He fell in love with microscopy and live imaging at the Marine Biological Laboratory Embryology Course, where he met his postdoc mentor, Dave Sherwood. In the Sherwood lab at Duke University, Dave studied how cells become invasive, using the nematode, C. elegans, as a model system. He started his own research group at Stony Brook University where his group worked at the intersection between cell cycle state, gene regulatory network biology and morphogenesis, using a variety of model systems, primarily worms and zebrafish. He also devoted time to building functional imaging tools for the community. After a brief stint in industry, Dave is excited to join the ABC, where he will leverage his knowledge of organismal developmental biology and tool building to help generate transgenic zebrafish lines for high resolution imaging projects. When not at the microscope, Dave enjoys cooking and playing sax in local jazz groups.
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Matthew Mueller

Staff

Matthew received his B.S. from the University of California, Irvine. Anything related to computers, you can bet he’ll have a hand in helping out. He joined the lab in January 2021 as part of the computational staff and hopes to make an impact through his expertise in optimization and high performance computing.

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Xiongtao Ruan, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher

Originating from his roots in China, Xiongtao came to the US and got a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University advised by Robert Murphy in computational biology. He hopes to develop novel bioimaging solutions which allow for higher resolutional analysis of in vivo biological samples as they are imaged by the lab’s MOSAIC microscopes. You can find him playing table tennis or running when he is outside the lab. 

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Shriya Sankaran

Intern, Undergraduate UC Berkeley

Shriya is an undergraduate student in bioengineering and computer science at UC Berkeley. Her interests lie in the intersection between bioimaging, diagnostics, and computer vision, particularly with respect to rare disease therapeutics. As an entomology hobbyist, she also loves exploring bio-inspired design and drawing on the natural world for engineering applications. In her free time, she enjoys creative writing and climbing.
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Sayan Seal

Graduate Student

Sayan received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Technology from IIEST Shibpur, India and MS in EECS from UC Berkeley in Summer 2022. Sayan has a keen interest in deep learning, image processing, and computer vision. Currently,he is working on developing deep learning models appropriate for sensorless adaptive optics for advanced light sheet microscopy. He also works on analyzing different biological data using point detection and tracking. In his free time, he loves traveling, hiking, sketching and reading novels.
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Robert Tjian, PhD

Co-Founder

Tij received his BA at University of California, Berkeley, PhD from Harvard University, and performed his postdoctoral research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory with James D. Watson. Tij as an avid fly-fisherman. Tjian + Darzacq lab studies biochemistry of transcription and chromatin transactions, and has identified, isolated and characterized a large number (~100) of essential drosophila and human transcription factors. These regulatory proteins include enhancer/promoter recognition factors, core RNA pol II initiation factors and co-activators that form large multi-subunit complexes at promoter DNA to mediate transcription initiation and decode the genome.
Read more about his lab’s research here: https://www.tjian-darzacq.mcb.berkeley.edu

Gokul Upadhyayula, PhD

Scientific Director

Gokul received his BS at University of California, Irvine; his Masters & PhD at University of California, Riverside and performed his postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School with Tomas Kirchhausen. Gokul’s research interests bridge applied engineering with basic science. His earlier work includes studying the charge transfer properties of cyanine dyes and bioinspired electrets using ultra-fast femtosecond spectroscopy during his time at University of California, Riverside; and using lattice light-sheet microscopy (LLSM) with high temporal and spatial resolution at the molecular level during his postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School / Boston Children’s Hospital. Gokul is interested in mechanistic questions addressed at a molecular level by fluorescence microscopy imaging acquired with high temporal and spatial resolution. As the scientific director at UC Berkeley’s Advanced BioImaging Center (ABC), Gokul’s vision is to provide state-of-the-art microscopy, and dedicated human and hardware resources capable of handling terabyte to petabyte scale projects. In addition to this, his mission is to develop robust, open source computational workflows that allow scientists to extract biologically meaningful insights.
Read more about his lab’s research here: http://mcb.berkeley.edu/faculty/cdb/upadhyayulas

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Meet our team of driven and passionate scientists who are dedicated to providing the world with a closer look into the biological world. Finding our roots from all different walks of life, we work together to provide microscopy solutions for all your needs. We believe in the philosophy work hard and play hard, so you can often find us socializing over dinner or rock climbing after a long days of work. 

Alumni

Postdoctoral Researchers

Valetina Ferro – Postdoc 2019-20, Experimental Physicist & Research Scientist, EOSpace Inc.  

Frederik Görlitz – Postdoc 2021 – 22

Thayer Alshaabi – Postdoc 2021 – 23, Machine Learning Researcher Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus

Staffing

Nate Harrison – 2019 – 2024 High School Volunteer, Undergrad Researcher & Staff Undergraduate UC Berkeley

Aaron Chu Yi Herr –2022 – 2023 Undergrad Researcher & Staff

Melanie Freeman – 2020 – 21, Lab manager. Scientist at InfinimmuneLinked In

Aaron Sun – 2019 – 22, Undergrad Researcher & Staff, CS PhD Student at UMass AmherstLinked In

Adam Zimmerman – 2019 – 2021 Computational Staff and Volunteer, Graduate Student University of San Francisco 

Benjamin Purnell – 2021 Undergrad Researcher & Staff, City of Hope Graduate Student

Graduate Students

Cyna Shirazinejad, Ph.D. – 2019 – 23, Affilated Graduate Student.  Biological Data Scientist at Eikon TherapeuticsLinked In

Undergraduates, Interns and Volunteers

Aseem Doriwala – 2019 – 2021 High School & Ungraduate Volunteer, Scale AI  Linked In

Fanliu (Jason) Kong – Summer 2019 Volunteer, Undergraduate Cornell University  Linked In

Ira Horecka – 2020 Computational Volunteer, Graduate Student University of Toronto  Linked In

Shawn Hua – Summer 2020 Computational Volunteer, Undergraduate UC Berkeley

Yiu (Rice) Ching Siu – Fall 2020 Study-Abroad Undergraduate Researcher.  DPhil Candidate in Neuroscience, University of Oxford Linked In

Krishna Koka – 2020 – 21 Volunteer, Undergraduate Penn State

Clinton Huynh – 2021 (Summer) Intern, Eikon Therapeutics Linked In

Mukul Natarajan – Summer 2021 Volunteer Linked In

Zeeshan Patel – 2021 – 22 Undergraduate Computational Volunteer, NVIDIALinked In

Tayeba Chowdhury – 2022 Undergraduate Volunteer, UC BerkeleyLinked In

Kamesh Ayyagari – 2022 – 23 High School Volunteer, UC IrvineLinked In

Shreya Ganti – 2022 (Summer) High School Volunteer, U.T. AustinLinked In

Mo Zhou – 2022 (Summer) Study-Abroad, Xi’an Jiaotang University Exchange StudentLinked In

Ranveer Singh – 2022 –23 SJSU Undergraduate VolunteerLinked In

Akhil Gantii – 2024 (Summer) High School VolunteerLinked In

Sonya Hong – 2024 (Summer) Undergraduate Volunteer, UC San DiegoLinked In

Shirou Jing – 2024 Summer Undergraduate Intern, Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of SciencesLinked In

Ethan Tam – 2023 – 2024 Undergraduate Volunteer, UC BerkeleyLinked In

Lucas Yeung Linked In

Nate Harrison -2019 – 2024 High School Volunteer, Undergrad Researcher & Staff Undergraduate UC Berkeley

Yiu (Rice) Ching Siu

Undergraduate Researcher

Rice is a senior biochemistry student at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. This year, she has the chance to study at Berkeley as an HSBC Overseas Scholar and she feels honored to be a member of the ABC. She aspires to be a neuroscientist in the future, hoping to utilize the latest technology to solve multiple unanswered neuroscience problems. At ABC, she is responsible for expansion microscopy. She enjoys singing and baking in leisure time. 

Adam Zimmerman

Adam is a Master’s student at University of San Francisco, Eagle Scout and professional problem solver working on bioinformatic solutions to age-related diseases.  He joined the lab in the fall of 2019 as a computational intern, spent time as our Research Data Analyst before graduate school 

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Melanie Freeman

Staff Researcher

Melanie is the lab’s cell culture maven.  Melanie received her Bachelor in Biology at Randolph College, Virginia.   Melanie loves working hands-on in the lab, teaching and learning from others. She is especially interested in stem cells and their many applications in studying development and modelling disease. She loves animals and outside of the lab she can be found hiking with her dog or volunteering at animal shelters.

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Krishna Koka

Volunteer

Krishna is a senior at Hemet High School who has been a member of his high school’s Mock Trial Team, President of student chapter of Habitat for Humanity Community Service, and Comminissioner of Community Serivce for the Associated Student Body.  Extracurricular activities include Track & Field, Cross Country, and Choir.  Krishna volunteered this summer and fall as a computational intern.

Clinton Huynh

Undergraduate Researcher​

Clinton is an incoming second year student at UC Berkeley, pursuing a degree in Bioengineering. He is thinking about concentrating in synthetic and computational biology, but is open to the many different fields of science. In his free time, he enjoy gymming with friends and recently have gotten into cooking.

Mukul Natarajan

Volunteer

Mukul is a senior at Dublin High School who is very passionate about the technology field and wants to major in Computer Science. Outside of ABC Mukul’s interests include working on other ventures like his sneaker bot company, attending hackathons with friends, and building PCs. Outside of computers and coding he also plays basketball, supports his hometown sports teams and loves to travel. 

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