People

Aarti Jajoo, PhD | Research Associate

Dr. Jajoo is a research associate at NG-TBL since October 2021. She is also a research associate in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a Staff Scientist at the National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH, and an affiliate member of the Broad Institute. Dr. Jajoo’s research is focused on developing mathematical and statistical tools to facilitate bioinformatics advancements. In the lab, she is involved in developing pipelines and machine learning models concerning multi-omic data, with the ultimate goal of better understanding psychiatric disorders on the omics level.

Dr. Jajoo received her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Houston, postdoctoral training from Baylor College of Medicine, and worked as a research scientist at Brandeis University before joining NG-TBL.

See publications from Dr. Jajoo:  Google Scholar
Contact: ajajoo@mclean.harvard.edu

Twitter: @jajooaarti

Fun Facts: Birder and loves kayaking.

Serdar Aslan, PhD | Instructor

Dr. Askan is an Assistant Neuroscientist at NG-TBL since February 2022 and is co-mentored by Blaise Frederick. He is also an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an affiliate member of the Broad Institute.

Dr. Aslan works at the intersection of neuroscience, machine learning, deep learning, signals and systems, various mathematical areas, control theory, computational optimal transport graph theory, random matrix theory, and detection and estimation theory. He specializes in various computational techniques. He applies those techniques in brain hemodynamics and fMRI studies. 

As a member of the NG-TBL, he is working on an imaging genomics project. He analyzes big data from UK Biobank and other projects. He derives useful resting state fMRI-derived features and performs neurogenetic modeling.

See publications from Dr. Aslan:  Google Scholar
Contact: saslan@mclean.harvard.edu

Twitter:

Fun Facts: Likes walking

Artemis Iatrou, PhD | Instructor

Dr. Iatrou is an Assistant Neuroscientist at NG-TBL since September 2022. She is also an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an affiliate member of the Broad Institute. Dr. Iatrou’s research focuses on elucidating the multilayer omic structure of psychiatric diseases. She is currently developing computational and statistical methods to explore how stress is implicated in the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders and contributes to disease heterogeneity.

Dr. Iatrou received her Ph.D. in Epigenetics and Neuroscience from Maastricht University, the Netherlands, and postdoctoral training from Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Chicago, IL.

See publications from Dr. Iatrou: Google Scholar
Contact: aiatrou@mclean.harvard.edu

Fun Facts: Artemis enjoys surfing and snowboarding.

Mohammad Sendi, PhD| Research Fellow

Dr. Sendi is an NIMH T32 postdoctoral fellow at NG-TBL and is co-mentored by Kerry Ressler and Diego Pizzagali. He is also a research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and an affiliate of the Broad Institute. Mohammad received his Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University and his Electrical and Computer Engineering Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2022. His research applies machine learning techniques at the interface between neuroscience and genetics to elucidate a link between genetics, brain, and behavior in neuropsychiatric disorders. He developed multiple frameworks to analyze brain network dynamics and identified new biomarkers in depression, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease. His long-term goal is to create personalized therapy based on patient genotype and brain phenotype information in neuropsychiatric disorders.

See publications from Dr. Sendi: Google Scholar

Contact: msendi@mclean.harvard.edu
Twitter: @mo_se_Sendi

Fun facts: Painting, reading novels, fishing, and watching movies.

Athina Aruldass, PhD| Research Fellow

Dr. Aruldass is a postdoc at the NG-TBL since November 2022. Thematically, Athina’s research interests lie at the confluence of body, brain, and behavior – endeavoring to unpack further the distal effects of peripheral systems on brain structure-function, that in turn affect mental states. At the lab, Athina aims to extend her doctoral research on psychoneuroimmunology by integrating multi-omics data (epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics) with clinical presentation (phenomics) in depression and PTSD.

Athina gained a BSc (Hons) in Medical Sciences (Neuroscience) from the University of Edinburgh and an MRes in Experimental Neuroscience (Imperial College London), before completing her Ph.D. in functional neuroimaging studies of inflammation-linked depression at the Brain Mapping Unit, University of Cambridge, UK

Research profile: ORCID
Publications: Google Scholar
Contact: aaruldass@mclean.harvard.edu
Twitter: @athinara23

Fun fact: Athina enjoys writing (and it is her preferred way of communication) – the longest Christmas card she’s written (to date) is 8 A5 pages long!

Marina Soliva Estruch, MSc | Research Fellow (PhD Student)

Marina is a visiting research fellow at NG-TBL since November 2021. She is also an affiliate member of the Broad Institute. This September 1st 2022 she became the first PhD student of the NG-TBL. Her project “Human brain transcriptomic signature of PTSD and MDD due to environmental and genetic factors” studies the impact of trauma timing at the molecular level. She is also interested on the impact of trauma upon the reward system to study the link between trauma and anhedonia. She is focused on the modulating role of epigenetic mechanisms accounting for this relation.

Marina received a BSc in Psychology from the University of Valencia, Spain, and her MSc in Fundamental Neuroscience at Maastricht University, The Netherlands
Contact: msolivaestruch@mclean.harvard.edu

Fun fact: Marina likes extravagant earrings and diving into memes.

Justina Lugenbühl, BSc | Visiting Research Fellow (Internship)

Justina has been a visiting research trainee at NG-TBL since November 2022. She worked with maltreated children at Charité University Hospital in Berlin, Germany. This motivated her to further investigate the biology of stress. She wants to gain a deep understanding of the risk and resilience factors that influence the trajectory from (early) life stress to mental disorders like PTSD and MDD. Specifically, she hopes to identify important epigenetic regulators and molecular pathways. These may reveal biologically distinct subtypes of the presumably same disorder. She hopes that this work will contribute to novel mechanism-informed diagnostics, preventions, and treatments of stress-related disorders.

Justina received a BSc in Psychology from the University of Mannheim, Germany, and is currently finishing her MSc in Fundamental Neuroscience at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. 

Contact: jlugenbuhl@mclean.harvard.edu

Fun fact: Justina’s laugh is funnier than her jokes.

Justina LugenbüChris DiPietro, BSc | Research Data Analyst

Chris DiPietro is a Research Data Research Analyst at NG-TBL since August 2021. He is also an affiliate member of the Broad Institute. He is interested in combining neuroscience and computational techniques to contribute to the understanding of mechanisms and treatment of psychiatric disorders.

Chris received his BSc in Computer Science from the University of Connecticut 

Contact: cdipietro1@mclean.harvard.edu

Fun fact: Chris could beat you at apnea, he can hold his breath for up to 5 minutes.