Haruna grew up in Hilo, HI and graduated from Caltech with a B.S. in Bioengineering and a minor in Neurobiology. As an undergraduate, she worked in the Chou Lab at Caltech developing mass spectrometry methods for detecting inter-organelle protein trafficking, and interned in industry labs optimizing methods for improving protein detection. Moving further east to join the Beroukhim Lab, Haruna worked on genomic analysis to study cancer biology, focusing on copy number alterations in the TCGA’s Pan-Cancer Atlas and characterizing resistance mechanisms to cancer therapeutics with Matthew Meyerson’s group. After leaving the lab, Haruna joined UCSF as a graduate student in bioinformatics.

Fun fact: I was technically a collegiate athlete but never competed.

Favorite quote: “You will always struggle with not feeling productive until you accept that your own joy can be something you produce.” — Hank Green