People

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Roby Bhattacharyya, MD PhD

Principal Investigator (2019 - )
As the PI of the Bhattacharyya lab (since 2019), Roby finds himself amazed at how abruptly he went from mainly doing science to mainly thinking, reading, and writing about science while trying to set up his lab members to succeed in actually doing it, and while he still enjoys the chance to wield a pipet here and there, lab members are increasingly surprised to see him doing so. He also attends on the inpatient Infectious Diseases consult service at Massachusetts General Hospital. Broadly, his goal for the lab is to create a friendly, happy, collaborative, and intellectually rigorous environment in which to study the responses of pathogens to antimicrobials, and of humans to infection, with the ultimate aim of improving the care of infected patients.
You can read more about our lab’s philosophy here, and the details of our research projects here or in the descriptions of each lab member below.
Email: rbhatt {at} broadinstitute {dot} org
Bluesky: @roby-b.bsky.social

Pierre Ankomah, MD PhD

Postdoctoral fellow (2020 - )
Pierre was born in Ghana, West Africa, and moved to the Amish wonderland of Lancaster, Pennsylvania for a liberal arts education at Franklin & Marshall College. Afterwards, he sought warmer pastures at Emory University in Atlanta, where he completed a physician-scientist training program with a research focus on within-host microbial population and evolutionary dynamics. He moved to Boston to keep his warm-cold-warm-cold transitions consistent, completing residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and subsequently joining the Mass General Brigham Infectious Diseases (ID) fellowship program.
Currently, in addition to being a clinical ID attending and junior mentored faculty at MGH, Pierre is also a research fellow in the Bhattacharyya lab (jointly with Nir Hacohen’s lab), where he is exploring the effects of host immune responses on infectious syndromes. His current project involves refining our understanding of immune cell signatures that are present at sepsis diagnosis and during the clinical course of the syndrome. To facilitate this, he is using single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) to profile peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) obtained from a clinical cohort comprising patients with sepsis and others with sterile inflammation. By taking advantage of scRNA-seq’s ability to provide resolution that distinguishes between immune cell types and transcriptional subsets within a PBMC population, he is characterizing immune cell abundances and kinetics, including those of potential novel transcriptional states from these patient samples to gain a better understanding of sepsis immunopathogenesis.
Outside of the lab, Pierre lives and breathes soccer, and likes to say he is a professional soccer fan whose career has been blighted by occasional forays into science and medicine. You can reach him at pankomah {at} broadinstitute {dot} org if you have any questions, suggestions, etc.!

David Roach, MD

Postdoctoral fellow (2022 - )
David was born and raised in Washington State with some extensive time spent running feral in Montana when his parents needed a break. After going to college in Helena, MT, he went to medical school and did his residency at the University of Washington in Seattle. Afterwards, he spent two years working as an overnight intensive care physician during Covid and at this point in his life it's pretty tough to ruffle his feathers. He came to Boston to pursue his infectious disease fellowship and splits his time at MGH and Brigham and Women's Hospital doing clinical care. Interestingly, he was in the hospital in Seattle when the first Covid patient was admitted and in the hospital at MGH when the first monkeypox patient was admitted... there seems to be a pattern.

When not being a harbinger of pandemics, he enjoys doing research on antibiotic resistance and is hoping to develop a cost-effective approach to diagnosing highly resistant bacterial infections in low-income areas around the globe, with a focus on Latin America. His research is on *Klebsiella pneumoniae* and the SHERLOCK system, so if you have any tips or tricks on either of those please let him know.
If he is not working you can find him listening to country music, pining for Seattle, and cooking dinner for friends, come join!

Dipesh Solanky, MD

Postdoctoral fellow (2024 - )
Born not too far away in New Jersey but raised quite further away in Arizona, Dipesh studied Genetics/Cell Biology at Arizona State University, received his MD at Mayo Medical School in Minnesota, and completed medicine residency at University of California, San Diego. His interest in molecular biology and ID began in high school as a summer intern at a biomedical research lab helping to design a homegrown, PCR-based assay for detecting *Mycoplasma* infection in pancreatic cancer cell lines. His interest in microbes only multiplied thereafter, working in a lab studying biochemical properties of antimicrobial clay-mineral mixtures during undergrad, and then doing clinical research on *Clostridioides difficile* infection during medical school and residency. He also spent time at the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia, where he helped investigate healthcare-associated outbreaks, implement infection prevention and control programs, and research antibiotic utilization and antimicrobial-resistant Gram-negative bacteria colonization in Latin America.
Dipesh was finally drawn back to the East Coast where he is completing his infectious diseases (ID) fellowship training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham & Women's Hospital here in Boston. His research in the Bhattacharyya Lab draws on his prior experiences to now confront an entirely different pathogen: using the SHERLOCK platform to diagnose high-risk types of HPV.
Outside of work, Dipesh enjoys hiking, cooking, exploring new restaurants in the Boston area, and eating fermented foods.

Alyson Yee, MD PhD

Postdoctoral fellow (2025 - )
Alyson was born in Washington, DC and spent her early days visiting various art and science museums. She first came to Boston for undergraduate at Tufts, where she studied biology and French. She then got to combine these interests on a Fulbright grant to France to work in a cheese lab, studying the aromatic compounds produced by different strains of dairy bacteria. She then attended the University of Chicago for her MD and her microbiology PhD, on the gut microbiome in preterm infants. She trained at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for Emergency Medicine residency and is now a research fellow, working clinical shifts in the Emergency Department at Beth Israel and its affiliated community hospitals. She is delighted to join the Bhattacharyya lab to help unravel the mystery of immune responses in sepsis.
When not in the lab or the hospital, she enjoys running, reading, eating cheese, and visiting museums

Austin Moore, MD PhD

Postdoctoral fellow (2026 - )
Austin was born and raised in Austin, TX and attended The University of Texas at Austin (yes, he knows) before moving to Dallas to attend medical school at UT Southwestern. He completed an MD/PhD focused on fatty liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma, with firm, unshakeable plans to become a pediatric oncologist. After moving to Boston to complete pediatric residency, he saw the light and became fascinated by the field of Infectious Diseases, and he is now a clinical fellow in the Pediatric Infectious Diseases division at Boston Children's Hospital. He is joining the sepsis group in the Bhattacharyya Lab, with an interest in exploring how immune responses in sepsis differ between children and adults.
Outside of the lab and hospital, Austin can be found spending time with his wife and baby-turned-toddler daughter, playing board games, finding excuses to sing and play trumpet, and watching college football.

Jennifer Su, BS

Graduate Student (2024 - )
Jennifer grew up in the Bay Area and completed her undergrad education at UCLA, where she majored in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics. There, she studied the molecular and mechanical basis by which progenitor and stem cells are regulated in the Jimmy Hu lab. Upon graduating in 2021, she ventured out to the East Coast for the first time to work as a research associate in the Tyler Jacks lab across the street at Koch Institute MIT. For two years, she elucidated the transcriptional subtypes of pancreatic cancer and explored the rising field of cancer neuroscience through spatial transcriptomics.
Jennifer is now pursuing her PhD in the Harvard BBS program. Currently, she is interested in uncovering the molecular mechanisms behind the inoculum effect. Despite believing Boston is a food desert (controversial opinion), she enjoys exploring new cafes and restaurants during her free time. Her favorite cafe is Ogawa, which she frequented 39 times the first year she discovered it!

Zoe Pasetsky, BS

Graduate Student (2025 - )
Zoe grew up in Brooklyn, NY and earned her B.S. in Biological Engineering from MIT. As an undergraduate, she conducted research in the Bryson Lab, contributing to the development of a fluorescent reporter to study bacterial cell death within live macrophages. After graduating in 2024, she joined Harvard’s BBS PhD program. In the Bhattacharyya Lab, Zoe is investigating genetic factors in *Klebsiella pneumoniae* that contribute to multidrug resistance. Outside of research, she can be found in the gym training for her next Olympic weightlifting competition!

Leslie Lopez, BS

Research Associate (2024 - )
Leslie grew up in Warminster, PA and graduated from Amherst College with a degree in Biochemistry & Biophysics. Although an aspiring astronomer at first, her interest in microbiology emerged from mentors and teachings in high school and college and she's been exploring weirdly sensible things bacteria do ever since. Now in the Bhattacharyya lab, she's helping investigate the mechanism behind the inoculum effect in carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales. Outside of the lab, Leslie loves hiking western Mass, watching films, and hunting down the ingredients for the best matcha latte.

Aidan Greenaway, BS

Research Associate (2025 - )
Aidan grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and Computational Biology. His undergraduate research in En Cai’s lab involved developing analysis pipelines for the localization of T cell membrane proteins. Leaving the Steel City for Boston, he is joining the Bhattacharyya Lab to continue work on understanding sepsis immunopathogenesis. Outside the lab, Aidan enjoys exploring new areas on walks, listening to all kinds of music (disco is his current obsession), and playing board games with friends.

Fatima Sarfraz, BS

Research Associate (2026 - )
Fatima grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, but spent the last four years in the Garden State attending Princeton University, graduating with a degree in Molecular Biology and a minor in Bioengineering. Her undergraduate research in the Cristea Lab focused on deciphering viral-host mitochondrial protein-protein interactions upon Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) Infection. Now, as a member of the Bhattacharyya lab, she is excited to delve into the world of computational genomics by investigating the immunopathogenesis of sepsis using RNA-seq. Outside of the lab, you’ll find her exploring Boston’s cafes as she works toward her mission of creating a top 100 Boston cafe ranking list and watching basketball in attempts to become a Celtics fan (at the request of a dear friend)!

Shriya Bhat

Undergraduate Researcher (2024 - )
Shriya is from Dallas, TX and is studying Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard College. In high school, she studied the grape-candy smelling bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa and became engrossed in its biofilm forming mechanisms and the secret cross-talk that occurs between different actors in polymicrobial communities. Since then, she has conducted research at various research settings, from academic institutions to biopharma, becoming fascinated by the molecular basis for gene expression and omics and gene-editing technologies. She is currently working with Dr. David Roach to develop rapid bacterial diagnostics using CRISPR-Cas enzymatic systems: her long term goal is to practice medicine with the hopes of deploying cutting-edge molecular tools in the clinic. Outside the lab, you can find her swimming at the MAC, indulging in any East or South Asian cuisine, or picking up another random hobby (of recent interest has been crochet).

Aidan Wang

Undergraduate researcher (2025 - )
Aidan is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is an undergraduate student at Harvard College. As part of the Bhattacharyya lab, Aidan is conducting research in the field of antifungal resistance under Dr. Liz Yee. During his free time, he enjoys trying new restaurants around Boston and playing sports with friends.

Lab alumni

Melanie Martinsen, BS, research associate (2019-2021). Current position: MD-PhD student, Brown University.

Michelle Matzko, MD PhD, postdoctoral associate (2020-2021). Current position: AVP, T-Scan Therapeutics; and Infectious Disease physician, Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

Alasdair Fletcher, summer undergraduate (2022). Current position: graduated University College London (class of 2023), now in medical school at the University of Cambridge (UK).

Kyra Taylor, BS, research associate (2020-2022). Current position: Clinical Sciences & Innovation Academy fellow, Novartis.

Alex Jaramillo Cartagena, PhD, postdoctoral fellow (2020-2023). Immediate next position: CPEP clinical microbiology fellow, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Current position: Clinical Microbiologist, Duke University

Selama Tesfamariam, summer BSRP undergraduate (2023). Current position: graduated Howard University (class of 2024).

Eleanor Young, BS, research & computational associate (2021-2024). Current position: PhD candidate at UC Davis in Plant Pathology (2024 - ).

Afua Asare, Harvard undergraduate, term-time research (spring semester 2025). Current position: senior at Harvard (class of 2026).

Eden Seyoum, BS, Harvard undergraduate, including honors thesis (2023-2025). Current position: health care consultant.

Pun Sangruji, BS, Tufts undergraduate, including thesis with highest honors (2023-2025). Current position: medical scribe, MGB Ophthalmology Department.

Alyssa Dubois, BS, research associate (2023-2025). Current position: PhD candidate at Harvard BBS.

Lauren Donnelly, MD PhD, postdoctoral associate (2024), “friend of the lab” (2024-2025). Current position: Clinical Microbiology fellow, Mass General Brigham

Noah Baldwin, Bowdoin undergraduate, summer BSRP program (2025). Current position: senior at Bowdoin College (class of 2026).

Eddy Kang, Harvard undergraduate (fall 2025). Current position: still an undergrad, now a math major

Monika Rezic, Harvard undergraduate (fall 2025). Current position: still an undergrad, now a bioengineering major

Liz Yee, PhD, postdoctoral fellow (2024-2026). Current position: Scientist I at Foundation Medicine.

Jonathan Chen, BS, Harvard undergraduate, including honors thesis (2023-2025). Current position: postbaccalaureate researcher, National Institutes of Health.