Meet the Team

Tiffany Amariuta, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Tiffany started her group at UCSD in July of 2022. For more information about her and the research focus of the group, please see the home, about, and publications pages.

Michelle Franc Ragsac, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Scholar

Michelle is a Postdoctoral Scholar with a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics & Systems Biology, where she specialized in studying genomic regulation during embryonic development with large-scale enhancer screens and single-cell RNA-sequencing. After developing large-scale genomics pipelines in the biotechnology industry, she decided to return to academia for a postdoc. She is passionate about exploring the genetic foundations of developmental and childhood diseases. In her free time, she enjoys discovering new restaurants in San Diego and spending time with her Shiba Inu, Yuuki.

Krishna Brunton

Bioengineering Ph.D. Candidate

Krishna is a third-year Ph.D. Candidate from the Department of Bioengineering. He graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2021, where he majored in Biochemistry-Molecular Biology. His current research project focuses on developing methods to identify genome-wide contributions to gene expression regulation, such as evaluating trans-acting expression quantitative trait loci (trans-eQTLs). Krishna’s hobbies include checking out new coffee shops and hiking.

Ziqi Xu

Bioinformatics & Systems Biology Ph.D. Student

Ziqi is a second-year Ph.D. Student in the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (BISB) interdisciplinary graduate program. She is interested in developing computational and statistical methods to understand the genetic contributions to various diseases. Her current project focuses on estimating heritability from single-cell data and investigating co-regulation across genes and cell types using GWAS and single-cell RNA-sequencing data. Ziqi enjoys spending her spare time in dog parks and zoos.

Ishaan Gupta

Computer Science & Engineering Ph.D. Student

Ishaan is a Ph.D. Student from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. He is driven to improve our ability to predict immune responses and disorders in patients, as well as studying how sequence-to-function models can be used to understand the implication of genetic variants in disease. For one project, he is currently using gene expression prediction models to find causal cell types and states in autoimmune disorders and immune cell mechanisms. Another one of his projects is evaluating the potential contributions diploid-formatted inputs may provide to sequence-to-function models. In his free time, Ishaan loves to try food and recipes from across the globe or going hiking.

Xiaoyu Gui

Data Science Ph.D. Student

Xiaoyu is a first-year Ph.D. Student from the Data Science graduate program. She previously joined the lab as a third-year undergraduate student, where she finished her major in Data Science with two minors in General Biology and Mathematics. Her interest lies in leveraging data science techniques to help minimize the gap in health-related discoveries among populations with different ancestry. In her free time, she enjoys taking photos around the city.

Nan Huang

Data Science Ph.D. Student

Nan is a first-year Ph.D. Student from the Data Science graduate program. Like Xiaoyu, she previously joined the lab as a third-year undergraduate student with a double major in Data Science and Math-Economics. She is interested in understanding the genetic basis of childhood asthma, aiming to develop clinical risk models that integrate genetic, transcriptomic, and non-genetic risk factors to enhance early asthma detection and personalized treatment strategies. Outside the lab, Nan enjoys exploring new restaurants, cooking recipes, and different types of music.

Eric Pham

Bioinformatics Undergraduate Student

Eric is a fourth-year undergraduate student double majoring in Data Science and Oceanic & Atmospheric Science. He is interested in the applications of data science for uncovering genetic pathways and building data pipelines for large scale analysis of omics data. In his free time, he enjoys playing tennis, eating good food, and playing video games.

Nichole Mora

Bioinformatics Undergraduate Student

Nichole is a third-year Bioinformatics undergraduate student minoring in Computer Science, where she combines her passion for biology with problem-solving through code. She looks forward to growing her skills in research and technology, and contributing to projects that push the boundaries of science and innovation.

Koyo Tanaka

Bioinformatics Undergraduate Student

Koyo is a second-year Bioinformatics undergraduate student minoring in Computer Science. His interest lies in developing fine-mapping methods and identifying causal variants in multi-ancestry cohorts to better understand the genetic contributions to various diseases. In his free time, Koyo enjoys taking pictures and exploring the great outdoors.

Open Projects and Positions

We are Hiring!!

We are looking to recruit talented graduate students and postdoctoral researchers!

Apply Now!

Lab Alumni

Staff Researchers

  • Alona Khorzhakova, Computational Data Science Researcher (Summer 2023 - Winter 2024)

Graduate Rotation Students

  • Jeremy Parker Yang, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Ph.D. Student (Summer 2025)
  • Christopher Brown, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Ph.D. Student (Winter 2025)
  • Kimberly Spaulding, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Ph.D. Student (Winter 2025)
  • Nicholas Chan, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Ph.D. Student (Spring 2024)
  • Hyrum Eddington, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Ph.D. Student (Winter 2024)
  • Anna Qi, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Ph.D. Student (Summer 2023)
  • Giorgia Nicolaou, Data Science Ph.D. Student (Spring 2023)
  • Benjamin Pham, Data Science Ph.D. Student (Spring 2023; Currently has ongoing collaborations!)

High School & Undergraduate Researchers

  • Stephen Golzari, Bioinformatics Undergraduate Student (Winter 2024 - Spring 2025)
  • Ieva Sereiva, Bioinformatics Undergraduate Student (Winter 2024 - Spring 2025)
  • Kai Akamatsu, Bioinformatics Undergraduate Student (Fall 2022 - Summer 2024)
  • Sujana Sreenivasan, Bioinformatics Undergraduate Student (Winter 2023 - Winter 2024)
  • Sivani Vedula, Bioinformatics Undergraduate Student (Winter 2023 - Winter 2024)
  • Brandon Fuller, DBMI/STARS Summer Program Undergraduate Student (Summer 2024)
  • Pablo Correa Bocardo, ENLACE Summer Research Program Student (Summer 2024)
  • Miranda Cuervo, ENLACE Summer Research Program Student (Summer 2024)
  • Frida Valeria Rivera Lopez, ENLACE Summer Research Program Student (Summer 2024)
  • Keya Patel, ENLACE Summer Research Program Student (Summer 2024)
  • Ciby Lin, Chemistry Undergraduate Student (Winter 2023 - Spring 2023)
  • Nicole Gonzalez, ENLACE Summer Research Program Student (Summer 2023) ​
  • Paulina Montserrath, ENLACE Summer Research Program Student (Summer 2023)