# Members ### Faculty [### Maha Farhat, MD, MSc ](/people/maha-farhat) [maha\_farhat@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:maha_farhat@hms.harvard.edu)Gil Omenn Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics Dr. Farhat's research focuses on the development and application of methods for associating genotype and phenotype in infectious disease pathogens, with a strong emphasis on translation to better diagnostics and surveillance in resource-poor settings. To... ![Maha Farhat, MD, MSc](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/farhat-12.png?itok=n31Dviki) ### Staff [### Ratnam Srivastava ](/people/ratnam-srivastava) [ratnam\_srivastava@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:ratnam_srivastava@hms.harvard.edu)Associate Ratnam graduated with a Masters in Computer Science from NYU. Before joining the Lab, he worked as a Data Scientist at multiple Health Systems in New York. At the Farhat Lab, he works on the entire Data Life Cycle, and application of AI in Medical Imaging... ![ratnam](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/ratnam-photo.png?itok=UTMnBiPN) [### Heather Viana ](/people/heather-viana) [heather\_viana@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:heather_viana@hms.harvard.edu)Research and Administrative Coordinator ![heather viana](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/headshot.jpg?itok=f4v_OJ4W) [### Ziming (Alex) Wei ](/people/ziming-alex-wei) Associate Ziming is a recent graduate of the Computational Biology and Quantitative Genetics program at Harvard School of Public Health. He is now a research associate at Farhat's Lab, working on machine learning research for drug discovery. person ### Postdoctoral Fellows [### Nikhil George ](/people/nikhil-george) [nikhil\_george@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:nikhil_george@hms.harvard.edu)Postdoctoral Fellow Nikhil is a computational biologist with an interest in mobile genetic elements (MGEs). He did his Ph.D. at the University of Waterloo, Canada, during which he characterized the genomes and CRISPR-Cas systems of novel bacteriophages. His work in the... ![nikhil](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/nikhil.jpg?itok=QFQoq1NV) [### Marwan Ghanem ](/people/marwan-ghanem) Marwan (he/him) is a recent medical graduate with previous training in experimental evolutionary microbiology. Marwan is interested in multidisciplinary approaches to infectious disease research. He has a particular research interest in the evolution of... ![marwan](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/img-6574.jpg?itok=Kfd4Gtgu) [### Anna Green, PhD ](/people/anna-green-phd-0) [Anna\_Green@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:Anna_Green@hms.harvard.edu)Postdoctoral Fellow Anna is a computational biologist who loves to think about the evolution of bacterial genomes. She did her PhD in Debora Mark's lab, where she studied the evolution and specificity of protein interactions, and developed methods to detect interactions from... ![Anna Green](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/anna_green.jpg?itok=XbEUSZic) [### Brendon Mann ](/people/brendon-mann) Postdoctoral Fellow person [### Roger Vargas ](/people/roger-vargas) [roger\_vargas@g.harvard.edu](mailto:roger_vargas@g.harvard.edu)Postdoctoral Research Fellow After studying Math and Economics in college, Roger wanted to shift toward tackling more medically-relevant research questions. He recently completed his PhD in Systems Biology studying comparative genomics of Mycobacterium tuberculosis where her studied... ![rogerv](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/roger_vargas_01.jpg?itok=mpksbd6L) ### Research Fellows [### Matthias Gröschel, MD-PhD ](/people/matthias-gr%C3%B6schel-md-phd) [Matthias\_Groeschel@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:Matthias_Groeschel@hms.harvard.edu)Research Fellow Matthias Gröschel graduated with an MD-PhD from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He became interested in tuberculosis during his undergraduate studies that featured internships in lung clinics in Belarus and Romania. Shocked by the burden... ![Matthias Gröschel](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/matthias_groschel.jpg?itok=vAMjmDXg) ### Graduate Students [### Yasha Ektefaie ](/people/yasha-ektefaie) [yasha\_ektefaie@g.harvard.edu](mailto:yasha_ektefaie@g.harvard.edu)Graduate Student Yasha is a PhD student in the BIG Program interested in studying the intersection of machine learning and infectious disease. Specifically using machine learning to leverage the wealth of data being generated by whole genome sequencing technologies. With... ![yasha](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/yasha.jpg?itok=CSQlIZ-T) [### Haoyang Hu ](/people/haoyang-hu)Master student of Biomedical informatics Haoyang is currently a master’s student in Biomedical Informatics. He is passionate about using bioinformatics methods to analyze genetic data, aiming to connect it with real-life, health-related biomedical questions, such as finding associations between... ![haoyang](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/haoyang.jpg?itok=XE6szXrM) [### Sanjana Kulkarni ](/people/sanjana-kulkarni-0) Sanjana is a PhD student in the Virology program. She is interested in pathogen evolution and predicting clinically relevant features of pathogens using computational models. Her research involves using machine learning to predict antibiotic resistance... ![Sanjana](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/img_20220731_185441848_original_2.jpg?itok=EqEWyWUX) [### Maximillian Marin ](/people/maximillian-marin) [Maximillian\_Marin@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:Maximillian_Marin@hms.harvard.edu)Graduate Student Maximilian is currently a graduate student in the Systems Biology PhD program, and is broadly interested in the evolution of the pe and ppe gene families in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. ![Max Marin](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/mgm_headshot_max.jpg?itok=e_pzN6HB) [### Grace Moore ](/people/grace-moore) [grace\_moore@g.harvard.edu](mailto:grace_moore@g.harvard.edu) Grace is a PhD student in the Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics program. She is broadly interested in pathogen evolution. Her current research in the Farhat Lab focuses on exploring the evolution of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) over both long... ![mooreg](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/mooreg_bio.jpeg?itok=W6cxfRuH) [### Shandu Mulaudzi ](/people/shandu-mulaudzi) Graduate Student I am a PhD student in the Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics program. I am interested in biomedical research at the intersection of genomics, immunology, epidemiology and public health. I study tuberculosis (TB), a disease that is prevalent in my... ![sk](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/shandu_kayak.png?itok=gOPHL_-V) ### Software Developers [### Martin Owens ](/people/martin-owens) Open Software Developer A professional programmer in the Free and Open Source industry. Loves blending talents for code production, website design and collaborative development with the lab's research professionals. Learning about the important work of TB research provides a... ![martinowens](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/martinowens.fw_.png?itok=xNK9eoNM) ### Visiting Students [### Sravya Kuchibhotla ](/people/sravya-kuchibhotla) Sravya is a junior at Harvard College studying Neuroscience, with a minor in Economics. In the Farhat, Lab, she has been researching differential gene expression in Tuberculosis strains that have been exposed to antibiotic stress. ![SK](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/chicagopic.jpg?itok=1OZIvZQx) [### Carter Nakamoto ](/people/carter-nakamoto) Carter is an undergraduate at Harvard College studying chemical and physical biology, and statistics. In the lab he is examining genetic associations with antibiotic resistance across different types of bacteria. ![Carter](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/img_8486.jpg?itok=W5DFFQKw) [### Sula Ndousse-Fetter ](/people/sula-ndousse-fetter) [sula\_ndousse-fetter@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:sula_ndousse-fetter@hms.harvard.edu)Scholar in Medicine person [### Anushka Poddar ](/people/anushka-poddar) Summer Intern Anushka Poddar is an undergraduate student studying bioengineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. In the lab, she is investigating genetic determinants of extrapulmonary TB. ![anushka poddar](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/image.png?itok=Hd7TkSE_) [### Aryan Shaik ](/people/aryan-shaik) Summer Intern Aryan Shaik is an undergraduate student in a BS/MD program at Texas A&M University (TAMU) majoring in Bioinformatics. He has a keen interest in the intersection of data science and medicine. Aryan’s research in the Farhat lab focuses on the analysis of... ![aryan shaik](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/aryanshaik2024.png?itok=6cyYt_j0) [### Christie Tzelios ](/people/christie-tzelios-0) Scholar in Medicine person ### Alumni [### Stefan Bassler ](/people/stefan-bassler) [stefan\_bassler@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:stefan_bassler@hms.harvard.edu)Former Visiting Student from Heidelberg University Current Position PhD student EMBL-EBI I am looking for ways to combine my interest in infectious diseases, personalized medicine, synthetic biology, medical genomics, digital healthcare and entrepreneurship. Throughout my masters in molecular... ![Stefan Bassler](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2025-02/stefan_bassler.jpeg?itok=HJZQ7Ank) [### Corinne Bintz ](/people/corinne-bintz) [corinne\_bintz@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:corinne_bintz@hms.harvard.edu) Current Position: Data Scientist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Seattle Corinne is an undergraduate student at Middlebury College, majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Global Health. This summer, she is working on data... ![Corinne](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/cbintz_headshot_002.jpeg?itok=tDD7Trbw) [### Nicoletta Commins ](/people/nicoletta-commins) Nicoletta is a PhD student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) program. She received an MPH in Epidemiology from UC Berkeley, where she first became interested in microbial genomics. Her research in the Farhat lab focuses on the evolution and... ![Nicoletta Commins](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/nicolettac.jpg?itok=8E3Ia8PE) [### Avika Dixit, MBBS MPH ](/people/avika-dixit-mbbs-mph) Postdoctoral Fellow in Pediatric Infectious Diseases Avika is a pediatric infectious disease fellow at Boston Children's Hospital with training in public health and bioinformatics. Throughout her medical career, she have witnessed firsthand the scourge of tuberculosis that drives her passion for research in... ![Avika Dixit, MBBS, MPH](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/adixit_01.jpg?itok=ex9OPVFu) [### Akshith "Sonny" Doddi ](/people/akshith-sonny-doddi-0)Former Research Fellow Current Position: MD candidate University of Virginia Medical School ![sonny](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/doddi.jpg?itok=p6N4x_b4) [### Jessica El Halabi, MD ](/people/jessica-el-halabi) [jessica\_elhalabi@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:jessica_elhalabi@hms.harvard.edu)Postdoctoral Fellow Current Position: Resident in Internal Medicine, the Cleveland Clinic During my clinical years as a medical student, I got to learn a lot about the importance of data science and its impact on medicine. I was driven into the field of biomedical... ![Jessica_photo](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/jessica_photo.jpg?itok=OQMvFHJC) [### Gabriel Fregoso ](/people/gabriel-fregoso) Scholar in Medicine Current Position: Resident in Anesthesia Massachusetts General Hospital Gabriel is a Harvard Medical student working on chart review of patients with non-tuberculosis mycobacterial pulmonary infections. His hope is to better understand how these patients... ![gabriel_fregoso](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/gabriel_photo.jpg?itok=hPwmwZyn) [### Luca Freschi, PhD ](/people/luca-freschi) [luca\_freschi@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:luca_freschi@hms.harvard.edu)Postdoctoral Fellow in Biomedical Informatics Expected Position: European Centers for Disease Control A bioinformatician who fell in love with evolutionary biology. He enjoys using cutting-edge computational tools to study how microbial genomes work and evolve. Further, he loves to teach! He joined... ![luca](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/freschiedited.png?itok=c3yv-coO) [### Monica Iram ](/people/monica-iram) [monica\_iram@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:monica_iram@hms.harvard.edu) Current Position: applied math major at University of Minnesota. Monica is a mathematical biology major specializing in genomics with minors in statistics and computer science at the University of Minnesota. This summer, Monica is combining her interest... ![Monica](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/monica_01.jpg?itok=pzKAe4VM) [### Naomi Rankin ](/people/naomi-rankin) [naomi\_rankin@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:naomi_rankin@hms.harvard.edu) Current Position: Computer science Major at Howard. Naomi is an applied math major, computer science and biology minor at Howard University with a passion for epidemiology and mathematical biology. She is currently working on a clustering epidemiological... ![Naomi](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/naomi.jpg?itok=2JF3MZYz) [### Aya Naji Shnawa, MD ](/people/aya-naji-shnawa-md) Research Collaborator I am a recent medical graduate with a keen interest in public health, particularly in infectious pulmonary agents. I find it incredibly fascinating to combine two fields of very different sciences to serve one purpsoe and discover trends of disease that... ![Aya photo](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/ayalab_photo.jpeg?itok=Vsdpbne5) [### Gunjan Thakur, PhD ](/people/gunkan-thakur) [gunjan\_thakur@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:gunjan_thakur@hms.harvard.edu)Former Postdoctoral Fellow in Biomedical Informatics Current Position: Research scientist at Merck Research Labs ![gunjan_thakur](/sites/g/files/omnuum8161/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/mahafarhat/files/gunjan_photo.jpg?itok=JFlZNxZt)