Postdoctoral Fellows

Erique completed his PhD at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, where he studied the role of mTORC2 in adipose tissue biology. Currently, he is exploring the communication of Erk-mTOR signaling pathways and metabolism within the tumor microenvironment of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Fun Fact: Erique is addicted to coffee (dark roast, without sugar and cream), discovering music, and Carnaval. He is also an AMC A-List member!!

Zongyu was born in Tianjin, China, and he believes that Tianjin has the best breakfast in the world. He completed his undergraduate degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing and his Ph.D. at Yale University as the first student in Dr. Rachel Perry’s Lab. He joined Haigis Lab because he is interested in LC/MS-based metabolomics, and he wants to apply this technique to various types of lymphocytes. 

Fun Fact: Zongyu is a black belt holder in Taekwondo, but now he totally forgets how to use this martial art.

Jamie grew up in the Bay Area, Northern CA, where her high school biology teacher got her to read Loren Eiseley ("The Snout") and set her on the biology research path. Jamie went to Stanford for her undergraduate, where she worked in Anne Brunet’s lab on neural stem cell aging. She stayed at Stanford for her MD/PhD, and in Tom Rando’s lab she investigated skeletal muscle stem cell quiescence, aging, and rejuvenation by exercise. Jamie then traveled to Boston for residency at MGH and Heme/Onc fellowship at MGH/BWH/DFCI. She is interested in sarcomas and metabolism.

Born and raised in South Korea, Jun majored pharmacy in Chungbuk National University. Having decided to make a drug, rather than to dispense, he went to Germany to study mitochondria and obtained PhD degree at Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne. After tasting all the beer from Cologne, he joined the Haigis lab to study nucleotide metabolism in cancer to understand how it could promote oncogenesis. 

Fun fact: Jun’s favorites are football, beer, and classical music but he didn’t fit in Germany.

Ji Seul completed his Ph.D at Seoul National University in the lab of Jae Bum Kim. In his doctoral research, he investigated roles of HIF in the regulation of lipid catabolism and thermogenesis in adipocytes. Ji Seul is interested in studying how adipocytes sense and control metabolites upon metabolic diseases.

Hobbies: Cooking, traveling

Songhua completed his Ph.D at Fudan University in the lab of Shimin Zhao, studying how metabolites regulates metabolism through forming covalent modification to proteins. During his Ph.D, he found a novel protein lipidation, namely tryptophan polyunsaturated fatty-acylation. In his post-doc, Songhua is more interested in immunometabolism, and he also maintains a great interest in SIRT4, the last puzzle of mitochondrial Sirtuins.

Favorite Food: Hot Pot, sushi

Favorite Movie & Actors: King of Comedy, Stephen Chow

Iva obtained her BSc in Nutrition and MSc in Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. She did her PhD as a part of “ChroMe”, a Marie Curie Network studying the chromatin and metabolism nexus, where she worked on macroH2A histone variants and their implication in metabolism.  She’s enthusiastic about the basic principles of metabolism, with the special interest in the cross-organelle metabolic communication. 

At least once a year she goes on an 80 mile trek. Looking forward to discovering US mountains!