Meet the team!

Gamze Gürsoy
Principal Investigator
gamze.gursoy at columbia.edu Website Room Number: NYGC 617 / NYP PH20-401AGamze is an assistant professor at the Department of Biomedical Informatics (and in Computer Science) at Columbia University. She was previously a K99/R00 postdoctoral fellow at Computational Biology and Bioinformatics program of Yale University with Mark Gerstein. She obtained her Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from University of Illinois at Chicago under the supervision of Jie Liang and her B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Conor Walker
Postdoctoral Research Associate
cwalker at nygenome.org Room Number: NYGC 623AConor is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the lab. He completed his PhD in bioinformatics under the supervision of Nick Goldman at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the University of Cambridge. Broadly he is interested in statistical and machine learning methods for interpreting human genetic variation. He is currently exploring privacy-preserving methods for analysing single-cell RNA sequencing data.

Seungwan Hong
Postdoctoral Research Associate
shong at nygenome.org Room Number: NYGC 624BSeungwan is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the lab. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Mathematical Science, Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea, advised by Prof. Jung Hee Cheon. His main research topics are practical aspects of cryptosystems, including homomorphic encryption and privacy-preserving machine learning applications.

Gediminas Drabavicius
Postdoctoral Research Associate
gdrabavicius at nygenome.org Room Number: NYGC 623DGediminas “Gedas” is a joint postdoctoral research associate between Gürsoy and Sanjana labs at New York Genome Center. Earlier, he completed a dual PhD degree in Biochemistry (under Prof. Virginijus Siksnys) and Biomedical Sciences (under Prof. Dirk Daelemans) between Vilnius University in Lithuania and KU Leuven in Belgium. Currently, he is interested in using genome and transcriptome engineering tools to understand the role and the impact of genome organization in cellular senescence. In his spare time, Gedas enjoys reading, specialty coffee, obscure conversations, and Oxford commas.

Anoushka Joglekar
Postdoctoral Research Associate
ajoglekar at nygenome.org Room Number: NYGC 626CAnoushka is a postdoctoral associate in the lab. She obtained her PhD from Weill Cornell Medicine where she worked with Dr. Hagen Tilgner on uncovering patterns of alternative splicing in the brain at a single cell resolution. She wants to understand how nuclear architecture works in tandem with other processes to produce vast heterogeneity in cellular function.

Kirill Nikitin
Postdoctoral Research Associate
knikitin at nygenome.org Room Number: NYGC 624CKirill is a postdoctoral research associate in the lab. Previously, he completed his PhD in computer science at EPFL, advised by Bryan Ford, and worked as a postdoc with Vitaly Shmatikov at Cornell Tech. Having specialized in protecting communication privacy and data retrieval, Kirill now strives to build real-world solutions for privacy-preserving analysis and sharing of genomic data. During his leisure time, he enjoys going to theatre plays, learning bachata, and dining in outer boroughs.

Ahmed Elhussein
PhD Student
ae2722 at cumc.columbia.edu Room Number: NYGC 626AAhmed is a PhD student in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University. He completed his BA at Cambridge University, MBBS (MD equivalent) at Oxford University and MPH at Johns Hopkins University. He is interested in developing privacy-preserving computational methods in clinical informatics.

Annie Choi
PhD Student
yc3972 at cumc.columbia.edu Room Number: NYGC 626BAnnie is a PhD student at the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) program of Columbia University. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology from Princeton University. She likes to watch movies and go on scenic walks.

Jacob Blindenbach
PhD Student
jb4816 at columbia.edu Website Room Number: NYGC 623BJacob is a PhD student at the Computer Science department of Columbia University. He graduated from UVA with a BS in Math and CS. He loves swimming and analyzing swimming technique with CS. He also enjoys ragtime / stride piano.

Carlos Angel
PhD Student
carlos.angel at columbia.edu Room Number: NYGC 624CCarlos is a Pharmacology PhD student in Columbia University and jointly mentored by Chao Lu at Columbia Genetics. He obtained my BS in Genomic Sciences (Bioinformatics) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His research interests lay in developing computational methods to understand how mutations and disease alter genome topology and epigenetic patterns. Outside the lab you can find him at the gym, listening to kpop or finding new coffee shops in NYC.

Abigail Newbury
PhD Student
amn2217 at cumc.columbia.edu Room Number: NYGC 6th Floor Pod BAbby is a PhD student in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University. She graduated from UVA with a BA in math and a double minor in biology and data science. In her free time she enjoys running, hiking, and listening to podcasts.

Rashid Al-Abri
PhD Student
ralabri at nygenome.org Room Number: NYGC 624ARashid is PhD student in Computer Science at Columbia. He obtained his BS in Computer Science from Stanford University. He is interested in 3D genome, repeat DNA and its regulatory role in the genome. He is an avid cook in the kitchen, and writes spoken word poetry in his free time.

Melanie Nijs
Visiting PhD Student
mnijs at nygenome.org Room Number: NYGC 6th Floor Pod AMelanie is a PhD student from STADIUS – KU Leuven doing a six month research visit at the G2Lab. She obtained a B.Sc. in Computer Science and a M.Sc. in Mathematical Engineering both at KU Leuven and her research focusses on unsupervised machine learning algorithms for omics data. At the G2Lab, she will be investigating factorization algorithms for Hi-C and single cell RNA sequencing data.

Will Lounsbery-Scaife
Master's Student
wfl2113 at cumc.columbia.edu Room Number: NYGC 6th Floor Pod AWill is a master’s student in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University in the fall of 2022. He obtained his bachelor’s degree at NYU, majoring in Biology and minoring in Computer Science. After graduating, he took a break from biology to work as a cook on a sailboat for a year.

Nick Hayes
Master's Student
nh2740 at cumc.columbia.edu Room Number: NYGC 6th Floor Pod ANick is a Master’s student in the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) at Columbia University. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is interested in computational modeling and has worked as an engineer in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries for several years.

Chris Allsman
Master's Student
cja2172 at cumc.columbia.eduChris is an MA student in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University. They received their BA in Computer Science at UC Berkeley, and have since worked as a software engineer developing tools for application security testing. Outside of school and work, you can find Chris getting a little too passionate about baking, computer science education, and 20th century avant-garde music.