Sam Modlin
Project Scientist
Paulina M. Mejía Ponce
Postdoctoral Research FellowPaulina joined the LPCDRP in July 2024 as a Postdoctoral Researcher after earning her PhD in Biotechnology from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico. Previously, her research focused on the genomic epidemiology and pangenomics of M. tuberculosis clinical isolates from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Currently, she is particularly interested to understand the genetic and epigenetic diversity of drug-resistant and persistent M. tuberculosis strains in patients facing challenging treatment regimens.
Deepika Chaudhary
Postdoctoral Research FellowDeepika joined LPCDRP in August 2024 as a postdoctoral fellow. She received her PhD from (MAHE) India in 2023. Her PhD thesis topic was – “Targeting amino acid biosynthetic pathway of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to develop better interventions”. Her current work at LPCDRP lies around understanding the mechanism of drug resistance and persistence in Mycobacterium tuberculosis using epigenomics and genomics. In her leisure time, she likes to cook, listen to music, paint and explore new places.
Afif Elghraoui
Graduate research assistant - P.H.D candidate
Derek Conkle-Gutierrez
Graduate research assistant - P.H.D studentDerek joined the LPCDRP lab in 2017 when entering the SDSU Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics Masters program (graduated in 2019). He is currently in the Public Health Joint Doctoral Program at SDSU and UCSD, under the mentorship of Dr. Valafar. Derek studies drug resistance and diversifying mechanisms of M. tuberculosis using long and short read DNA sequencing data. These mechanisms include heterogeneous loss of function mutations, gene conversion, and DNA methylation.
Mahshid Fallahpour
Graduate Research Assistant - P.H.D studentMahshid joined LPCDRP in 2023 and received her M.S. in Medical Biotechnology in 2017. Her graduate research focused on comparative and functional genomics and her thesis focused on developing a Recombinant Antibodies Array for the simultaneous detection of multiple antigens in human sera specifically HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis. Mahshid has just started her graduate studies as a Ph.D. student in public Health, Global Health and she is one of the wet lab members.
Saddam Hossain
Graduate Research Assistant - P.H.D studentSaddam joined the LPCDRP lab in August 2023. He is in the Public Health Joint Doctoral Program at SDSU and UCSD, under the mentorship of Dr. Valafar. Currently, he is working with the dry lab team.
Theron James
Graduate research assistant - Master'sTheron joined the LPCDRP lab in 2021 and received his M.S. in Biological and Medical Informatics from SDSU. His research is centered around creating tools and pipelines for genome annotation and de novo genome assembly. Notably, he contributed to the development of Hybran, a hybrid reference-based and ab initio prokaryotic genome annotation tool.
Nachiket Thosar
Graduate research assistant - Master'sNachiket joined the LPCDRP lab in August 2020 while being enrolled at SDSU in Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics Masters program. Currently working in the lab on drug resistance mechanisms, genomic diversity and whole genome sequencing of Mtb.
Tristan Jang
Graduate Research Assistant - Master'sWhile enrolled in SDSU’s Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics Masters program, Tristan became a member of the LPCDRP lab as of February 2023. His research focuses primarily on de novo genome assembly, comparative genomics and mechanisms of antibiotic resistance.
Abigail Bosco
Graduate Research Assistant - Master'sAbigail Bosco joined LPCDRP in 2023 while being enrolled in the SDSU Master of Public Health program with a focus on Epidemiology. Abigail is a member of the wet lab team, and is also learning dry lab skills, specifically focusing on structural variants. Prior to joining the lab, she served six years in the Navy as an Engineering Laboratory Technician, responsible for managing chemistry and radiological controls in the nuclear power plant on an aircraft carrier. After her service, she earned a B.S. in Biology with a minor in Biochemistry.
Armin Irvije
Post-Baccalaureate Research AssistantArmin Irvije joined the LPCDRP lab in the Summer of 2024 after receiving his B.S. in Computer Science. He is currently working on a DNA base modification identification project, leveraging his Python and machine learning skills to contribute to the lab’s research. Armin is focused on further developing his expertise in AI and machine learning, applying these technologies to solve real-world biological problems.
Raegan Lunceford
Undergraduate Research AssistantRaegan is a fifth year Public Health student. She is currently completing classes to obtain her undergraduate degree while simultaneously taking additional prerequisites to attend medical school. Raegan joined the lab in January of 2024. She has been working on completing background research into various Mycobacterium tuberculosis genes of interest and will also be starting work in the wet lab on upcoming experiments.
Maryam Ahmadi Jeshvaghane
Graduate research assistant - Master'sMaryam received her bachelor’s degree in Industrial and management engineering with a minor in statistics in 2019. She is currently studying her master’s degree in Big Data Analytics program at SDSU. She has been a member of the lab since April 2021 and her current research involves applying machine learning methodologies to find the reasons behind anomalous DNA methylation pattern in mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Bria Gorman
Graduate research assistant - Master's
Surangi Jayasinghe
Graduate Research Assistant - Master'sSurangi joined LPCDRP in 2023 while being enrolled in the M.S. in Biological and Medical Informatics at SDSU. Her graduate research focuses on epigenetics of M. tuberculosis, specifically on possible m5c methylation sites of variation and patterns within clinical isolates. Previously she worked as a Clinical Lab Scientist, specialized in NGS processing for cancer patients. She is currently part of the dry lab team, working on developing her dry lab skills along with her extensive wet lab skills.
Previous Lab Members
Reina Hastings
Undergraduate research assistant
Anastassia Frenzel
Undergraduate research assistant
Anna Scavo
Graduate research assistant - Master's
Emma Bishop
Ashley Swing
Graduate research assistant - P.H.D student
Monica Espinoza
Postdoctoral research fellow
Seema Patel
Amy Goodmanson
Anu Amallraja
Logan Fink
Scott Mitchell
Scott graduated from San Diego State University in 2012 with a major in Biology and a major in Kinesiology. After a few years working for a
Alyssa Zlotnicki
Emma Westin
Alexa Barnes
Matt Onorato
Calvin Kim
Cassidy Robinhold
Sarah Ramirez-Busby
Christopher Morrissey
Deepika Gunasekaran
Cody Price
Nicholas Middelberg
Undergraduate research assistant
Ragavi Shamugan