Inês comes to us from the restaurant industry–she is a certified Sommelier, was the general manager at The Salty Pig in Boston for several years, and later was an operations manager for the Coda group (which also includes SRV, and the recently opened Gufo.) She was the primary caretaker for her family during the first few years of Covid, but kept her skills sharp by running budgets for friends as well as a small copy editing business. Inês has a background in journalism and loves to edit scientific articles and papers.

Hui Si grew up in Singapore. She did her graduate studies at National University of Singapore under the guidance of Daniel Tenen, where she studied the role of lysine acetyltransferases in normal hematopoiesis and leukemia. After her graduate studies, she moved to Yale University for a postdoctoral position in Dieter Söll’s lab, where she developed new methods for evolving selective aminoacyl tRNA-synthetases for genetic code expansion. She joined the Liau lab in March 2019 to study cancer epigenetics using chemical genomics approaches.

Hui Si is a Charles A. King Trust Postdoctoral Fellow. In her free time, she likes reading mystery and crime novels.

Stefan was raised in the crossroads of rural America—Parker City, Indiana. He received his bachelors from Ball State University, where he conducted research under Prof. Philip Albiniak exploring the reactivity of 2-benzyloxy-1-methylpyridinium triflate derivatives. Thereafter, he went to Johns Hopkins University for his doctoral studies under Prof. Thomas Lectka, researching radical-based fluorination reactions while developing several directed methods for functionalizing complex natural products. Currently, he aims to use small molecules to exploit novel druggable targets.

Stefan is an ACS Postdoctoral Fellow.

Ji Sung was born in South Korea and grew up in Toronto, Canada.
He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto
and conducted his doctoral work there under the supervision of
Professor Patrick Gunning, where he developed the synthesis and
application of poly-fluorinated aryl sulfonamides for covalent
probes. He joined the Liau lab in July 2024 to study transcription
factors using chemical genomics approaches. Outside the lab, he
enjoys running and playing with his baby.

Heejin is from South Korea. She earned a B.S. in Chemistry and a Minor in Biological Sciences from Seoul National University (SNU). She also earned a Master’s degree in Chemistry from SNU, where she did research with Professor Seokhee Kim, characterizing a topologically distinct microviridin-like modified peptide with multiple bicyclic core motifs.

Outside of lab, she enjoys drawing, board games, and watching movies.

Emma is from Rochester, NY and received a B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University in 2019. During her undergraduate studies, she performed research with Professor Alanna Schepartz aiming to expand the genetic code by evolving a tRNA synthetase to allow for incorporation of beta amino acids into translated proteins. Outside of lab, Emma enjoys cooking, baking, hiking, petting her cat, and exploring Boston.

Emma is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and a Landry Cancer Biology Research Fellow.

Megan grew up in Singapore before moving to Boston for undergrad. At Boston College, she graduated with a B.S. in Biochemistry in 2020 and performed research with Professor Abhishek Chatterjee on genetic code expansion, evolving tRNA synthetases to incorporate unnatural amino acids into proteins in eukaryotes. On the side, she also produced a couple of fun videos to document the lab's annual summer hike and day-to-day shenanigans.

Outside of lab, Megan enjoys eating, cooking, and trying new Ben & Jerry's flavors.

Olivia was born in Boston, MA and later moved to Beijing. She attended Rice University where she received a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology in 2020. There she performed research with Professor Zachary Ball on copper mediated peptide modifications utilizing boronic acid reagents.

Outside of lab, Olivia enjoys cooking, doing yoga, going on long walks, bird watching, and brewing fun flavored kombucha.

Nicholas is from Phoenix, Arizona. He attended Northwestern University for a B.A. in Molecular & Cell Biology, Chemistry, and Integrated Science Program (ISP). During his time at Northwestern, he worked for Richard Silverman on the design and synthesis of neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) inhibitors.

In his free time, Nicholas enjoys playing tennis and eating hot pot.

Simon is from Phoenix, Arizona. He went to Harvard for undergrad, studying Chemistry and Physics with a secondary in Computer Science. During that time, he worked in Prof. David Liu’s lab on projects involving protein evolution and genome editing.

Simon is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and enjoys biking and eating delicious food.

Julia grew up in Hastings on Hudson, NY before moving to Pennsylvania to attend Swarthmore College, where she worked with Professor Daniela Fera to characterize the structure and binding of antibodies to HIV. After graduating in 2019 with a B.A. in Chemistry and Biology, she worked as a research assistant in Fei Chen’s lab at the Broad Institute, developing spatial genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic technologies.

Julia is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Outside of lab, she enjoys gardening, baking, and biking.

James is from Corvallis Oregon. He studied biochemistry at Brigham Young University in Provo Utah and performed research under Joshua Andersen. As an undergraduate he helped characterize a phosphorylation specific interaction between 14-3-3 and PTOV1, a transcriptional regulator involved in prostate cancer. After college, he completed a post-baccalaureate fellowship at NIH working with Eric Long on natural killer cells and cancer immunology.

He enjoys podcasts, science history and long-distance trail running.

Calvin grew up in Merced, CA and is currently living in Somerville, MA. During his undergraduate he majored in chemical biology and worked with Professor Michelle Chang at UC Berkeley on bioinformatics and biosynthetic pathways for noncanonical amino acid synthesis. Calvin also has interests in applying computational tools such as machine learning to answer questions in biology.

Outside of school, he likes to swim, read manga, and produce music.

Marc Anthony grew up Thousand Oaks, CA and studied biochemistry at UC San Diego. During his undergraduate studies, he worked with Dr. Alexis Komor to investigate how mutations in DNA repair genes give rise to hereditary colorectal cancer.

Outside of research, he enjoys lifting, running, and outdoor adventures.

Idris completed his undergraduate training at Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD. He did his undergraduate research training under the mentorship of Prof. Stephen Habay. Here, he performed classical organic synthesis and investigated the application of intramolecular cycloaddition reactions to assemble a diverse library of compounds called tetrahydroindolones, which are privileged building blocks for photochemotherapeutic agents. After receiving his B.S. in biochemistry, he joined the Terrence R. Burke group at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a Postbac fellow. At NCI, he developed covalent inhibitors directed against the tyrosyl-DNA phosphodiesterase 1 (TDP1) enzyme, which is implicated in the downregulation of topoisomerase 1-targeting anticancer therapeutics.

Idris likes to consider himself as a global citizen. He is originally Sudanese (North Eastern Africa), but grew up in the Middle East. He enjoys working out, playing soccer, watching movies, doing outdoor activities, and occasionally traveling.

Olivia grew up in the suburbs of Boston, and decided to stay in Massachusetts for her undergraduate and graduate education. She earned her BS in Biochemistry from Boston College in 2021 where she did research in the Weerapana Lab developing peptide probes for cysteine-profiling mass spectrometry. She then spent two years as a technician in the Harrison Lab at HMS working on vaccines and viral immunology.