Current Members
Andrew Oberst, PhD
Professor of Immunology
Andrew graduated from Amherst College and pursued his graduate studies in Europe, in a collaborative program between the Universities of Rome and Paris. He completed postdoctoral training at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. He joined the Department of Immunology as an Assistant Professor in 2012, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018 and Professor in 2023. He definitely doesn't have more grey hair now than he did when this photo was taken.
Joshua M. Ames, PhD
Senior Fellow
Josh earned his PhD from the Graduate Education in Medical Sciences program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he studied the immune response provoked by herpesvirus infection of the eyes and nervous system. He joined the Oberst Lab in 2021. He's supported by a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral scholarship and a Burroughs-Wellcome PDEP award. Josh makes amazing home-made hot sauce, which he shares with the lab.
Suny Chavarria
Graduate Student
Suny earned her undergraduate degree from the City College of New York, and gained research experience at Mt. Sinai in New York before joining the Oberst Lab in 2021. She's supported by UW Cellular and Molecular Biology training grant.
Lan H. Chu, PhD
Senior Fellow
Lan earned a Ph.D. from the Driskill Graduate Program in Life Sciences at Northwestern University, where she discovered a role for oxidized phospholipids in controlling inflammasome activation. Lan started her postdoctoral training in the Oberst Lab in 2019. Observations indicate that Lan is largely nocturnal, typically working from mid-afternoon 'till the wee hours of the morning.
Cassidy Hagan
Graduate Student
Cassidy completed her undergraduate studies at Colorado State University, and joined the Oberst lab in 2019. She is working towards a PhD in immunology. Cassidy once biked from Seattle to the Cascades towing a trailer full of skis, skied all day, then biked home, all for "fun."
Jason Huang
Undergraduate Researcher
Jason is visiting UW for a year during his undergraduate studies in Taiwan. He's working on new ways to activate innate immune pathways in tumor cells.
Megan S. Molina, PhD
Senior Fellow
Megan earned a Ph.D from the University of Arizona, where she studied the effects of chemotherapeutic agents on native and transplanted immune cells. Megan joined the Oberst lab in 2021. Megan is supported by a CRI Irvington fellowship. Megan's commitment to research is so strong that she literally has a piece of data tattooed on her arm.
TJ Oh, PhD
Senior Fellow
TJ earned his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne, where he used light-activatable forms of cell death proteins to study their activation thresholds. He joined the Oberst Lab at the beginning of 2025.
Charlie Rezanka
Research Scientist
A Seattle native, Charlie studied the evolution of the RIP kinases in Matt Daugherty's lab at UCSD before returning to Seattle to join the Oberst lab in 2024. Charlie is a talented clarinetist, playing and performing with a local orchestra.
Valerie Sheehan
Lab Manager
Valerie graduated from UW with a degree in Biology in 2022, and joined the Oberst Lab the same year. To our surprise, and only after hiring her, we learned that Valerie was once deported from Ireland!
Alumni
Sigal Kofman, Ph.D. (Graduate Student, Immunology Program)
Current: Wisely living off the grid in Southeast Asia, waiting for this all to blow over.
Geoff Norris, PhD (Senior Fellow)
Current: Sound Biologics, Seattle, WA
Michelle Messmer, PhD (Senior Fellow)
Current: Undergraduate Instructor, Edmonds College
Nick Hubbard, PhD (Graduate Student, Immunology Program)
Current: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Utah
Michelle Brault, PhD (Graduate Student, MCB Program)
Current: Research Scientist, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Brian Daniels, PhD (Senior Fellow)
Current: Associate Professor, Dept. of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Rutgers University
Kimberley Gutierrez, PhD (Senior Fellow)
Current: Field Applications Scientist, Qiagen
Tayla Olsen (Research Scientist)
Current: Graduate Student, UW MCB Program
Susana Orozco, PhD (Graduate Student, MCB Program)
Current: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Benaroya Research Institute
Annelise Snyder, PhD (Graduate Student, Immunology Program)
Current: Assistant Professor, Western Washington University
Margo Werner (Research Scientist)
Current: Scientist II, AbbVie