Alice grew up in London and New York and completed her MD at Imperial College London before crossing the pond for neurology residency training at Mass General Brigham. She is currently a neuro-oncology fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Mass General Brigham. Alice studies therapeutic resistance in primary and secondary brain tumors.

Fun fact: Alice moonlights as a salsa dancer.

Favourite quote: “Ad astra per aspera” (translation: I have done a lot of call shifts).

Nil received her Ph.D. degree in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at UNC-Chapel Hill. During this training, under mentorship of Dr. Jason Stein, she investigated genetically altered cell-type-specific gene regulation during human neural differentiation. In Beroukhim lab, she develops algorithms to explore genetic and other molecular co-occurrences driving cancer progression and drug resistance.

Fun fact: Nil is a big fan of women’s volleyball, and her favourite player is Tijana Boskovic because she is great!

Favourite quote: “The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”

Nicole is originally from Los Angeles, California and received her BS from UC Davis in Biochemistry and Molecular biology, and her PhD from UC San Diego in Chemistry & Biochemistry. In graduate school, she focused on the characterization of mutated kinases as therapeutic targets for hematologic malignancies. In the Beroukhum lab, she is interested in understanding the contributions of genetic ancestry to cancer incidence and therapeutic outcome, with the goal of advancing equity in precision cancer treatment.

Tamar is a neuro-oncology fellow pursuing post-doctoral training in the Beroukhim and Kaelin laboratories. She completed a B.A. at Stanford University, an M.D.-Ph.D. at Thomas Jefferson University, and neurology residency training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Tamar is studying potential vulnerabilities resulting from aneuploidies in glioma.

Fun Fact: Tamar likes to play ‘cello (when she isn’t percussing on people’s nerves)

Favorite Quote: “Don’t Panic” – Douglas Adams

Shahab earned his BS and MS degrees from Sharif University of Technology, and his PhD from UC San Diego, all in Electrical Engineering. During his PhD, he developed several methods to utilize low-pass NGS to study eukaryotic genomes. In the Beroukhim lab, he is interested in developing computational methods to study the biology of tumors and identify novel therapeutic targets.

Fun fact: Shahab is a big fan of The Matrix (trilogy) and likes it even more than Rameen’s statistics primer. (Rameen’s edit: Shahab has poor taste.)

Favorite quote: “Evolution forged the entirety of sentient life on this planet using only one tool… The mistake.” -Robert Ford, Westworld

Born in Nazareth and raised in Jerusalem, Narmen earned a BSc degree in Biology, a MSC in Biochemistry, and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. During her PhD, she investigated the role of cellular senescence in skin premalignancy. During her postdoc training in the Beroukhim Lab, Narmen is trying to identify novel structural variations in gliomas and other cancers and to investigate novel mechanisms underlying the resistance of brain tumors to immunotherapy.

Fun fact #1: Narmen promised Rameen that she will name any technology or tool she develops in the lab after the movie “Interstellar.”

Fun fact #2: Narmen is a classical music lover and lives a 7-minute walk from Boston Symphony Orchestra. She has collected 15 versions of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons throughout her life and is still looking for more.

Favorite quote: “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ’That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov

Sean was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After graduating high school, Sean decided to travel the world, but didn’t make it very far — he only made it as far as East Lansing, Michigan where he earned a BS in chemistry at Michigan State University. Although Sean knows very little about the human body, he earned a PhD in physiology from Michigan State University where he studied drug resistance in melanoma. In the Beroukhim lab, Sean studies how germline variants impact cancer vulnerabilities and he studies genetic drivers of low-grade glioma growth.

Fun fact: Sean is from Michigan, the greatest state on earth.

Fun fact #2: Everything above, including the mistake about Michigan, was written by Sean.

Favorite quote: “Things take the time they take. Don’t worry. How many roads did Saint Augustine follow before he became Saint Augustine?” -Mary Oliver

Simona studied mathematics at Brandeis University and received her PhD from MIT in Biology and specifically mechanisms of resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs. She is currently developing algorithms to detect sequence features around rearrangement breakpoints, to distinguish rearrangements arising from different exposures and DNA damage response mechanisms.

Fun fact: Simona can juggle and unicycle, but not at the same time.

Favorite quote: “Sesquipedalianism obfuscates pellucidity”