Socially-driven researchers with passion for signal processing
Tufa Assafa
Postdoctoral Associate
Tufa is from London, England. He did his PhD in Germany, starting at Freie Universität Berlin and finishing at Ruhr Universität Bochum. He is a biophysicist that generates spin-labelled proteins with various methods, and is experienced in pulsed ESR, especially distance measurements. His work has led him to the Signal Science Lab and ACERT through his interests in 2D ESR spectroscopy experiments and analyses, combined with his interest in amyloidogenic proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases. He is also passionate about increasing the representation of people from underprivileged backgrounds into science.
Julien Marquevielle
Postdoctoral Associate
Julien is from Bordeaux in France. Getting his PhD in 2019, Julien Marquevielle has mainly worked at University of Bordeaux (Inserm unit U1212 ARNA). His thesis and his first post-doctorate research focused on the NMR structural study of G-quadruplexes. These unusual nucleic acid structures are involved in a large number of biological processes (transcription, translation) and have become a therapeutic target of interest. At the Signal Science Lab, his research is focused on Tau protein which is implicated neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease. He wants to understand the aggregation pathway leading to protein dysfunction by using ESR and NMR. Outside research, he is passionate about playing video games with his friends and spending time with them when it is possible.
Gyana Ranjan Sahoo
Postdoctoral Associate
Gyana completed his PhD from Department of Physics, IIT Kanpur, India. His expertise lies in the field of spectroscopy, biomedical imaging and machine learning. In Signal Science Lab, he is working on developing wavelet analysis and image processing methods for improving sensitivity of biophysical methods. He is an active member of PhtoSpIMeDx healthcare start up group. Outside research, he is passionate about cricket and enjoys playing both cricket and badminton.
Aritro Sinharoy
Postdoctoral Associate
Aritro got his Masters degree in Chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India and successfully defended his doctoral research working at the National Biomedical Center for Advanced ESR Technology (ACERT) at Cornell University in 2015. He has developed an analytic platform using Python for ESR pulsed dipolar signal (PDS) analysis and derived the functional forms of various PDS signals for fast simulations of 1D and 2D spectra. After graduating from Cornell, he has served as an Associate Consultant at IQVIA in NYC, followed by the CEO of TheTimesBlog.com in Bangalore, India. His passion is learning new programming languages, creating music, and riding motorcycles.
Amitava Chandra
Postdoctoral Associate
Amitava acquired his doctoral degree from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), India, in 2022 before joining Cornell University as postdoc. While he tackled the challenges of sensing phospholipids in mammalian cells using his fluorescent sensors for his doctoral thesis, he aspires to extend his experience with peptides to investigate the aggregation properties of peptides with pathological implications utilizing electro spin resonance spectroscopy in our signal science laboratory. He loves to curve out some of his time from research to pursue his athletic inclinations in form of bowling in cricket fields as well as smashing shuttlecocks in badminton courts.
Leah Woldemariam
Graduate Student
Leah is a incoming PhD student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. She completed her undergraduate degree in Applied Mathematics at Cornell in 2022. She joined the lab in 2018 and is currently investigating the properties of Haar transforms for decoupling information from large data sets. She is currently selected for the Avangrid Innovation Challenge to work on electricity grid resilience. Outside of research, she is also a member of the Milstein Program.
Shikhar Prakash
Graduate Student
Shikhar joined Ph.D. in Systems Engineering at Cornell University after 2.5 years of work experience in the energy industry. Before this, he completed his master’s degree in Biological and Environmental Engineering from Cornell University, and bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Jaypee University, India. He has multidisciplinary interest. In Signal Science Lab, Shikhar will be working in the field of System Optimization and Artificial Intelligence in the Energy Transmission and Distribution Sector. Apart from his academic life, on weekends he enjoys hiking and exploring nature, and in the evening, he finds joy in swimming and badminton.
Nimesh Srivastava
Graduate Student
Nimesh graduated from Manipal University, India with major in Electronics and Communication Engineering. Nimesh joined the Signal Science Lab in 2019 and is working on developing wavelet denoising methods for reducing MRI scans. Outside research, he is involved with Cornell’s International Student Union chapter and enjoy swimming, traveling and a big-time foodie.
Zifu Qin
Graduate Student
Zifu completed his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Now Zifu is a graduate student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. Zifu joined the Signal Science Lab in Spring 2022 and is working on developing data processing methods for image analysis. Outside of research, he enjoys music and basketball.
Manav Tathacharya
Graduate Student
Manav is a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Cornell University. He graduated from BITS Pilani, Hyderabad, India in 2023, with a bachelor’s in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, and a minor in finance. However, most of Manav’s work is in applying nanosynthesis for sensing applications in healthcare and sustainability. He is working on using ESR to better understand chemical syntheses. Manav’s also spent time with Teach for India, and is passionate about science education. Outside of research, he loves cooking (he has sweet teeth-not one, many!), quizzing, and is a Carnatic musician.
Aditi Sinha Roy
Graduate Student
Aditi completed her M.Sc. in Applied Geology from the University of Calcutta, India. During her M.Sc., she worked on micropaleontological data from petroliferous basins in India. She is currently a graduate student in Systems Engineering at Cornell University. Aditi joined the Signal Science Lab in Fall 2023 and she is working on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of heavy crude oil.
Utkarsh Misra
Graduate Student
Utkarsh is currently a graduate student in Systems Engineering department. He joined the program after 5 years working in low latency software development in fintech and quant trading roles. He completed his bachelors in Electronics and Communications engineering from Jaypee University of Engineering and Technology. He joined the Signal Science Lab in Fall 2023 to work on interdisciplinary fields from energy pricing to applying machine learning to solve social issues. When is not working his is watching cat videos on YouTube most of the time.
Karen Tsay
Visiting Graduate Student
Karen is a PhD student in Professor Song-I Han’s lab at UCSB. She obtained her BS in Pharmacological Chemistry with a minor in General Biology from UCSD in 2018. Her research focuses on using DEER spectroscopy to probe the structure transformations of IDPs and conformations of polymers. Some of her current works include using bootstrapping to derive uncertainty from DEER data and improving background correction of DEER of non-3D samples. Outside of research, Karen likes to explore restaurants and museums.
Yingying Jin
Visiting Graduate Student
Yingying obtained her B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering at UCSB. She is currently a Ph.D. student in a joint program of Professor Steve K. Buratto’s lab and Professor Michael T. Bowers’ lab. She also actively collaborates with Professor Madhur Srivastava’s and Songi Han’s lab. Her research focuses on developing Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) image analysis methods and using complementary techniques such as Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry (IM-MS) and DEER spectroscopy to investigate the oligomeric assembly mechanism and early fibril formation of amyloidogenic proteins. Her AFM work has been applied to screen ML-modeled small inhibitor molecules on Abeta42 and TDP43-LCD307-319 designed by a local start-up company named Acelot and founded by UCSB Computer Science Professor Ambuj K. Singh. Outside research, she enjoys exploring new media art exhibitions, morning walks at the local beach, and snowboarding.
Siddhant Mukherjee
Research Assistant
In 2023, Siddhant obtained his M. Eng. in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University, following two years as a Senior Research Fellow at Indian Council of Medical Research – Center for Innovation and Bio-Design (ICMR-CIBioD), contributing to medical device development. He served as an Implementation Engineer at Intelehealth for a year, maintaining backend servers and troubleshooting for rural healthcare connectivity. With a prior Master’s from COEP and Bachelor’s from D Y Patil School of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, he now researches low magnetic field methods for rapid brain clot diagnosis at the Signal Science Lab, alongside pursuing adventurous activities like paragliding and football.
Alyanis Acevedo Serrano
Undergraduate Student
Alyanis is an OADI P3 Scholar and Biology & Society major in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She’s from Carolina, Puerto Rico, and joined the Signal Science Lab in the summer of 2023. She hopes to conduct research on the disease mechanisms of endometriosis in order to develop less invasive diagnosis methods. At Cornell, she’s involved in the Service Committee for the Catholic Community, Sabor Latino Dance Ensemble, a peer mentor for OADI, and a counselor with Camp Kesem. Outside of school, she’s a matcha and Nutella lover who enjoys earning ASL.
Carissa Nair
Undergraduate Student
Carissa is a biological sciences major and Tanner Dean’s Scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences. She joined the lab in 2022 and will be working on the project to diagnose Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis from blood samples by analyzing Cu2+ distances in the SOD1 protein. Previously, she won the Texas Health and Human Services Department’s Innovators in Aging award for her research work in senior living centers. At Cornell, she is involved with the Undergraduate Research Board, Globemed, and Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness program. Outside of science, she’s a choral musician (Soprano 2) and enjoys writing poetry.
Kelly Huang
Undergraduate Researcher
Kelly is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, majoring in Chemistry. She aspires to work in the pharmaceutical industry, specifically drug discovery and development. She is from New York City and she joined the lab in 2022. She will be conducting research on identifying components of controlled substances, such as cannabis, via EPR spectroscopy. Outside of academics, she enjoys playing chinese yoyo (diabolo), watching true crime videos and discovering new food spots in NYC.
Katrin Donetski
Undergraduate Researcher
Katrin is a sophomore studying Biomedical Engineering in the College of Engineering, with a tentative concentration in biomaterials and drug delivery. She is a Rawlings Presidential Research Scholar and recently joined the Signa Science Lab in 2023. Her fascination with biological phenomena through a computational lens has led her towards research on methods of data compression, involving binarization schemes and signal analysis, with clinical applications to Alzheimer’s disease. Outside of research, Katrin is a member of Cornell University’s Biomedical Device project team and Ski & Snowboard club, and also enjoys playing piano, when time allows.
Anita Liu
Undergraduate Researcher
Anita is a dietetics student on the DPD track in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, pursuing a major in Nutritional Sciences. She joined the Signal Science Lab in spring of 2023 and hope to conduct research on the effects of various controlled substances on the gut microbiota of diabetic mice. As a native New Yorker, she aspires to become a registered dietician to improve the health and wellbeing of people in her community and those around the world. Aside from research, Anita enjoys long nature walks, listening to music, and going on adventures.
Anurag Tiwari
Undergraduate Researcher
Anurag is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, majoring in Economics and minoring in Business. He joined the Signal Science Lab in Summer 2023 and is working on the Subscription-based Electricity pricing project. Apart from academics, Anurag loves to play cricket and soccer
Mohit Soni
Undergraduate Researcher
Mohit is a freshman planning to study Computer Science within the College of Engineering, with a focus on Machine Learning. He joined the Signal Science Lab in the Fall of 2023 and hopes to research and develop a computer-vision based model to pinpoint technical flaws in a cricket batsman’s game through video data analysis. Beyond academics, Mohit is a coding freelancer, loves playing Cricket and Tennis, enjoys hiking with friends, and occasionally plays the drums.
Signal Science Lab 