Kellianne Alexander PhD
Kellianne is a postdoctoral fellow who joined our lab in April 2023. She is interested in studying the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying hyperexcitability and synaptic vulnerability in Alzheimer’s Disease using human derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).
Nancy Ashour
Nancy is a Wellesley College graduate who joined the lab in the summer of 2022. A lot of her work involves the use of iPSC-derived microglia to better understand neurodegeneration. One of her research interests is centered on how microglia may be interacting with other cell types, especially neurons and astrocytes.
Zach Augur
Zach is a graduate student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program at Harvard Medical School and joined our lab in the summer of 2021. Zach’s interests include autophagy dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease and the microbiota-gut-brain axis.
Courtney Benoit
Courtney is a graduate student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program at Harvard Medical School and joined our lab in the summer of 2020. Courtney’s project involves the targeted investigation and functional characterization of genes implicated in neuropsychiatric disease using iPSC models.
Garrett Fogo PhD
Garrett is a postdoctoral fellow who joined the lab in February 2024. He is interested in studying the metabolic and functional changes in neurons and glia during human aging.
Brody Gaura
Brody is an Administrative Assistant who joined the Young-Pearse lab in 2024. He is our point-person for scheduling, onboarding of new lab members, and other administrative lab business. Outside of the lab, he enjoys playing guitar and reading.
Ellie Grogan
Ellie is a Harvard undergraduate who joined our lab in the summer of 2022. She will be working with Alex Lish to investigate candidate pathways involved in the Blood-Brain-Barrier homeostasis and pathogenesis.
Sarah Heuer PhD
Sarah is a postdoctoral fellow who joined the lab in October 2023. She is interested in how Alzheimer’s risk variants, particularly those in ABCA7, cause neuronal and glial dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease using co-culture human iPSC models. She is also interested in leveraging multi-omics data from human iPSC and postmortem brain to gain a better understanding of the pathways underlying glia-neuron interactions in Alzheimer’s disease.
Bella Kim
Bella is an undergraduate at Harvard University and joined our lab in 2022. She works with Courtney Benoit to study genes involved in neurodevelopment and neuropsychiatric disease using iPSC models. Outside of lab, Bella enjoys reading and curating playlists.
Alex Lish
Alex is a graduate student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program at Harvard Medical School and joined our lab in summer of 2021. She is studying blood-brain barrier dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease using an iPSC-derived BBB model.
Gwendolyn Orme
Gwen is a graduate of Middlebury College and joined the lab as a Technical Research Assistant in the summer of 2023. She is working with on projects relating to the molecular bases of Alzheimer’s disease. Outside of lab, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, swimming, hiking, and dancing. She plans to attend medical school in the fall of 2025.
Gizem Terzioglu
Gizem is a graduate student in the Program in Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and has been in our lab since Fall 2022. She is interested in how neurons and glia communicate with each other and how this communication might be changed or dysregulated in Alzheimer’s disease.
Richard V. Pearse II PhD
Richard is a Senior Scientist with more than 20 years experience in medical research. He has been with our lab since the spring of 2017 and is primarily responsible for -“omics” library development, data pipeline development, shiny app development, bioinformatics, lab management, and consultation.
Lilia Sattler
Lilia is a Skidmore College graduate who joined the lab as a Technical Research Assistant in the summer of 2023. They are studying the dysregulation of iPSC-derived inhibitory and excitatory communication within Alzheimer’s Disease. Outside of work, Lilia likes to knit and crochet, take long walks identifying plants, and cuddle their pet Peeve.
Richard Zhu
Richard is an undergraduate researcher from Harvard University and started in our lab in early 2023. He’s working with Zach to study the role of autophagic dysregulation in age-related neurodegeneration.
