Members

Current members

Prateek Kalakuntla

Graduate Student (joined @ 07/2022)
Developmental Biology
Stanford Graduate Fellow (SGF)
NSF GRFP Fellow

B.S. in Bioengineering & Computer Science, MIT
prateekk@stanford.edu

Sidney Vermeulen

Graduate Student (joined @ 06/2023)
Genetics

B.S. in Biological Engineering & Computer Science, MIT
M.E. in Computer Science, MIT
sidneyv@stanford.edu

Jeongwoong Yoon

Graduate Student (joined @ 06/2024)
Bioengineering

Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow (SIGF)

B.S./M.S. in Agriculture, Tohoku University, Japan
jyoon3@stanford.edu

Souradeep Sarkar

Postdoc (joined @ 07/2022)
School of Medicine Dean's Postdoctoral Fellow

Ph.D. in Developmental Biology, National Centre for Biological Sciences, India
sarkar91@stanford.edu

Guang Yang

Postdoc (joined @ 09/2024)

Ph.D. in Biology, Tongji University, China
gyangbio@stanford.edu

Bo Wang

Associate Professor
Bioengineering & (by courtesy) Developmental Biology

Office: Shriram 084
wangbo@stanford.edu
(Don't click)

Former members

Alexander J. Tarashansky
PhD of Bioengineering, 02/2016-06/2021
Current: software engineer, Anthropic

Samuel R. Bray
PhD of Bioengineering, 06/2017-12/2022
Current: software engineer, UCSF/HHMI

R. Nelson Hall
PhD of Bioengineering, 06/2017-05/2024
Current: Jim and Virginia Stowers Fellow/research prof., Stowers Institute

Eunsun Song
PhD of Applied Physics, 11/2020-12/2025
Current: postdoc, Stanford

Robin Rio Bigasin, Research associate (09/2021-10/2023). Robin performed a RNAi screen to identify regulators of Macrostomum regeneration.

Colin Kalicki, Coterm student (01/2021-08/2023). Colin's work aimed to identify unannotated noncoding transcriptional active regions in the planarian genome using single-cell RNAseq data. His interest in bioinformatics continues as a Ph.D. student in Systems Biology at Columbia University.

Xi Yu, MS student (10/2018-05/2020). Xi worked on a RNAi screen to identify regulators of germline development in schistosomes. Her next station is Mayo Clinic, to pursue her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and Physiology.

Huiying Yang, Research associate (01/2016-07/2016). Huiying set up the lab routine of our schistosome work, and got our first set of experiments up and running. She is currently a pharmacologist and clinical researcher at Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, China.

Rotations

Francesca Cohn, Developmental Biology (04/2026). Francesca studied innate immune pathways in photosymbiotic acoels. Thesis lab: David Kingsley.

Amanda Fu, Developmental Biology (01/2026-03/2026). Amanda investigated neural populations that may mediate multisensory integration in planarians. Thesis lab: Sarah Bowling.

Jihyun In, Biophysics (06/2025-09/2025). Jihyun measured mechanical properties of ruptoblasts using optical tweezer. Thesis lab: Hawa Racine Thiam.

Joshua Liu, Biophysics (09/2024-12/2024). Josh modeled the evolvability of gene regulatory networks. Thesis lab: Grant Rotskoff.

Peyton Dooley, Developmental Biology (09/2024-12/2024). Peyton studied polymorphic genes in acoels using reference-free single-cell analysis. Thesis lab: Dominique Bergmann.

Hunter King, Developmental Biology (01/2024-03/2024). Hunter explored ChromBPNet models for cross-species genome accessibility predictions. Thesis lab: Kyle Loh.

Yilin Chen, Bioengineering (09/2023-12/2023). Yilin tested large language models for single-cell transcriptomic analysis. Thesis lab: Possu Huang.

Yixin Wang, Bioengineering (09/2022-12/2022). Yixin's work aimed to integrate transformer language models into cross-species cell type mapping. Thesis lab: Kilian Pohl.

Maya Sheth, Bioengineering (06/2022-09/2022). Maya studied the function of distal wound responses in the planarian regeneration. Thesis lab: Polly Fordyce.

Macy Vollbrecht, Biology (04/2022-06/2022). Macy used SAMap to compare chicken and human heart cell types. Thesis lab: Dominique Bergmann.

Junqin Zhu, Biology (01/2021-04/2021). Jun analyzed stem cell populations in the acoel worm, Convolutriloba longifissura. Thesis lab: Ovijit Chaudhuri.

Sophie Walton, Biophysics (01/2021-03/2021). Sophie worked on mRNA transfection of planarian cells. Thesis lab: Dmitri Petrov.

Soham Sinha, Bioengineering (01/2021-03/2021). Soham built an instrument, 'worm cannon', to cut and collect planarian tissues with microscale precision. Thesis lab: Mark Skylar-Scott.

Jordan Xiao, Biophysics (09/2019-12/2019). Jordan worked on implementing ATACseq on schistosome cells in order to understand wound induced chromatin remodeling. Thesis lab: Jan Skotheim.

Jiawei Sun, Bioengineering (09/2019-12/2019). Jiawei's work aimed to develop an unsupervised algorithm for transcriptomic cell type analysis. Thesis lab: KC Huang.

Sasha Zemsky, Biophysics (01/2018-03/2018). Sasha combined experiments and theory to understand the control mechanisms of homeostatic dynamics in planarians. Thesis lab: Zev Bryant.

Ellie Flaum, Biophysics (01/2018-03/2018). Ellie explored super-resolution imaging methods to characterize nuclear architecture in planarians. Thesis lab: Manu Prakash.

Pam Rios Coronado, Biology (09/2017-12/2017). Pam characterized gene expression patterns in the schistosome germline. Thesis lab: Kristy Red-Horse.

Pranav Vyas, Bioengineering (09/2017-12/2017). Pranav's work focused on planarian gut remodeling during growth and degrowth. Thesis lab: Manu Prakash.

Paul Bump, Biology (10/2016-03/2017). Paul attempted to purify planarian immune cells. Thesis lab: Chris Lowe.

Trisha Chong, Developmental Biology (09/2016-12/2016). Trisha compared molecular wound responses between regenerative and non-regenerative flatworms. Thesis lab: Lucy Shapiro.

Yuan (Soso) Xue, Bioengineering (09/2015-03/2016). As the first rotation student, Soso declared the lab open at the 2016 Shriram new lab welcome party. During his time with us, he experimented many different things on the planarian. Thesis lab: Steve Quake.

Undergrads

Maxwell Spivakovsky (06/2023-08/2026). Starting as a high school intern, Max worked on several single-cell sequencing analysis methods to examine cell type relationships.

Gabriel Kim (BioE REU, 2026). Gabe tested mRNA transfection in the model algae Chlamydomonas.

Audrey Kim (02/2025-05/2026). Audrey characterized the mating behavior of Camerata planarians.

Robert Igbokwe (BioE REU, 2023). Robert studied the planarian behavior using live animal tracking.

Catherine Rogers (BioE REU, 2019). Cat characterzied the planarian goblet cells.

Eric Liu (BioE REU, 2018). Eric tested transgene expression in planarian cells.

Xóchitl Longstaff (Bio-X USRP, 2018). Xóchitl worked on several projects from schistosomes to auxotrophic bacterial communities.

Eva Frankel (BioE REU, 2017). Eva characterized the planarian glia.

Taylor Chavez (BioE REU, 2017). Taylor studied phototaxis of planarian flatworms.

Visitors

Michelle Tanujaya, Undergrad (06/2025-08/2025). Michelle joined us through the Stanford Summer Research Program (SSRP) program and worked with Pengyang on acoel phototaxis.

Aarya Shah, High school intern (06/2025-08/2025). Aarya worked with Pengyang to examine temperature dependence of acoel regeneration.

Shinji Tashiro, Visiting scholar (09/2023-08/2024). Shinji spent a year with us on sabbatical from the SONY Corporation. He focused on implementing spatial transcriptomics on several types of animal tissues, from octopus hearts to mouse intestines.

Jiaxin (Bonnie) Nien, High school intern (06/2024-08/2024). Bonnie worked with Pengyang on a photosymbiotic acoel to manipulate its relationship with the algal symbiont. College: Caltech.

Britney Ho, Undergrad (06/2024-08/2024). Britney joined us through the Community College Outreach Program. She worked with Souradeep to characterize the diversity of the nervous system in various planarian species.

Ruohan Ren, Undergrad (06/2023-08/2023). Ruohan joined us from Tsinghua University, China, through the UGVR program. He analyzed the single-cell ATACseq data from three flatworms to explore the genetic basis of cell type identity. PhD: tri-institutional program hosted by Cornell, Memorial Sloan Kettering, & Rockefeller University.

Zachary Irwin, High school intern (06/2023-09/2023). Zachary worked with Livia to explore learning behavior of Macrostomum lignano. College: UC Irvine.

Pranav Kalakuntla, High school intern (06/2023-08/2023). Pranav worked with Souradeep on perturbing the Wnt signaling pathway in the planarian. College: UPenn.

Jacob Qian, High school intern (07/2022-08/2022). Jacob worked with Sam to build an imaging setup to quantify planarian phototaxis. College: UPenn.

Lihan Zhong, Undergrad (06/2022-08/2022). Through the UGVR program, Lihan joined us from Tsinghua University, China. He developed a FACS protocol to isolate cytotoxic cells from planarians. PhD: Rockefeller University.

Francesca Prescott, High school intern (02/2022-04/2022). As a part of her Biotechnology Research Capstone course, Francesca worked with Livia to learn about RNAi using planarians. College: Washington University in St. Louis.

Shulin Mao, Undergrad (07/2021-08/2021). Shulin joined us virtually from Peking University, China, through the UGVR program, and worked on the analysis of schistosome single-cell ATAC data. PhD: Harvard University.

Zikang Huang, Undergrad (07/2020-08/2020). Zikang joined us virtually from Tsinghua University, China, through the UGVR program, and worked on the annotation of the Convolutrilba transcriptome. PhD: UPenn.

Songbo Zhang, Undergrad (07/2019-08/2019). Through the Stanford Undergraduate Visiting Research (UGVR) program, Songbo visited us from Tsinghua University, China. He worked with Yuhang on spatial coordination of planarian wound responses. PhD: Tsinghua University.

Maria Lozada, Undergrad (06/2019-08/2019). Through the Stanford Summer Research Program (SSRP), Maria joined us from the University of Miami. She worked with Sam and Livia to collect our first dataset of planarian behaviors during regeneration.

Žaneta Andrusivová, Collaborator (07/2019). Žaneta visited us from Professor Joakim Lundeberg's lab at KTH, Sweden. She worked with Yuhang to implement Spatial Transcriptomics on planarian tissues.

Karamjot Singh, High school intern (06/2019-08/2019). Supported by the Stanford RISE summer internship, Karm worked with Chew to measure the allogeneic response of planarian cells.

Hannah Lee, High school intern (07/2018-08/2018). Hannah worked with Alec to analyze the planarian and schistosome genome. She continued the work as her AP research project. College: UCLA; MD: Stanford!

Christopher He, High school intern (02/2018-05/2018). As his senior project, Chris worked with Chew to cut and paste planarians to make genetic chimeras. College: UCLA; PhD: UCSF.

Stella Wan, High school intern (06/2017-07/2017). Stella worked with Sam to study the planarian gut microbiome. College: UC Berkeley.

Anna Tarashansky, High school intern (06/2016-08/2016). Never pipetted before, Annie joined us to find out if she enjoys biology and left with a definitive answer. Her work with Soso has initiated our new project that uses the planarian to understand the evolution of microbial communities. College: UC Berkeley.

Aaron Benge, Undergrad (06/2016-08/2016). Aaron joined us from Georgetown College, Kentucky, through a HHMI summer research program. He teamed with Margarita and they two got our first set of super-resolution fluorescence images of planarian tissues using expansion microscopy. MD: University of Louisville.

Angela Fan, High school intern (06/2016-07/2016). Angela spent her summer working with Pengyang on schistosome germline development. This was her first exposure to molecular biology. In the meantime, Angela is also an active ice skater and dancer. College: UC Berkeley; PhD: UCSD.

Current members

Prateek Kalakuntla

Lauren Lubeck

Sidney Vermeulen

Abhimanyu Sharma