People

The people behind the methods

The lab is starting a new chapter and building its next team. If you want to work at the boundary of technology development and pediatric oncology, we would love to hear from you.

We are growing

Come build the next generation of single-cell tools with us

With new support in place, we are recruiting scientists at every career stage over the coming year. Early members of a growing lab get unusual ownership: you shape the projects, the methods, and the culture.

See open positions
  • Postdoctoral fellows in single-cell genomics of pediatric leukemia
  • Computational biologists and research data analysts
  • Research scientists and lab professionals in molecular biology and chemistry
  • Graduate, rotation, and undergraduate students
Current members

Who we are

Charles Gawad, MD, PhD

Charles Gawad, MD, PhD

Principal Investigator

Chuck is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford Medicine and a practicing pediatric oncologist. He invented primary template-directed amplification (PTA) and co-founded BioSkryb Genomics. Outside of work he enjoys anything outdoors in the Bay Area and spending time with his family.

Veronica Gonzalez-Pena, PhD

Veronica Gonzalez-Pena, PhD

Basic Life Research Scientist

Veronica received her PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Arizona. In the lab she is passionate about working out the details of new biotechnology methods. In her free time she enjoys gardening and spending time with her family.

Alumni

Where they are now

Athena Aragon

Life Science Research Professional

Athena joined the lab in 2021 after earning her bachelor's in Human Biology at UC Santa Cruz and worked on single-cell sequencing of pediatric leukemia and neural tissue. She is now a PhD student at UC Davis.

Yakun Pang, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow · 2018–2024

Yakun received her PhD in Internal Medicine (Hematology) from Peking Union Medical College. In the lab she studied pediatric acute leukemia with single-cell genomic and transcriptomic sequencing and led the longitudinal clonal evolution study of pediatric ALL. She is now a Staff Scientist at UT San Antonio.

Kartika Wardhani, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Kartika received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Sydney and worked on new single-cell chemistry in the lab. She is now a Staff Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories.

David Klein

Research Data Analyst

David received a BA in Biology from NYU and an MS in Biomedical Sciences from Tufts, then worked on computational analysis of single-cell and cell-free sequencing data. After medical school at the California University of Science and Medicine, he is now an internal medicine resident at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.

Brandon Cai

Life Science Research Professional

Brandon studied Molecular and Cell Biology and Public Health at UC Berkeley and worked on single-cell data analysis in the lab. He is now an MD/PhD student at NYU.

Shawn Schulz

Research Data Analyst

Shawn majored in Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley and applied data science to the lab's -omic data. He is now an MS student in Computational Biology at UC Berkeley.

Syahmi Ali Mohd Rizal

Undergraduate Researcher

Stanford undergraduate in engineering who worked on emerging medical technologies in the lab.

Vibhu Agarwal, PhD

Computational Scientist · 2020–2021

Vibhu received his PhD in Biostatistics from Stanford. He developed the e-nose AI analytics in the lab before becoming Senior Director of Data Science at Medidata Solutions.

Yuntao Xia, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow · 2019–2021

Yuntao received his PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from UPenn. He developed single-cell and cell-free sequencing protocols and pipelines before becoming a Senior Scientist at Orchid Health.

Sivaraman Natarajan, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow · 2015–2019

Siva received his PhD in Neuroscience from Universität des Saarlandes. He helped develop several new single-cell and cell-free DNA sequencing protocols before becoming a Staff Scientist at St. Jude.

Rob Carter, PhD

Computational Scientist · 2016–2019

Rob received his PhD in Biology from the University of Ottawa. He led the development of the lab's computational pipelines, then joined BioSkryb Genomics as Director of Bioinformatics.

Anju Cherian

Research Technologist · 2019

Anju received her MS in Biomedical Research from the Morehouse School of Medicine and worked on single-cell sequencing methods. She continued as a technician at St. Jude when the lab moved to Stanford.

Ousman Mahmud, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow · 2017–2018

Ousman received his PhD in Genetics from the University of Georgia. He built computational pipelines for cell-free and single-cell sequencing before becoming a Genomics Bioinformatician at IBM Watson Health.

Yuki Inaba

Research Technologist · 2017–2018

Yuki received a BS from Brown and worked on cell-free DNA sequencing before entering the MD/PhD program at UT Southwestern.

Morgan Carter

Pediatric Oncology Education Program · 2016

Morgan developed methods for single-cell mitochondrial sequencing as an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, then received an NCI Cancer Research Training Award to continue at NIH.

Ian Nykaza

Pediatric Oncology Education Program · 2017

Ian learned single-cell sequencing as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, worked as a clinical coordinator at UCSF, and entered medical school at Cornell.

Sarah Youssef

MS Student · 2016–2018

Sarah completed her MS in Pharmacology as a Fulbright Scholar studying cell-free DNA sequencing, then returned to Cairo as a lead pharmacist at the Children's Cancer Hospital Egypt.

Greg Schwing

Pediatric Oncology Education Program · 2015

Greg studied barcoding and single-cell sequencing of leukemia samples as an undergraduate at the University of New Orleans before entering the MD/PhD program at Wayne State University.

Shelby Lane

Medical Student Researcher · 2015

Shelby studied single-cell sequencing of leukemia samples before starting medical school at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

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We are hiring now and welcome applicants at every career stage.

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