Alina Isakova

As a Director of the Brain Resilience Laboratory, Alina Isakova oversees the laboratory operations and the research projects conducted under the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience. She leads the Initiative’s effort in creating a detailed molecular map of human brain aging and identifying physiological pathways toward brain resilience. A physicist by training, Alina has a track record of building and integrating a diverse toolbox spanning genomics, proteomics, microscopy, microfluidics, and automation. She has broad expertise in molecular biology, neurosciences, bioengineering, and data analytics. Alina earned her Ph.D. in Biotechnology and Bioengineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Prior to joining Knight Initiative, Alina did her postdoc with Professor Stephen Quake at Stanford University.

Ahmet Coskun

Dr. Coskun is a Bernie-Marcus Early-Career Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. Dr. Coskun is a systems biotechnologist and bioengineer, working at the nexus of multiplexed cell imaging and quantitative tissue biology. Dr. Coskun directs an interdisciplinary research team at the Single Cell Biotechnology and Spatial Omics Laboratory. Previously, Dr. Coskun was an Instructor at Stanford University. Dr. Coskun received his postdoctoral training from the California Institute of Technology. He holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a recipient of the NIH R35 MIRA Award 2023, BMES-CMBE Rising Star Award 2023, American Lung Association Innovation Award 2022, and Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: Class of 1934 CIOS Award, among other research and teaching awards. In addition, he leads outreach programs to engage K12 students and undergraduate students through BioCrowd Studio, an innovative crowd-sourcing program bringing together interactive virtual media, distributed biokits, and collaborative spatial discovery.

Alice Wan

Zhuoya Wan, PhD has expertise in muti-omics single cell sequencing and spatial transcriptomics, and uses these cutting-edge omics data to facilitate target discovery and biomarker development across different therapeutic areas (Immunology, Neuroscience, Oncology, and Eye Care). She is a seasoned computational biologist, with hands-on experience and deep understanding of wet lab experiments and technologies. She has broad knowledge in bioinformatics, drug delivery, immunology, and chemistry and is the author or co-author of over 25 peer-reviewed articles or book chapters.

Michael Surace

Alexander Xu

I am an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland. I was recently an instructor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Associate Director of the Spatial Molecular Profiling Shared Resource. I study the spatial biology of tumor systems using highly multiplexed single cell -omics technologies. My training has also focused on engineering platforms and algorithms to interpret complex biological systems. I have worked extensively in both RNA and protein analysis, and my technologies have been applied in specific disease settings in cancer and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as different biological systems such as glycosylation or metabolism. My research focus and community engagements are also focused on emphasizing the importance of spatial biology, and I organize a yearly symposium on spatial biology attended by 300+ local scientists as well as a biweekly seminar series. As an early career scientist, I have been awarded the Tower Cancer Research Career Development Grant in Translational Cancer Research and the NCATS UCLA CTSI KL2 Scholar Award.

Jiwoon Park

Jiwoon Park is a Postdoctoral Associate at Harvard Medical School and Weill Cornell Medicine, and a member of the laboratories of Drs. George Church and Christopher Mason. She specializes in combining experimental and computational approaches to model molecular and physiological dynamics of human health. Jiwoon earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering from The Cooper Union in 2017. During her Ph.D. in Physiology, Biophysics, and Systems Biology at Cornell University under the mentorship of Dr. Charles Rice, she developed stem cell-derived and computational models to investigate liver diseases and regeneration. Jiwoon now leads the Spatial Atlas of Human Anatomy (SAHA) project, a pioneering initiative that sets spatial transcriptomics and proteomics standards. She has been incorporating advanced machine-learning techniques for analyzing and integrating multiple organs, focusing on immune microenvironment interactions in various physiological states. Her work has been published in many peer-reviewed journals and widely recognized with awards and fellowships from several organizations, including MOGAM, the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA), and the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Tatiana Novitskaya

Dr. Tatiana Novitskaya is a scientist with broad expertise in biomedical research and deep knowledge of disease pathogenesis, tissue biomarkers, discovery, and translational research. She holds degrees in Laboratory Medicine and Pathophysiology and completed her postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Throughout her career, Dr. Novitskaya has applied histopathology techniques to projects spanning oncology, cardiology, nephrology, metabolic and fibrotic disorders, and developmental biology. She co-developed a novel strategy for multiplexed tissue staining using photo-cleavable chemistry, adopted numerous advanced Spatial Omics technologies for R&D, devised image analysis pipelines, and led efforts to establish validation methods in Spatial Biology. Dr. Novitskaya is a co-inventor on two patent applications for innovative computational approaches to the analysis of spatially resolved multiplexed samples. Her interests include quality control in spatial biology, 3D pathology, and methods to assess biological heterogeneity.

Nicholas Dove

Nicholas Dove is a Bioinformatician at Mayo Clinic in Florida. Nicholas completed his Ph.D. in 2019 at the University of California, Merced, before conducting a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Before joining Mayo Clinic, Nicholas spent several years at various biotech startups, focusing on data science and bioinformatics. Nicholas is most excited about developing generalized software solutions that increase the pace of discover regardless of the specific biological question at-hand. Outside of the office, Nicholas can generally be found outdoors, usually on one of his bicycles.

Amos Lee

Amos Chungwon Lee is a highly accomplished engineer, scientist, and entrepreneur specializing in bioengineering and spatial omics technologies. He holds a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Seoul National University, complemented by a B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley. As CEO and co-founder of Meteor Biotech, he drives innovation in spatial omics for medical applications. His academic journey includes notable research in spatial transcriptomics and targeted genomics, resulting in high-impact publications and awarded patents. Amos has contributed significantly to the fields of synthetic biology, DNA nanotechnology, and cancer genomics, collaborating with global research teams and co-founding companies to advance healthcare solutions. Recognized with awards for his pioneering research, he actively participates in conferences and advisory boards, bridging the gap between scientific research and commercialization for cutting-edge biotechnologies.

Deidre Dalmas

Kimberly Smythe

Kimberly Smythe leads the Translational Pathology core at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, focusing on spatial proteomics through multiplex and high-plex immunohistochemistry, with a special interest in immuno-oncology. After working in cancer immunology at the bench and transitioning to HIV vaccine research, she discovered her passion for spatial proteomics while playing a key role in establishing Akoya’s Opal multiplex IHC platform (later rebranded as PhenoImager) at Fred Hutch. Later, she took on CODEX (rebranded as PhenoCycler) and is currently exploring ways to incorporate spatial transcriptomics into a more comprehensive spatial omics framework. These advancements include leveraging her image analysis expertise in collaboration with pathologists and bioinformaticians to generate new analysis workflows.

Tullia Bruno

Tullia C. Bruno, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh and a faculty member in the Tumor Microenvironment Center and the Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Program at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. She obtained her Ph.D. in Immunology from Johns Hopkins in 2010 and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado in 2015—both with a focus in tumor immunology. While Dr. Bruno’s PhD training focused on inhibitory receptors on intertumoral T cells, she became interested in the role of B cells and tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) in the tumor microenvironment (TME) during her postdoctoral fellowship and has built her independent research program around understanding intertumoral B cell and TLS function in multiple human cancers and physiologically relevant murine models. Because Dr. Bruno’s research lab has an overt focus on studying immunity within cancer patients, her research is highly translational with the potential for future clinical trials targeting B cells and TLS. Finally, given Dr. Bruno’s cutting-edge work on analyzing TLS with multispectral imaging and spatial transcriptomics, she is becoming an emerging leader for spatial biology techniques. Dr. Bruno is actively involved in the UPMC Hillman community, and is an advocate for women in science, as is evidenced by her previous role as chair of the UPMC Hillman Women’s Initiatives Taskforce and her contributions to the Society of Immunotherapy’s Women in Immunotherapy group.

Yajing Xu

Yajing Xu is a Scientist in Digital Pathology at Genmab, specializing in image analysis of IHC and multiplexed fluorescent images to explore drug mechanisms of action and patient response in clinical trials. She applies advanced spatial analysis techniques to extract quantitative insights that bridge pathology, immunology, and oncology research. Previously, she worked as a neuroscientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and University College London, where she developed expertise in advanced microscopy and open-source image analysis tools like Fiji, QuPath, and Python.

Abhishek Aggarwal

Abhishek Aggarwal leads the Tissue based Emerging Technologies function within the Research Pathobiology group at Gilead Sciences in Foster City, California. Before joining Gilead Sciences, Dr. Aggarwal received his Master’s degree from Newcastle University (UK) in Medical Genetics, his PhD from Medical University of Vienna (Austria) in Cancer Biology and completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University (USA) studying deregulated pathways that have implications in obesity and cancer. He has since worked in the pharmaceutical industry with OncoMed Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer Inc. overseeing tissue-based biomarker strategies. At Gilead Sciences, he leads a group focused on digital pathology using emerging and multiplexing technologies across diverse therapeutic areas spanning virology, inflammation, and oncology.

John Hickey

John is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. His lab is composed of a diverse set of engineers and scientists solving health problems by using and developing systems biology tools and technologies to describe and control spatial relationships between cells in tissues. John completed his postdoctoral training in Garry Nolan’s lab at Stanford University and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University with Dr. Jonathan Schneck and Hai-Quan Mao. John has been recognized by a number of organizations for his work including receiving: American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship, NCI Postdoctoral Fellowship, ARCS Scholar, Siebel Scholar, and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

David Gallegos

Marina Bleck

Jay Nakamura Clark

Jay Nakamura Clark is the Associate Director of Sales at Stellaromics, where he leads commercial strategy and customer engagement for Pyxa—the first platform to enable true 3D spatial genomics. Jay brings experience launching the previous generation of spatial technologies and is now focused on bringing 3D spatial analysis to the research market. Prior to Stellaromics, he held roles at Illumina, Arima Genomics, and NanoString Technologies.