Prof. Jean Fan

Assistant Professor

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. I was previously an NCI F99/K00 post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Xiaowei Zhuang at Harvard University. I received my PhD in Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics at Harvard under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Kharchenko at the Department of Biomedical Informatics and in close collaboration with Dr. Catherine Wu at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In my free time, I enjoy writing code to forward STEM education. Once in awhile, I try to make time for photography.

Meet the Team

Brendan Miller

Post-doctoral Fellow

I am a post-doctoral researcher recently graduated from the Cellular, Molecular, Developmental Biology and Biophysics Department at Johns Hopkins Univeristy. I was also part of the Graduate Partnership Program between Johns Hopkins University and the National Institutes of Health. During my PhD I developed cancer detection assays based on patterns of DNA methylation in circulating cell-free DNA from blood plasma samples (aka liquid biopsies). I'm excited to integrate my foundational training as a wet lab biologist with computational strategies to help solve fundamental problems in health and disease!

Feiyang Huang

Undergraduate Student

I am a freshman BME undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University. I am interested in exploring the intersection of computational techniques and cell biology.

Gohta Aihara

Undergraduate Student

I am a senior Biomedical Engineering undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University. Throughout my undergraduate studies, I mainly studied immunoengineering and conducted research on T cell-based cancer immunotherapy. I joined JEFWorks Lab because I was fascinated by the application of bioinformatics and data science to the field of biology, especially spatially resolved omics analysis. I am excited to diversify my skillset as a researcher and solve biomedical problems with computational approaches. In my free time, I like to exercise, read, and play video games.

Kalen Clifton

Graduate Student

I am a PhD student in the biomedical engineering program at Hopkins. I am interested in using math and programming to study biological spatial organization. As an undergraduate at William & Mary, I majored in computational and applied math while pursuing research in biology. For a research project in synthetic biology, I characterized the increase in gene expression that can result from using ribozyme insulators in genetic circuits. Currently, I am involved in supporting STEM education and career development through mentoring the Hopkins iGEM team and serving on the executive board of JHU BME EDGE. Also, I enjoy volleyball and visual arts (infrequently via painting; frequently via television).

Lyla Atta

Graduate Student

I am currently an MD-PhD candidate pursuing my PhD in Biomedical Engineering. I am interested systems biology and data science and am excited about how computational and mathematical methods can be used to understand complexity in disease. In my free time, I like to read, paint, and go to art and history museums.

Manjari Anant

Graduate Student

I am a Neuroscience PhD student, coadvised by Dr. Justus Kebschull. I am interested in understanding how the genetic and connectivity patterns of cells in the brain change during development and across species, with a focus on the cerebellar nuclei. In my spare time, I like hiking and exploring Baltimore!

Nikita Sivakumar

Rotation Student

Hi! I'm a first year Biomedical Engineering PhD student. I am fascinated by our growing ability to acquire data at various spatiotemporal scales of biology-- from being able to spatially resolve the expression of thousands of proteins inside individual cells to being able to capture the 3D organization of several tissues in critical organ systems, we can now measure disease-relevant features at the molecular, cellular, tissue, and organ scales. I am interested in applying data-driven and modeling approaches to understand how high-dimensional intracellular data not only translate to cell phenotypes and cell states, but also how this information describes intercellular behaviors such as unique spatial organizations or cell-cell signaling networks. Beyond the lab I am interested in STEM outreach and exploring Baltimore.

Rafael dos Santos Peixoto

Graduate Student

I am a first-year Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student at Hopkins. I recently graduated in Control and Automation Engineering at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil. There, I developed software for the analysis of scRNA-seq and SRT data, which I aim to continue during my doctoral studies. In my personal time, I try to explore places and try new activities.