Current Lab Members

Michael Gerner, PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Dr. Gerner graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He went on to receive his Ph.D. in Immunology in 2009 from the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. He completed his postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health and joined the University of Washington Department of Immunology as an Assistant Professor in 2015.

Jaime Chao, PhD

POSTDOC, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Jaime received her BA in biology at NYU where she was introduced to cancer immunology research in the lab of Dr. Michelle Krogsgaard. She then worked as a research technician in Dr. Uttiya Basu’s lab, studying the molecular mechanisms of AID activity in activated B cells. Jaime then received her PhD in immunology from the University of Chicago in 2021. Her thesis work focused on understanding the role of regulatory T cells in oral cancer in Dr. Peter Savage’s lab. Jaime joined the Gerner lab as a postdoc in September 2021

Jessica Huang

GRADUATE STUDENT, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Jessica graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Biology from Carleton College in 2014. She then worked as a research specialist in the Ahmed lab at Emory University for the next three years. She joined the immunology department as a graduate student in 2017, and joined the Gerner lab in 2018.

Gabriela Verdezoto

GRADUATE STUDENT, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Gabriela graduated from Bellevue College with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology in 2020. Shen then worked as a research associate in the Subramanian lab at the Institute for Systems Biology. She joined the immunology department as a graduate student in 2022 and joined the Gerner lab in 2023.

Elya Shamskhou

GRADUATE STUDENT, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Elya graduated from Occidental College with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Biochemistry in 2014. He then went on to pursue teaching as a high school chemistry teacher in the Bay Area, after which he joined the De Jesus Perez Lab at Stanford University as a technician from 2016 – 2019. Elya joined the Department of Immunology in 2019 as a graduate student, and has been co-mentored by the Urdahl and Gerner labs since 2020.

Michael Conlon

GRADUATE STUDENT, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Michael graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Cell Biology & Genetics with a minor in Geology from the University of Maryland in 2015. He went on to complete a post-baccalaureate NIH IRTA fellowship in the Harris lab within NIAID. He joined the immunology department as a graduate student in 2018 and joined the Gerner lab in 2019.

Ada de la Cruz

RESEARCH SCIENTIST/LAB MANAGER, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Ada graduated from the University of Washington Bothell in 2021 with their Bachelor's of Science degree in Biology. As an undergrad, they joined the Hillesland Lab from 2020-2022. They joined the Gerner Lab in April 2022; they currently help run experiments and confocal imaging related to M. tuberculosis granulomas in mice and human models.

Samantha Lei

RESEARCH ASSISTANT, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Samantha is a current undergraduate student at the University of Washington with plans to graduate in 2026. She is looking to major in Microbiology.

Samantha joined the Gerner Lab September 2023 and currently helps with lab, mouse colony, and genotyping upkeep.

Former Lab Members, Trainees, and Collaborators

Evelyn Cheng

RESEARCH TECHNICIAN/SCIENTIST, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Evelyn graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor of science in Biology: Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental in 2022. She joined the Gerner Lab as a student assistant in October 2021, and transitioned into working as a Research Technician while also assisting with projects in the lab

Miranda Lyons-Cohen, PhD

DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Miranda graduated in 2014 with her bachelor of arts in Biology from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. She went on to complete a post-baccalaureate fellowship at the National Institute of Environmental Health Siences. She joined the immunology department as a graduate student in 2017, and joined the Gerner lab in 2018. She graduated with her PhD in December 2023. She went on to work as a post doc in the York Lab in the Department of Immunology.

Ben Gern, MD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF PEDIATRICS, SEATTLE CHILDREN'S

Ben received his MD from the University of Wisconsin in 2013. He completed his pediatric residency at Oregon Health and Science University in 2016. He started in the Gerner and Urdahl labs during his Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship with Seattle Children’s and the University of Washington from 2016. He started his own lab at Seattle Children’s in 2023, using cutting edge imaging and immunologic techniques to study host pathogen interactions within the tuberculosis granuloma.

Karan Kohli, PhD

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Karan graduated with a Masters in Biotechnology from Texas A&M University in 2010. He completed his PhD at the Hannover Medical School Institute of Immunology in 2016. He joined the Gerner Lab as a postdoc in 2017. He went on to work with the Pollack Lab at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Pillarisetty Lab in the UW Department of Surgery.

Jakub Filipek

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT, DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

Jakub is graduating from the University of Washington with a bachelor of science in Computer Science in 2021. He worked in Gerner Lab during his sophomore year and is planning on continuing pursuing cross-disciplinary research opportunities.

Yajun Wu, MS

GRADUATE STUDENT, DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Yajun graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2013. She worked with the Gerner Lab as a student assistant from 2019-2020. She completed her Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington in June of 2020, and went on to an internship with Wyze.

Ashley Joss

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT, DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMISTRY

Joey Leal, PhD

SCIENTIST, HDT BIO

Joey graduated in 2014 with his bachelor of science in Microbiology from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. He went on to complete a post-baccalaureate NIH PREP fellowship at ASU. He joined the immunology department as a doctoral student in 2015, joined the Gerner lab in 2016, and earned his PhD in April 2021. Joey is currently a Scientist at HDT Bio, a biotech startup in Seattle, working on RNA vaccine development as well as antiviral and cancer therapeutics.

Caleb Stoltzfus, PhD

WASHINGTON RESEARCH FOUNDATION POSTDOCTORAL SCHOLAR, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

In 2016 Dr. Stoltzfus graduated with a PhD in Physics from Montana State University, where he worked on two-photon imaging and spectroscopy in the Rebane lab. He then worked as a research scientist for a year at Spectrum Lab developing micro-optical devices.  He joined the Gerner Lab as a postdoc in September of 2017. After developing the CytoMAP image analysis toolkit software for the Gerner Lab, he joined Lightspeed Microscopy as a principal engineer in 2021.

Isabel Silva

RESEARCH TECHNICIAN, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Jasmine Wilson, PhD

POST DOCTORAL SCHOLAR, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Jaz graduated with a Bachelor of Advanced Science from the University of Adelaide in 2015. During her Masters of Philosophy (Immunology) and PhD at The University of Adelaide in Australia, Jaz worked both on engineering adult derived stem cells to target the inflamed CNS and B cell metabolism. Jaz also worked as a research associate in the Robinson Research institute in Adelaide, Australia for two years to identify immunological dysfunction during human infertility and miscarriage. She then joined the Gerner lab as a postdoc in March 2020. 

Yixuan Wu, PhD

POST DOCTORAL SCHOLAR, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Yixuan graduated with a BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago in 2012, and then worked for a year at the Institute of Medical Biology in Singapore. He graduated with a PhD from the Biomedical Sciences program at the University of California, San Francisco in 2019, during which time he worked on light sheet imaging of beige fat development in Ajay Chawla’s lab. He then joined the Gerner lab as a postdoc in February 2020.

Ramya Sivakumar, PhD

POST DOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Ramya graduated with a MS in Biomedical Engineering from University of Florida in 2011. She went on to complete her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the same school by focusing on Autoimmunity for her dissertation. In 2017, she joined Fred Hutch as a Postdoctoral Fellow and worked on tumor microenvironment research in the Gujral lab. After 2 years of training, Ramya joined the Gerner lab as a Senior Fellow in September 2019.

Michelle Messmer, PhD

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

In 2013, Dr. Messmer graduated with a PhD in Immunology from the University of Pittsburgh, where she worked on identifying myeloid targets for heat shock protein based vaccines in the Binder lab. She then worked for three years as a research fellow at Roswell Park Cancer Institute investigating tumor induced myeloid dysfunction in the bone marrow in the Abrams lab. Dr. Messmer joined the Gerner lab in October of 2016, as a joint appointment with the Oberst lab, to elucidate immune responses to dying cells in the settings of vaccines and cancer.

Brandy Olin

LAB MANAGER, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOLOGY

Brandy graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Cell, Molecular, and Developmental Biology from the University of Washington in 2014. She joined Dr. Gerner's Lab in 2016.