The Ragon Culture Committee challenged each of its members to find out about the members of their Team or Lab so they could be highlighted to all of the Institute.  Our first Lab spotlight features….

The Alter Lab!

Vicky Roy, Research Specialist

Stephanie Fischinger, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow

Judy Guo, PhD, Lab Manager and Technologist

• Where you’re from (China)
• Favourite place in Boston/Cambridge (Freedom trail) 
• Favourite restaurant in Boston/Cambridge (S&S restaurant in Cambridge) 
• Favourite pathogen (COVID-19)
• Coffee or tea? (Coffee)
• Chocolate or vanilla? (Chocolate)

Eddie Irvine, Graduate Student 

Katy Bowman, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow

• Where you’re from – Austin 
• Favourite place in Boston/Cambridge – Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, and the Fells
• Favourite restaurant in Boston/Cambridge – Hard to pick but I really like Oleana and Loyal Nine. Does Nightshift count as a restaurant?
• Favourite pathogen – Mycobacterium tuberculosis!
• Coffee or tea? Coffee 
• Any hobbies you’ve picked up during the pandemic. Gearing up for some bikepacking adventures this summer, which will be new for me!

Jeff Hsiao, Graduate Student

Jackson Burke, Technician

• I was born in New York City, but I grew up in Rye, NY. It’s a small suburb about 45 minutes outside of the city. 
• My favorite place has to be Fenway Park. Even though I despise the Red Sox, watching a ballgame there is like going to a museum, and I always feel like I am a part of baseball history when I am there. That being said, go Yankees! 
• Its way too hard for me to pick a favorite restaurant here! Let’s just go with Area 4 for all the good food and drink I have had there with many wonderful Ragonites!
• Right now, my favorite pathogen has to be influenza. It is such an elegant pathogen in the sense of how mailable its genome is! It’s also the pathogen I have the most experience with. I work with Harvard PhD student Carolyn Boudreau, and hopefully “our” (mostly her) work on influenza will help reduce the burden this virus has on the world! 
• Coffee for sure. I’m at a 3 cup-a-day minimum right now, and hopefully it doesn’t get much worse than that. I also strongly believe that iced coffee is a year-round drink.
• I prefer savory to sweet, but if I had to pick, I guess it would be vanilla. Pretty boring, I know.
• I am currently on a huge David Bowie kick right now, so I would say either Moonage Daydream or Young Americans. 
• My primary goal for 2021 has been achieved: I am starting medical school this summer! Now my goal for the rest of my time in Boston is to finish off my projects here at the Ragon and help around the lab as much as possible before I leave! 
• I started cycling during the pandemic, and I have fallen in love with it! I can’t wait for it to get warmer out so I can go on some longer rides!

Jenny Maron, Graduate Student

• Where you’re from: Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York 
• Favourite place in Boston/Cambridge: Niche plant shop in Cambridge
• Favourite restaurant in Boston/Cambridge: Tres Gatos in Jamaica Plain
• Favourite pathogen: Viruses! My favorite at the moment are positive sense RNA viruses
• Coffee or tea?: Coffee! I order coffee beans in bulk from Porto Rico Importing Co. in NYC—highly recommend.
• Chocolate or vanilla?: Both. Soft-serve ice cream twist with rainbow sprinkles.
• Your anthem right now (song!): Greetings by Joni Haastrup. Fantastic Nigerian funk/disco!
• 2021 goal: To call my mother more frequently
• Any hobbies you’ve picked up during the pandemic: power-sitting and power-staring-into-a-screen

Patricia Grace, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow

• Where you’re from: Bradenton, FL
• Favourite place in Boston/Cambridge: Somerville Community Path
• Favourite restaurant in Boston/Cambridge: Sarma
• Favourite pathogen: M. tuberculosis!
• Coffee or tea? Coffee
• Chocolate or vanilla? Vanilla
• Your anthem right now (song!): Anything Anderson Paak
• 2021 goal: Read more books for myself!
• Any hobbies you’ve picked up during the pandemic: Keeping my pet sourdough starter alive

Deniz Cizmeci, PhD, Computational Fellow

• Istanbul – Fun fact for pet lovers: There is a canine documentary “Stray” and a feline companion “Kedi” capturing the true owners of Turkey’s streets. 
• Favourite place Boston/Cambridge: Anywhere by the water
• Favourite pathogen: Erm tough question! Mtb, cause it’s tricky and you got to love a true challenge(!) but I had a blast working on HIV. 
• Your anthem right now (song!): “The Whole of the Moon” by The Waterboys. Probably am reading too much into the lyrics regarding brilliance, aspirations and going too far.
• 2021 goal: Keeping an eye on various pathogens Alter Lab is working on so that covid doesn’t steal all the attention.
• Any hobbies you’ve picked up during the pandemic: Making crochet little people – personal heroes, favorite characters, as well as toy antibodies, viruses, and lab equipment. 

Biana Bernshtein, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow

• Where you’re from: Israel
• Favourite place in Boston/Cambridge: The Charles river esplanade
• Favourite restaurant in Boston/Cambridge: Wasabi at Porter
• Favourite pathogen: Shigella (at the moment)
• Coffee or tea? COFFEE!
• Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate
• Your anthem right now (song!) Save your tears by The Weekend
• 2021 goal – To have a fun, warm, COVID free summer
• Any hobbies you’ve picked up during the pandemic – Learned how to entertain two toddlers without going crazy or getting a divorce:)

Jaewon Kang, Technician

Nic Webb, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow

• I’m from Vermont, home of the best foliage!
• My favorite place in Boston is the Charles River bike path because in the summer it just blooms with people and nature.
• My favorite pathogen is viruses, all of them! They are amazing little remnants of the most fundamental biochemistry that gave rise – spontaneously – to cellular and multicellular organisms. They’re part of a significant proportion of the human genome, so our evolution is forever intertwined and despite their simplicity (relative to us), they persist in nature! So they are a critical part of our past, and an important part of our future. 
• [ no restaurant answer, haven’t had a chance to eat out with pandemic ]
• Coffee, definitely coffee… Dark roast with sugar and cream…
• Chocolate! CHOCOLATE!
• My anthem right now is Linger Longer by Cosmo Sheldrake because it reminds me of how nature simply is. Regardless of how we perceive it or feel about it: clumsy, scary, beautiful, comical or endearing, it simply is because if it wasn’t, it would be :).
• I’m fairly new to the area so my goal for 2021 is to get some amazing science done and meet as many people as I can!
• Sculpting for sure, especially during the pandemic winter season. Although “free shipping” never applies to 50 pounds of clay 🙁

Madeline Davis, Senior Research Lab Assistant