Postdoctoral Fellows

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! 

Annie is co-mentored post-doctoral fellow in Drs. Marcia Haigis and Bernardo Sabatini laboratories. She completed her M.D. at Tzu Chi University in Taiwan and then she pursued her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University under the supervision of Dr. Chi Dang, where she studied MYC disruption of molecular clock in cancer cells. In collaboration with Dr. Amita Sehgal, she also found drosophila Myc is required in maintaining circadian behavior and metabolism in fruit flies.

James is a co-mentored post-doctoral fellow in Drs. Marcia Haigis and Arlene Sharpe laboratories. He completed his BSc at McMaster University, and MSc and PhD at the University of Toronto. Under the supervision of Dr. Pamela Ohashi and mentorship/guidance from Drs. Tak Mak and Naoto Hirano, his doctoral research focused on developing strategies to overcome T cell tolerance in the tumor microenvironment. James joined the Haigis and Sharpe labs to further understand how tumor microenvironment and anti-tumor immunity change with aging. 

Brandon is a co-mentored post-doc between the Haigis and Gygi labs. As an undergrad at BYU, Brandon worked with Emily Bates studying the role of inwardly rectifying potassium channels in Drosphila development. He did his Ph.D at Yale with Jesse Rinehart, studying mechanisms of insulin resistance by phosphoproteomic analysis. He is currently interested in developing methods to functionalize protein phosphorylation.

Fun Fact: As an undergrad, Brandon also performed with the International Folk Dance Ensemble. 

Originally from the Netherlands, Jiska performed her Ph.D. research with Prof.