Our Members
Photo Credit: “Faces of Dudley” mural by Mike Womble and Mayor’s Mural Crew
The HBPA leadership consists of our Governing Board and Committee Chairs that aim to develop, execute and accomplish the goals of the HBPA and its collaborators.
The HBPA meets twice monthly to cover a wide range of topics centered around supporting the personal and professional development of black postdocs at Harvard Medical School and its affiliates.
Governing Board 2023-2024
Co-Chairs: Dr. Abigael Cheruiyot and Dr. Cynthia Tchio
Vice Chair: Dr. Emmanuel Ogbonna
Secretary: Dr. Kemardo Henry
Treasurer: Dr. Talia Robinson
Fundraising Chair: Dr. Vanessa Sue Wacleche
Committee Chairs 2023-2024
Community Outreach: Dr. Leila Paraiso and Dr. Ricardo Harripaul
Career Development: Dr. Adam Kebede and Dr. Olasunkanmi Olutobi Olaoye
Communications and Social Media: Dr. Joseph Ogbede and Dr. Raie Bekele
Social: Dr. Bernie Owusu-Yaw
Governing Board 2021-2022
Chair: Dr. Frankie Heyward
Co-Vice Chairs: Dr. Walatta-T Mesquitta and Dr. Mike Oliphant
Secretary: Dr. Abigael Cheruiyot
Treasurer: Dr. Tikvah (Tiki) Hayes
Committee Chairs 2021-2022
Community Outreach: Dr. Whitney Gibbs-Williams and Dr. Elsy Ngwa
Career Development: Dr. Joshua François
Communications and Social Media: Dr. Mike Oliphant
Our Members
Dr. Jhullian Alston
Dr. Joshua François
Dr.François is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in Galit Lahav’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School. His general research interest is to understand how physical and chemical cues affect the behavior of individual cells.
Dr. Walatta-T Mesquitta
Dr. Victoria Parker
Dr. Adolphus Wagala
Dr. Oluwarotimi (Timi) Folorunso
Dr. Olasunkanmi Tobi Olaoye
Dr. Manni Adam
Currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the Harwell lab in Harvard Medical School studying neurodevelopment and epigenetics. I have previously completed a PhD in Neuroscience looking at the role of epigenetic regulation in neurodevelopmental disorders.
Dr. Ricardo Harripaul
Dr. Mike Oliphant
Dr. Oliphant is a NCI F99/K00 Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the labs of Joan Brugge and Senthil Muthuswamy at Harvard Medical School. His current research focuses on using 3D organoid models to study the initiation, progression and drug resistance of ER+ breast cancer.
Dr. Emmanuel Ogbonna
Dr. Ogbonna studies the relationship between tuberculosis granuloma heterogeneity and host immune response – elicited upon infection – using tissue cyclic immunofluorescence. CyCIF is used with a wide array of antibody markers to phenotype all the different cell types associated with the granuloma stages, especially their spatial relationships to one another.
Dr. Abigael Cheruiyot
Abby has a background in DNA and RNA surveillance mechanisms that regulate gene expression. Currently Abby is a postdoctoral research fellow at Joslin Diabetes Center in the lab of Dr. Jean Schaffer, where she investigates the mechanisms of mRNA translation regulation in pancreatic beta cells in health and in the context of diabetes.
Dr. Adam Fiseha Kebede
A postdoctoral scientist with a strong interest and 8+ years of experience in the field of Epigenetics and Chromatin Biology. Currently focused on understanding how alterations in epigenetic modifiers contributes to the development of human disease, particularly cancer.
Dr. Adewale Adeluyi
Dr. Adeluyi is a postdoctoral fellow studying the the role of microglia in Alzheimers disease, utilizing techniques such as ChIP-seq, scRNA-seq, IHC, and single-cell targeted microglia proteomics on Cytek® Aurora technology platform with our custom-made neuro-immune panel.
Dr. Akosua Tenkorang
Dr. Antja-Voy Hartley
Dr. Hartley focuses on designing rational and novel combination treatments to overcome resistance to EGFR-targeted therapies in EGFR-mutant lung cancers. Additionally, she explores options for targeted therapies for the treatment of mesotheliomas by linking the tumors’ genomic landscape to potential therapeutic vulnerabilities.
Dr. Christina King
Dr. Cynthia Tchio
Dr. Tchio is currently completing my post-doctoral fellowship, a T32-grant collaboration between Brigham Women's Hospital Harvard Medical School and Morehouse School of Medicine Cardiovascular Research Institute. Her current post-doctoral research will explore the genetics of G-protein coupled receptors.
Evida Dennis-Heyward
Dr. Heran Getachew
Dr. Heran Getachew received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences with an emphasis in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Florida in September 2019. Her dissertation work focused on the intracellular survival mechanisms of an oral bacterium, Porphyromonas gingivalis, within cardiovascular cells in the context of atherosclerosis. In November 2019, she joined Ocular Genomics Institute of Mass Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical school to study extracellular vesicles as a biomarker for inherited retinal degenerations.
Dr. Ijeoma Julie Eche
Dr. Eche is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Her current research project focuses on examining the relation between concrete material hardship and parental distress in children with advanced cancer.
Dr. Ines Leila Paraiso
Dr. Dee Jordan
Dr. Dee Jordan is a Health and Medical Geographer who’s research focuses on the spatial and ecological determinants of emerging infectious disease and neglected tropical diseases of sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. Elsy Ngwa
Dr. Ngwa is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital. Her research focuses on identifying redox-signalling pathways at the intestinal epithelium during inflammation.
Dr. James Allen
Dr. Allen is a HHMI Hanna Gray Research Fellow. His research focuses on investigating novel drivers of pediatric leukemia.
Dr. Julie Konge
Dr. Mireille Kamariza
Dr. Kristyn Carter
Dr. Raie T. Bekele
Dr. Bernie Simone Owusu-Yaw
Dr. Nickesha Camille Anderson
Dr. Anderson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital. Her research focuses on stem cell differentiation for disease modeling, drug discovery and transplantation therapies for neurological disorders.
Dr. Philippe Morquette
Dr. Richard Olalekan Adeyemi
Dr. Teniel Ramikie
Dr. Ramikie is currently a post-doctoral research fellow in the Neurobiology of Fear laboratory and a HHMI-sponsored Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Fellow. Dr. Ramikie employs multidisciplinary techniques to examine processes underlying lasting modifications in neural circuits, associated with pathological behavioral states, using disease models of fear and anxiety disorders.
Dr. Vanessa Wacleche
Dr. Wacleche is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on studying the role of immune cells under inflammatory conditions including as HIV infection and rheumatoid diseases such as Rheumatoid arthritis and Lupus.
Dr. Whitney Gibbs
Dr. Yohannes Abere Ambaw
Dr. Ambaw is a postdoctoral fellow in the Farese-Walther lab. His interests are to establish a stable, robust and reproducible high throughput lipidomics pipeline and investigate human plasma lipidome in relation to cardiometabolic diseases.
Dr. Yohannes Gemechu Hailu
Dr. Hailu was trained as a Medical Laboratory Technologist, Medical Biochemist, and Immunologist. He is passionate about immunomodulatory drugs mechanism of action and tumor immunotherapy.
Dr. Zuri Sullivan
Dr. Sullivan is a HHMI Hanna Gray Research Fellow studying inflammatory control of social behavior in Dr. Catherine Dulac's lab at Harvard University.
Dr. Lerato Charlotte Majara
Dr Majara is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Martin Lab at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. She works on a project called Neuropsychiatric Genetics in African Populations that investigates the genetic liability of psychosis in populations in South and East Africa. She completed her PhD at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. Her research interests include the assessment of the transferability of polygenic risk scores across and within African populations.
Dr. Olawande Olagoke
Dr. Stecia-Marie Fletcher
Dr. Munashe Crispen
Dr. Brandon Yates
Dr. Gbolahan Bamgbose
Dr. Olasubomi Akintola
Alumni
Dr. Frankie Heyward
Dr. Biniam Adane
Dr. Alkeiver Cannon
Dr. David A. Alagpulinsa
Dr. Yvon Woappi
Dr. Tikvah (Tiki) Hayes
Dr. Aaron Moye
Dr. Moye is a postdoctoral fellow at Boston Children's Hospital Stem Cell Program and HMS Department of Genetics, where his studies focus on early-stage lung cancer. Specifically, he is investigating the cell-to-cell cross talk between lung cancer cells and their surrounding microenvironment and how this cellular communication promotes early-stage lung cancer initiation and progression.