Sarbjit Birdi
Aug 2017 - Dec 2019, Research Intern
Sarbjit is currently pursuing her MD at the University of Rochester - School of Medicine and Dentistry. She was previously a senior Macaulay Honors student at Hunter College (pre-med track) and completed her last semester through the “Study Abroad Program” at Costa Rica!
During her time at the Schwartz Lab, Sarbjit worked extensively on a project that aims at optimizing hepatocyte and stromal cell interactions in 3D system.
Jiwoon Park
Aug 2015 - Jul 2019, Research Technician & Lab Manager
Jiwoon is currently a PhD Graduate Student at Weill Cornell Medicine.
She joined the Schwartz lab as a Junior in 2015 and worked with primary and iPS-derived human hepatocytes to better model liver physiology. She completed her undergraduate and master’s degree studies in chemical and biomedical engineering at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.
Angela Frankel
Jun 2014 - Jul 2017, Research Technician & Lab Manager
Angela is currently an MD/MPH Candidate at Tufts University School of Medicine.
One of Angie's areas of focus in the Schwartz Lab included optimizing differentiation of pluripotent stem cells to hepatocyte-like cells for use in modeling liver diseases such as Hepatitis B and Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Previously, Angie graduated with honors from Harvard University, concentrating in Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology.
Sameen Belal
Nov 2014 - May 2018, Undergraduate Intern
Sameen is currently enrolled at the NYU medical School.
He joined the Schwartz Lab as a sophomore at NYU, majoring in Biochemistry. He is a self described Coca Cola enthusiast and spends most of his time watching reruns of Scrubs and Jake and Amir, hoping someday to mesh the personalities of his two favorite characters together to become the perfect combination of John Dorian and Amir Blumenfeld. When he is not bothering Angie, Sameen can be found supporting lab experiments and honing new techniques.
Osaze Udeagbala
Sep 2014 - May 2015, Research Intern
Osaze is currently an MD/MBA Candidate at the NYU School of Medicine and MIT Sloan School of Management
As a Research Associate at the Schwartz Lab, he created 2D and 3D constructs of hepatocyte models and assessed their viability as a scale-up strategy for developing liver organoids via wet lab assays (primarily ELISA) and fluorescent microscopy.
Douglas Macpherson
Jan 2015 - Jun 2016, Research Intern
Doug is currently a PhD Candidate at the City University of New York (CUNY).
He joined the Dr. Rein V. Ulijn Lab as an M.S. student at CUNY and worked in collaboration with the Schwartz Lab for his thesis that was focused on developing Synthetic functionalized scaffolds for culture and maintenance of primary human hepatocytes.
Vikas Gupta, MD/PhD
Jan 2018 - June 2021, MD-PhD
Dr. Gupta is currently a physician-scientist at the Yale School of Medicine.
Dr. Gupta joined the lab as a gastroenterology fellow. He received is MD-PhD from Duke University. He completed his Internal Medicine Residency at Massachusetts General Hospital before coming to New York to study lineage relationships between different liver mesenchymal cells.
Raichel Philip
Nov 2018 - May 2022, Research Intern
Raichel is currently an MD student at SUNY Downstate.
Raichel joined the lab as a Macaulay Honors student at Hunter College (pre-med track). Her work involved optimizing hepatocytes co-cultures with other stromal supporting cells.
Chanel Richardson, PhD
Aug 2014 - July 2021, Doctoral Candidate
Chanel is currently an investment banking associate at Morgan Stanley.
Chanel is the first student of the Schwartz lab. She joined as a doctoral candidate in Pharmacology at WCM and attained her undergraduate degree at CCNY City College. In 2021, Chanel founded Beauty Meets Science, where she sought to provide women of color with science-driven information on health and wellness. After her time in the lab, Chanel pursued an MBA at the University of Chicago.
Vasuretha Chandar
July 2019 - April 2022, Research Technician & Lab Manager
Vasuretha is currently a PhD candidate in bioengineering at Northeastern University.
Vasuretha completed her undergraduate studies in Biotechnology from PES University, India. She went on to complete her Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio in 2019 where she won the prestigious Research Fellowship and Travel awards for her contribution to the project on developing a novel non-contact electric field therapy for diabetic wound healing. In the lab, she was involved in developing in vitro platforms using stem cells and tissue engineering in addition to her role as the Lab Manager.
Nora Hassan
April 2022 - April 2023, Research Technician & Lab Manager
Nora is currently an MD candidate at the American University of Antigua College of Medicine.
Nora graduated with her BS in Biochemistry and Psychology from the City College of NY. As an undergrad, she studied SHH signaling pathways at the CUNY School of Medicine Department of Neuroscience. She then pursued a MS in Biology at NYU. In the lab, Nora specialized in mouse models, in addition to her duties as Lab Manager.