Lab Members

Marcia C. Haigis, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA,  a member of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging, and the Ludwig  Center at Harvard Medical School. Following graduate training in Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Biochemistry, Dr. Haigis studied mitochondrial metabolism during her postdoctoral research at MIT. She has contributed to understanding the role that mitochondrial sirtuins play in metabolism and disease. She has received a number of honors, including the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar Award, the Brookdale Foundation Leadership in Aging Award, and selection for the National Academy of Medicine's Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Program. 

Shakchhi graduated from Creighton University with a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and psychology. As the lab manager, she is responsible for most administrative duties along with running and maintaining the lab's mass spectrometers  

Known Aliases: Joshi, Shakichi, Shakcchi, Shakchii, Sha, Shakira

Ilaria was born in Italy and received her Ph.D. at the VIB of Leuven, in Belgium. During her studies, she investigated how metabolism defines a cancer phenotype and discovered two metabolic pathways that can be targeted to impair metastasis formation. As a postdoctoral researcher, she would like to link metabolic pathways to immune system regulation in order to identify effective therapeutic strategies. Her work is supported the European Molecular Biology Organization Fellowship

What she is up to now: currently sleeping on the floor because Ikea hasn't delivered her bed yet. It's been 2 months. 

Yu Hui received his PhD from Harvard University, where he studied how immune cells modulate inflammatory bowel disease. In the Haigis lab, Yu Hui will coordinate various metabolomic platforms and investigate how cytokines regulate immune cell metabolism.

Regularly causes eye-rolls by: telling bad jokes

Kiran completed his Ph.D at Mayo Clinic in the lab of Taro Hitosugi, studying how oncogenic signals modulate mitochondrial metabolism. Kiran's current work focuses on areas of immunometabolism, primarily investigating various cell-intrinsic metabolic processes that can influence the performance of immune cell function with the goal of exploiting these alterations for clinical intervention. Kiran is a Gilead Sciences fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. 

Favorite food: chicken chihuahua from Taco Bell

Alison is interested in studying the connection between metabolism and mitochondrial stress responses, with a focus on mitochondrial proteotoxicity. Her work is supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Cancer Society.

Jaime was born and raised in Florida, completed her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Northwestern University, and her MD and PhD degrees at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. After training in internal medicine at MGH, she matriculated into the hematology/oncology fellowship program at DFCI and is particularly interested in thoracic oncology. She joined the Haigis lab to study mechanisms of metabolic and proteostasis dysregulation in cancer and the interplay between oncogenesis and aging. 

Spirit animal: The Dachshund 

Originally from the Netherlands, Jiska performed her Ph.D. research with Prof. Eyal Gottlieb at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute in Glasgow. She studied the reciprocal regulation of cellular redox balance & metabolism and developed a new methodology for proteome-wide analysis of cysteine oxidation in cells and tissues. In her postdoc, she will investigate how different cells in the tumour microenvironment influence each other’s metabolic state. 

Still waiting for: the fifth sequel to Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus.

Conghui completed her PhD at Washington University in St. Louis, where she worked on LC/MS based metabolomics of cancer cells. In her postdoc, Conghui is interested in studying how immune cell functions are comprised in the tumor microenvironment.

Interested in but not good at: basketball 

Haejin completed her Ph.D research at Seoul National University Medical School, where she studied hypoxia signaling pathway in cancer and healthy bone. She is currently researching the molecular mechanisms that cancer-associated metabolic enzymes regulate, fatty acid oxidation and nutrient-dependent signaling pathways. She is also interested in sirtuin-driven pathological conditions and the role of sirtuin in adipose. Her work is supported by the American Diabetes Association.

Spends most of her money on: Uber rides between lab and home (total distance: 0.5 miles)

Oscar hails from Guayaquil, a city on the coast of Ecuador. He pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked on ways to engineer substrate-specific and potentiated variants of the yeast disaggregase Hsp104 in the lab of James Shorter. In the Haigis Lab, Oscar is interested in understanding how different cellular states lead to metabolic reprogramming as to coordinate lipid homeostasis and how cellular pathologies arise when such processes go awry.

When pipetting, he struggles with the fact that yeast is bae but mammalian cells are okay.
Has an admiration for: Philly squirrels as one of them once fought him over a blueberry muffin.

Sheila received her B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her undergraduate research in the lab of Dave Pagliarini was focused on identifying enzymes and precursors involved in coenzyme Q biosynthesis. She is currently interested in exploring how alterations in T cell metabolism improve antitumor immunity. 

Favorite show: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Liam did his undergraduate research in the laboratory of Bryan Ballif at University of Vermont, where he studied blood group systems. He is currently researching the interaction between tumor metabolism and urea cycle dysfunction in the context of hepatocellular carcinoma. In addition, he is interested in studying the contributions of proteomic changes to cancer metabolism.

Hobbies: Editing Wikipedia
Favorite protein: SrcASM

Giulia completed her undergraduate studies at Mount Holyoke College. After graduating, she spent two years at the NIH in the lab of Michael Lenardo, working on understanding the molecular mechanisms that control cellular responses, and how defects in such responses may lead to diseases of the immune system. She is currently interested in characterizing tumor-immune metabolic interactions in the tumor microenvironment. Her work is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Most likely to: appear on the next season of the Bachelor.

Sarah completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her undergraduate research in the laboratory of Martin Burke was focused on synthesizing less toxic derivatives of antifungal natural products. She is currently interested in understanding mitochondrial sirtuin activity and substrate specificity in the context of metabolic diseases. Her work is supported by a fellowship from Joslin Diabetes Center.

Favorite alpaca name: Alpacino
Hobbies: Telling people no

Originally from Mexico, Erick is now a student in the Chemical Biology Ph.D. program at Harvard. Departing from an analytical chemistry background and a broad interest in cellular metabolism and human disease, Erick’s efforts are currently focused in dissecting the biological and chemical features of different oncometabolites. His studies are generously funded by Fundación Mexico en Harvard and Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology (CONACyT).  

Happy Place: Lamont Library at Harvard Yard. Proudly, a Lamonster.

Sam received her BS in biomedical science at Imperial College London, studying infectious diseases. She then worked as a technician for a year in Bruno Reversade's laboratory before ending up at HMS. Her current work examines the enzymology of prolyl hydroxylase 3 and its role in lipid metabolism. Her studies are supported by the National Science Scholarship (PhD) from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) from Singapore.

Life slapped her in the face when: She wanted to become a pilot but was denied because of her height. Getting a PhD was her back-up plan.

Olivia graduated with a BA in Biology with a Minor in chemistry. As a research assistant, she assists multiple postdocs in their research, as well as other administrative duties.

Favorite Food: Chicken Parm on a fresh baguette (the more sauce the better!!)

Tiffany graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and a minor in business. As a research assistant, she is primarily responsible for handling the mice colonies and performing genotypic analysis.

Greatest science accomplishment: Standing at 5'0, she has provided concrete scientific evidence that not "everything is bigger in Texas." 

Stacy is pursuing her BS in Biology from the University of Massachusetts Boston. She got her AS in Psychology from Middlesex Community College. As a research assistant, one of her primary roles is managing mice colonies and participating in mouse model experiments under the guidance of Dr. Elma Zaganjor. 

Was the inspiration for: Storm from Marvel (also originally from Kenya but raised in Harlem)