Team

Shi Fang received her Bachelor of Science in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Sun Yat-sen University before joining the Ph.D. program in Pharmacology at the University of Iowa in 2016. In Dr. Curt Sigmund’s lab, Shi completed her thesis which was focused on understanding the molecular and physiological function of an atypical Rho GTPase in hypertension and arterial stiffness.

Shi is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Rajat Gupta’s lab at the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine and Genetics in Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where she studies genetic variants in cardiovascular diseases.

Research Interest

• Cardiovascular diseases
• Vascular biology
• Genetic variants
• Genomic editing

Helen Kang is a Ph.D. student in the Computational and Systems Biology program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She aspires to use computational and experimental methods to uncover key cellular processes that drive cardiovascular disease. Previously, Helen studied the genetic underpinnings of coronary artery disease (CAD) in Dr. Jesse Engreitz’s laboratory at Stanford University. She co-led a team to create an approach, Variant-to-Gene-to-Program (V2G2P), to systematically study CAD and to understand new disease-associated pathways. Helen obtained a Bachelor of Arts in applied mathematics and molecular and cellular biology from the University of California, Berkeley. Outside of research, Helen enjoys traveling, hiking in nature, exploring museums, and listening to classical music.

Lily (she/her) is a graduate student in the Gupta Lab. She studies the effects of vascular disease-associated mutations in their endogenous genomic context using precision genome editing tools. Lily is a former member of David R. Liu’s lab, where she investigated potential therapeutic applications of base and prime editors. Lily is supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Lily has also received Harvard GSAS’ Graduate Prize Fellowship, an internal fellowship recognizing a select group of PhD students who show exceptional promise.

Prior to joining the Gupta lab, Lily received scientific tutelage at the NIH and Wellesley College in the labs of Cheryl Winkler, Christopher Arumainayagam, Dora Carrico-Moniz, and Jeremy Wilmer. Lily graduated from Wellesley College with a BA and departmental honors in Chemistry. While at Wellesley, she received several awards for her research and coursework in Chemistry. These include the Eleanor R. Webster Prize in Chemistry, which is given based on truly excellent research in Chemistry, and was awarded to Lily for her thesis work on antiproliferative activities of natural product derivatives for use as anticancer agents.

Aaron Hakim, MS, MD is a third year fellow in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is interested in the genetics and genomics of chronic metabolic disease.

William Schwartzman is a medical student at The Ohio State University College of Medicine conducting a two-year Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Fellowship in the Gupta Lab. Prior to medical school, William obtained a B.S.E in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University. Outside of the lab, he likes to play soccer, lift weights, hike, and spend time with friends.

Jathin is an Undergraduate Researcher in the Gupta Lab working on the genetic causes of Cerebral Cavernous Malformations. He is currently a third year Honors Physiology student at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Outside of the lab, Jathin enjoys origami, reading, and staying active.

Alex is a cardiologist and vascular medicine physician who completed clinical fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  He is interested in how vascular endothelial dysfunction predisposes to thrombotic disorders.  He is completing post-doctoral fellowship research in the laboratory of Samir Parikh at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital.  His interests include applying optogenetics to vascular biology, endothelial age-related dysfunction, and platelet-endothelial interactions.