Meet our team
Research Staff
Fellows
Graduate Students
Undergraduates
Visiting Scholars
Alumni
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Amina Ann Qutub
Principal Investigator
Amina’s research focuses on the development of new computational methods and experimental analyses in order to uncover design principles of human cells during growth and regeneration. The Qutub Lab uses fundamental knowledge gained by understanding cellular communication to transform the treatment of hematological cancers and neurovascular diseases
Program Affiliations: UTSA/UT-Health Sciences BME Program (Director), MATRIX AI Consortium (Research Thrust co-Lead), Brain Health, Regenerative Medicine
Bio | Resume | CV
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PhD: Bioengineering, Berkeley & UCSF
Postdoc: Johns Hopkins University
Department: Biomedical Engineering
Awards: AIMBE Fellow, NSF CAREER Awardee, Bioinformatics Peer Prize, NAKFI Awardee, NRSA Fellow, Whitaker Fellow
Byron Long
Research Scientist & Instructor
Byron Long’s doctoral research was in logic for programs that use dynamic memory. Byron built on his training in logic to develop innovative state machine models of endothelial cells and a modeling framework for testing biological hypotheses. He combines these approaches with novel image-analysis programs to study how human cells form tissues, and predictive algorithms to interpret how molecular and cell-level changes influence daily behaviors at a systems level.
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PhD: Computer Science, Indiana U.
Postdoc: Rice University
Projects: Quantu, cytoNet
Awards: Computational Cancer Biology Training Fellow
Jennifer Brethen
Quantu Project Manager
Jennifer (Jenny) Brethen is the Quantu Project manager and a post-bac fellow in UTSA's Department of Biomedical Engineering.
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BS: University of Texas, San Antonio
Projects: The Quantu Project
Zacharie Maloney
Graduate Student
Zacharie Maloney is a PhD student in UTSA's Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Joint UTSA/UTHSC Graduate Group in Biomedical Engineering. Integrating new modeling and experimental methods, Zach's project focuses on characterizing cellular and proteomic processes underlying changes in daily behaviors indicative of brain health. Joining the Qutub Lab in Fall 2019, Zach brings experience in biomedical engineering, systems biology, software engineering and financial modeling.
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BS: Biomedical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology
Projects: Neural network modeling & experiments, Quantu
Erin Pollet
Graduate Student
Erin Pollet is a PhD student in UTSA's Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Joint UTSA/UTHSC Graduate Group in Biomedical Engineering. Her project focuses on uncovering neural and neurovascular mechanisms underlying changes in sleep and other daily behaviors using integrated modeling and experimental approaches. Joining the Qutub Lab in Fall 2018, Erin brings 10 years of clinical sleep experience as a registered polysomnographic technologist to her research project.
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BS: Biomedical Engineering, UTSA
Projects: Quantu, Correlating Behavior to Cellular Changes in Alzheimer's
Awards: Brain Health Consortium Seed Grant 2018
Sean Tritley
Graduate/Undergraduate Researcher
Sean is a senior biomedical engineering undergraduate student and incoming graduate student developing innovative vascularized models of brain regions that regulate sleep, exercise response and circadian rhythm. Sean's co-mentor is Dr. Eric Brey, vascular engineer and Chair of the UTSA Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering.
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Projects: Vascularized brain-in-a-dish models & experiments, Quantu
Tomisin Adebayo
Undergraduate Researcher
Tomisin is a biomedical engineering undergraduate student researching computational and experimental methods to uncover how neural networks form.
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Aishwarya Sathish
Undergraduate Researcher
Ash is a biomedical engineering undergraduate student applying computational methods to interpret patterns in sensor-based fitness data and identify how changes in daily activity affect the brain.
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Elif Ozdemir Kaynak
Visiting Graduate Student
Elif is a PhD candidate in bioengineering at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University. While visiting in the Qutub lab as part of her thesis work, she is developing a computational model of nanoparticle-encapsulated delivery of bioactive flavanoids (anthocyanins) through the blood-brain barrier and anthocyanin uptake as a potential novel treatment of brain cancer.
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BS: Bioengineering, Ege U.
Masters: Bioengineering, Ege U.
Qutub Lab Graduate Profiles & Alumni List
George Britton
PhD Alumnus
George Britton graduated as a PhD student in Rice’s Systems, Synthetic and Physical Biology Program. His project focused on uncovering the mechanisms underlying human embyronic cell development into neural tissue. George is jointly advised by our collaborator Aryeh Warmflash, a stem cell biologist in Rice’s Biochemistry and Cell Biology Department.
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PhD: SSPB, Rice University
BS: Neurobiology, UT-Austin
Masters: Biochemistry, UT-Health Sciences
Projects: Ectoderm modeling, analysis of neural lineage
Arun Mahadevan
PhD Alumnus
Thesis: Network Analysis of Developing Neural Progenitor Cells
Awards: NSF Neuroengineering IGERT Fellow; Ideas that Go Viral Speaker; Bioengineering Department Travel Award, 2015; Outstanding Student Poster Award GEM4 Mechanobiology of the Brain Workshop, 2015; IBB Travel Award, 2017; Screech People’s Choice Award, 2017; Bioengineering Innovation Day Research Pitch Award Winner, 2017; 3-Min Thesis Overall Winner & Alumni Choice Winner, 2018
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PhD: Bioengineering, 2018
Current Position:
Postdoctoral Fellow, Bassett Lab
University of Pennsylvania
Tien Tang
PhD Alumna
Thesis: Identifying Image Derived Features of Radiation Therapy Response: Tumor and Normal Tissue
Awards: HHMI Med-Into-Grad Fellowship; Rice University Graduate Student Travel Award, 2015; Radiation Research Meeting Award, 2016; Smalley-Curl Institute’s Transdisciplinary Award for Best Student Talk, 2016; IBB Travel Award, 2018
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PhD: Bioengineering, 2018
Current Position:
Postdoctoral Fellow, Gaber Lab
Texas Children's Hospital
Quentin (Hanyang) Li
Undergraduate Alumnus
Project: Design of image-based and machine learning methods for multicellular and intracellular analysis
Awards: Distinction in Research & Creative Works, 2018
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BS: Bioengineering, 2018
Current Position:
Graduate Student
Carnegie Mellon University
Chenyue Wendy Hu
PhD Alumna
Thesis: Data-Driven Discovery of Proteomic Hallmarks in Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Awards: NHGRI Travel Award for Genomics & Personalized Medicine 2016; HHMI Med-Into-Grad Fellowship; Texas Life Science Forum Presenter; DREAM 8 SubChallenge Winner; Texata Big Data Semi-Finalist; IGNITE Entrepreneurship Conference, Invited Participant; OwlSpark Summer Accelerator; IBB Travel Award (2014, 2016); Bioengineering Department Travel Award, 2015; Gold Medal, iGEM; 1st Prize, China’s National Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling; Bioinformatics Peer Prize Award, 2017; Best Thesis in Bioinformatics, 2018
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PhD: Bioengineering, 2018
Current Position:
Data Scientist, Uber Technologies
Founder, DiBS
Andrew Ligeralde
Undergraduate Alumnus
Project: Tools to interpret protein signatures in cancer and model neural stem cell development
Awards: National Science Foundation summer fellowship, National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 2019
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BS: Chemistry, 2018
Current Position:
Graduate Student
University of California, Berkeley
André Schultz
PhD Alumnus
Thesis: Improved Methods for Constraint Based Modeling of Mammalian Systems
Awards: BMC Systems Biology Top 5 paper, 2015; NSF Travel Award, Pan American Advanced Studies Institute; Outstanding Bioengineering Graduate Teaching Assistant; Duke TIP Teaching Summer Internship; Jeffrey Michel Innovations in Systems Biology Dissertation Award, 2016
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PhD: Bioengineering, 2017
Current Position:
Bioinformaticist
Stanford University, School of Medicine
Jennifer Dawkins
Undergraduate Alumna
Project: Design and experimental testing of methods to predict leukemia patient outcomes
Awards: Computational Cancer Biology Summer Research Fellowship, 2017; National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 2017
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BS: Bioengineering, 2017
Current Position:
Graduate Student
Harvard / MIT HST Program
Sanjana Ranganathan
Undergraduate Alumna
Project: Crosstalk between insulin and hypoxic response pathways in glioma progression
Awards: Computational Cancer Biology Summer Research Fellowship, 2016
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BS: Bioengineering, 2017Global Medical Innovation, 2018
Current Position:
Graduate Student / TA
Rice University