McVicker Lab

Graham McVicker

Principal Investigator

Graham received his B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia and subsequently worked on the Ensembl Genome Browser at the European Bioinformatics Institute. Graham then did his Ph.D. with Phil Green at the University of Washington where he studied how mutation and selection shape human genetic variation. In his postdoctoral research with Jonathan Pritchard at the University of Chicago and Stanford University Graham researched how human genetic variation affects chromatin state. Since 2016, Graham has been a PI in the Laboratory of Genetics and the Integrative Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute.

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Shanna Lavalle

Postdoctoral Scholar

Shanna Lavalle received her undergraduate degree from California State University, Long Beach, where she majored in Biology-Physiology with a minor in Chemistry. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego, in Dr. Pamela Mellon's lab. In her thesis she studied how the Kiss1 neuroendocrine gene is regulated by the homeodomain transcription factors SIX3 and VAX1 to influence reproduction.

Brad Balderson

Postdoctoral Scholar

Brad received his undergraduate degree with a dual major in Bioinformatics at the University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. Brad completed his PhD in 2023 within the labs of Prof. Stefan Thor and A/Prof. Mikael Boden (UQ), where he designed novel computational methods to statistically determine distinct populations of cells in single cell transcriptomics data. For his postdoc in the McVicker lab, Brad is collaborating with the Palmer and Telese labs and developing machine learning methods to analyze single cell and genetic data in an outbred rat model of opiod addiction.

Mickey Lorenzini

Ph.D. Student

Mickey is a current trainee in the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program at UC San Diego. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in Bioengineering at UCLA, where he studied therapeutic immune cell engineering in the lab of Dr. Yvonne Chen. Prior to joining the Salk Institute and UCSD, Mickey was an Associate Scientist in preclinical cell therapy development at Kite, a Gilead Company.

Jeff Jaureguy

Ph.D. Student

Jeff is a Ph.D. student in the UCSD Bioinformatics and Systems Biology program. He completed a Bachelor's degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from California State University, San Marcos in 2020 and an associates degree in Mathematics and Sciences from MiraCosta College in 2018.

Kimberly Spaulding

Ph.D. Student

Kiki is a Ph.D. student in the UCSD Bioinformatics and Systems Biology program. She completed a Bachelor's degree in Music at UCSD in 2010, and a Masters degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from San Francisco State University in 2017.

Han Chen

M.S. Student

Han is an M.S. student in the UCSD Department of Bioengineering. Han completed a Bachelor's degree in Bioinformatics at UCSC and has been in the Bioengineering program at UCSD since 2022.

Aaron Ho

Scientific Programmer

Aaron completed his Bachelor's degree in Bioinformatics with a minor in Computer Science from UCSD in 2020. Since joining the McVicker laboratory he has worked on the analysis of genomics datasets and methods for estimating allele-specific expression.

Ariana Fonseca

Research Assistant

Ariana completed her Bachelor's degree in Neurobiology from UCSD in 2022. Since joining the McVicker Laboratory, she has worked to develop reporter assays to measure the effects of genetic variants on gene expression.

Karthy Sajeev

Undergraduate Researcher

Karthy is a UCSD undergraduate research student majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology with a minor in Data Science.

Aditya Parmar

Undergraduate Researcher

Aditya is a UCSD undergraduate research student double majoring in Bioinformatics and Mathematics & Computer Science.

Beverly Kennedy

Lab Administrative Manager

Lab Affiliates

Mike Cuoco

Ph.D. Student (Primary Advisor: Rusty Gage)

Mike worked for several years in the Regev lab at the Broad institute before joining the BISB program at UCSD. His primary Ph.D mentor is Rusty Gage, and he is co-advised by Graham McVicker and Eran Mukamel.

Lab Alumni

Postdoctoral scholars

Arko Sen
Postdoctoral Scholar
2016-2023
Current and Next Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Hsiuyi Chen
Postdoctoral Scholar
2016-2022
Current and Next Position: Research Scientist, A*STAR Infectious Diseases Labs, Singapore

Graduate Students

Jessica Zhou
UCSD Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
9/2018-6/2023
Current and Next Position: Postdoctoral Scholar, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (Koo Lab)

Patrick Fiaux
UCSD Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology
9/2016-2/2021
Next Position: Bioinformatics Scientist, PetDx
Current Position: Bioinformatics Scientist 2, Guardant Health

Jing Gu
UCSD M.Sc. in Chemistry and Biochemistry
1/2016-9/2017
Next Position: Bioinformatics Programmer in Gleeson Lab, UCSD
Current Position: Ph.D. Student at University of Chicago (He Lab)

Undergraduate Students

Karthik Guruvayurappan
UCSD B.Sc. in Data Science & General Biology
2020-2023
Current and Next Position: PhD Student at the Tri-Institutional Program in Computational Biology and Medicine (Cornell, Rockefeller, MSKCC)

Ella Say
UCSD B.Sc. in Biology
09/2022-04/2023
Current and Next Position: Undergraduate Student, Kay Tye Lab, Salk Institute

Aaron Chen
UCSD B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology
8/2018-6/2020
Research Associate
7/2020-6/2021
Current and Next Position: Medical Student at Renaissance School of Medicine, Stony Brook University

Arya Massarat
Harvey Mudd B.Sc.
5/2018-9/2020
Current and Next Position: PhD Student in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Program at UCSD (Gymrek Lab)

Ishika Luthra
Undergraduate Co-op student from SFU
9/2016-12/2016
Next Position: Co-op student in Marco Marra Lab at Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Center
Current Position: Ph.D. Student in de Boer and Mostafavi Labs at University of British Columbia

Summer Students

Elise Marvin
SURF Undergraduate Researcher from Gonzaga University
6/2023-8/2023

Cherish Alex-Wele
STARS Undergraduate Researcher from Xavier University of Lousiana
6/2022-8/2022

Gabriel Siguenza
STARS Undergraduate Researcher from Cal State San Marcos
6/2022-8/2022 Current and Next Position: Computer Science Graduate Student at Cal Poly Pomona

Etchi Ako
STARS Undergraduate Researcher from UC Riverside
6/2021-8/2021
Current and Next Position: Ph.D. Student in Vision Research at UC Berkeley

Jasmine Castellanos
STARS Undergraduate Researcher from CS Fullerton
6/2021-8/2021
Current and Next Position: PhD Student in Microbiology at UC Riverside

Lillian Petersen
High school student intern from Los Alamos High School
6/2019-5/2020
Current and Next Position: Undergraduate Student, Harvard

Halimo Farah
High School Summer Student, Heithoff-Brody Scholars Program
7/2018-8/2018
Current and Next Position: Undergraduate Student, UCSD

Scientific Staff

Sherry Huang
Jr. Scientific Programmer
5/2021-8/2021
Current and Next Position: Masters Student in Computer Science at UCLA

Sélène Tyndale
Lab Coordinator
3/2016-2/2020
Next Position: Associate Scientist I, Illumina
Current Position: Scientist I at Invivoscribe

Admin Staff

Annabell Garcia
Lab Administrative Manager (shared with Azim, Asahina, Engle, Lyumkis Labs)
2018-2021

Rachel Burgess Lab Administrative Manager (shared with Busch, Law, Michael, Labs)
9/2021-5/2022

Beth Coyne
Lab Administrative Manager (shared with Verma Lab, Gage Lab)
1/2016-12/2018
Current and Next Position: Full-time Lab Administrative Manager for Gage Lab.

Lab affiliates

Fred Monroe
5/2021-1/2023
Machine Learning Advisor

Kayla Chase
Postdoctoral Scholar (in Palmer Lab at UCSD)
2/2016-8/2017
Next Position: Research Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago
Current Position: Medical Science Liason, HLS Therapeutics

Rotation Students