Sarah Cobey
Principal Investigator • cobey@uchicago.eduSarah is a professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolution at the University of Chicago.
Lauren McGough
Postdoctoral Researcher • mcgough@uchicago.eduLauren studies how the mechanisms and dynamics of affinity maturation in the adaptive immune system affect the diversity of individuals' antibody repertoires.
Marcos Vieira
Senior Research Scientist • mvieira@uchicago.eduMarcos studies the rapid evolution of B cells during the immune response and how this short-term evolution is enabled by the long-term evolution of immunoglobulin genes. He’s also interested in how immune history shapes the evolution and epidemiology of influenza and other antigenically diverse pathogens.
Manon Ragonnet
Research Scientist • manonragonnet@uchicago.eduManon studies the transmission and evolution of RNA viruses, through the analysis of their genetic data. Her previous work focused on elucidating HIV transmission dynamics in the UK and sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, she is integrating phylogenetic analysis into models forecasting the next flu and SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Alex Byrnes
Senior Research Programmer • abyrnes@uchicago.eduAlex furthers the lab's reproducibility and reusability initiatives, and serves as digital lead. He has worked on national-level transparency and data projects since 2013 and software since the early aughts.
Christopher Joel Russo
PhD Student • cjrusso@uchicago.eduChristopher studies the germline adaptive evolution of the naive antibody repertoire and of the immunoglobulin alleles.
Alonzo Finch
Research Assistant • alonzo.finch@uchicago.eduAlonzo is assisting in modeling influenza infection using epidemiological and molecular data at both the national and regional levels. He is working on seeing how the size of previous influenza seasons can influence those that come later. He is currently a fourth year in The College at the University of Chicago studying Statistics.
Jessie Schmidt
Senior Analyst - Grants Administration • schmidtja@uchicago.eduJessie helps further the team's research capabilities by managing internal and external research funds, projects and collaborative initiatives. Her finance, grant and project management experience combined with a journalism background contributes a reduced administrative burden to the team, so they can remain focused on their invaluable scientific inquiries and interests.