Meet Our Team

Matt Sampson Headshot

Matt Sampson, MD, MS Principal Investigator

Matt Sampson

Matt Sampson, MD, MS

Principal Investigator, Warren E. Grupe Chair of Pediatric Nephrology at Boston Children’s Hospital, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Associate Member of the Broad Institute and member of the Kidney Disease Initiative, and Research Faculty at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Nephrology Division.

Matt is a Pediatric Nephrologist and genetic epidemiologist in the Division of Nephrology at Boston Children’s Hospital. He completed his residency and fellowship training at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and received his MS in Clinical Epidemiology with a focus on Human Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to taking a “kidneyomics” research approach to pediatric kidney disease, he cares for many children with diverse kidney diseases. He is also a strong proponent for open data sharing in nephrology and increasing the genomic literacy of all nephrologists.

Matt's Publications

Michelle McNulty, MS Computational Biologist

Michelle McNulty

Michelle McNulty, MS

Computational Biologist

Michelle is a statistical geneticist leading our APOL1 analyses and focuses on GWAS of trans-ethnic nephrotic syndrome cohorts, and using transcriptomics to map variant function. Michelle started with the Sampson Lab at the University of Michigan where she was completing her Masters of Science in Biostatistics and the Genome Science Training Program and has been heavily involved in the lab’s creation and efforts.

Michelle's Publications:

An eQTL Landscape of Kidney Tissue in Human Nephrotic Syndrome

APOL1 Genotype-Associated Morphologic Changes Among Patients with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis

A Glomerular Transcriptomic Landscape of Apolipoprotein L1 in Black Patients with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis

Common Risk Variants in NPHS1 and TNFSF15 are Associated with Child Steriod-Sensitive Nephrotic Syndrome

Ana Onuchic-Whitford, MD Instructor, Harvard School of Medicine Nephrologist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Ana Onuchich-Whitford

Ana Onuchic-Whitford, MD

Instructor, Harvard School of Medicine and Nephrologist, Brigham and Women's Hospital

Ana is a physician-scientist who received her MD from the University of São Paulo in Brazil, where she also completed her residency in Internal Medicine. After relocating to the US, she repeated her Internal Medicine residency at the University of Connecticut and did her clinical fellowship in Nephrology in the joint Brigham and Women's Hospital / Massachusetts General Hospital program. As a post-doctoral research fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital, she studied the genetics and genomics of nephrotic syndrome and other genetic kidney diseases. In 2022, Ana started as an attending physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and as an instructor at Harvard Medical School, and is the Director of the Renal Genetics Clinic there. She is continuing her research in computational genomics in the Sampson Lab at Boston Children's Hospital.

Janewit Wongboosin, MD, MS Adult Nephrology Fellow

Janewit Wongboonsin

Janewit Wongboonsin, MD, MS

Adult Nephrology Fellow

Janewit is a nephrology fellow at Brigham Women’s and Mass General Hospitals. He completed Medical school in Siriraj Hospital in Thailand and went through IM training and Masters of Science at the University of Minnesota. Janewit is currently working on utilizing the Mass General Brigham Biobank for genomics discovery in nephrotic syndrome.

Kathy Madrazo Headshot

Kathy Madrazo, MD, MSc Clinical Research Specialist

Kathy Madrazo

Kathy Madrazo, MD, MSc

Clinical Research Specialist

Kathy is a Pediatrician from Mexico where she graduated as an MD. Even though nephrotic syndrome is considered a rare disease, it is also a wide set of diseases that have a great impact on many individuals and their families. Kathy is dedicated to supporting the nephrotic syndrome community and advancing our understanding of this rare disease.

David Vanderwall MD-PhD Student at Harvard Medical School

David Vanderwall

David Vanderwall

MD-PhD Student at Harvard Medical School

Proteomics and Computational Biology research implementing mass spectrometry. Focused on elucidating the clinical presentation and biological mechanisms underlying APOL1-mediated Nephrotic Syndrome using network analysis and other graph theoretical approaches.



David's Publications

Waverly Alcure

Waverly Alcure, MS Community Outreach and Social Media Coordinator

Waverly Alcure

Waverly Alcure, MS

Community Outreach and Social Media Coordinator

Waverly is currently the Community Outreach and Social Media Coordinator for the Sampson Lab. She graduated with her Masters of Science in Health Communication at Boston University and Bachelors in Business Management from Stony Brook University. Waverly has combined her passion of marketing and communications with healthcare to spread awareness and education about research that may improve the health of children with nephrotic syndrome.

Eman Seval Headshot

Eman Seyal Research Intern

Eman Seyal Headshot

Eman Seyal

Research Intern

Eman is a Research Intern at the Sampson Lab and an undergraduate student at Harvard University. She is an A.B. Candidate in Human Evolutionary Biology and Mind Brain Behavior on the pre-med track. Eman is passionate about applying her interests in immunology and genetics to pediatric nephrotic syndrome research. On campus, Eman is involved with the Pakistani Students Association as Director of Public Service, Muslim Women’s Medical Alliance, Harvard World Pre-Health Conference, and Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children. In her enthusiasm for supporting pediatric patients, she also serves as a Volunteer at Boston Children’s on the infant and toddler surgical unit.

AC Gomez Headshot

AC Gomez, MD Adult and Pediatric Nephrology Clinical Fellow

AC Gomez

AC Gomez, MD

Adult and Pediatric Nephrology Clinical Fellow

AC is a med/peds nephrology fellow at Brigham and Women’s, Mass General, and Boston Children's hospitals. She completed medical school at the University of Pennsylvania and med/peds residency at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. AC is interested in elucidating the underlying genetic mechanisms of nephrotic syndromes and how this can be used to tailor therapies.

AC's Publications:

Genome-encoded cytoplasmic double-stranded RNAs, found in C9ORF72 ALS-FTD brain, propagate neuronal loss

Aβ alters the connectivity of olfactory neurons in the absence of amyloid plaques in vivo

An Interactive Ambulatory Nephrology Curriculum for Internal Medicine Interns: Design, Implementation, and Participant Feedback

Junmo Sung, MS Data Analyst

Junmo Sung Headshot

Junmo Sung, MS

Data Analyst

Junmo is a Data Analyst studying genomics and transcriptomics of kidney disease in the Ana Onuchic-Whitford Lab. He received his Master's degree in Biomolecular Engineering and Bioinformatics at University of California Santa Cruz and Bachelor's in Genetic Engineering at Kyunghee University.

Adrian Banerji Headshot

Adrian Banerji, MD Pediatric Nephrology and Clinical Fellow

Adrian Banerji Headshot

Adrian Banerji, MD

Pediatric Nephrology and Clinical Fellow



Sowmya Badina Headshot

Sowmya Badina, BS Research Trainee

Sowmya Badina Headshot

Sowmya Badina, BS

Research Trainee

Sowmya is working as Research trainee in Dr. Ana Onuchic-Whitford’s lab. With a Bachelors in Dental Surgery from India, Sowmya is currently pursuing Masters in Health Informatics with a focus in the intersection of Health care and Data Science. During her Masters, Sowmya delved into data analysis, particularly focusing on Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), which sparked a profound interest on kidney genomics.

The Dongwon Lee Lab

The Dongwon Lee Lab and Sampson Lab for Kidney Genomics have been valuable partners since 2019, collaborating closely to advance research on kidney disease through the lens of genomics. The Lee Lab aims to understand how gene regulation contributes to the development and progression of human diseases, specifically focusing on kidney diseases. We use a combination of single-cell multiomics data, genetic data from disease cohorts, functional assays, and machine-learning approaches to address these complex problems. In addition, we work closely with clinicians and experimental biologists to validate and verify our models and predictions. We are dedicated to developing new genomic computational tools and making them accessible to the research community.

Dongwon Lee

Dongwon Lee, PhD Principal Investigator

Dongwon Lee

Dongwon Lee, PhD

Assistant Professor, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Dongwon is a computational biologist and human geneticist with an expertise in machine learning. He is specifically interested in how transcriptional dysregulation affects human diseases, specifically focusing on pediatric kidney diseases. Dongwon seeks to better understand the underlying genetic mechanisms of these diseases and believes we can make a significant breakthrough with our single-cell multi-omic approaches.

Dongwon's Publications

Jeerthi Kannan Headshot

Jeerthi Kannan MS Research Assistant

Jeerthi Kannan

Jeerthi Kannan, MS

Research Assistant

Jeerthi is a Research Assistant focusing on using computational methods for analyzing and visualizing data. She grew up in Tennessee and completed her Bachelor's in Computational Biology at the University of Rochester and Master's in Computer Science at Vanderbilt University.

Seong Kyu Han

Seong Kyu Han, PhD Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Seong Kyu Han

Seong Kyu Han, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Seong is a computational biologist with research experiences in genomics, machine learning, and network biology. He received his PhD and completed his first post-doc at South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology. His goal is to develop computational models that bridge the gap between complex genomic/phenotype data and interpretable results for biomedical scientists and clinicians.

Anya Greenberg, BS Computational Biologist

Anya Greenberg

Anya Greenberg, BS

Computational Biologist

Anya is a computational biologist studying gene regulation of kidney and immune cells to help decipher the genomic basis of pediatric kidney diseases. As an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, Anya worked in Dr. Amanda Larracuente’s evolutionary genomics lab studying repetitive DNA profiles. She used data visualization and machine learning models to better understand the evolutionary impact of repeat dynamics.

Eric Sakkas Headshot

Eric Sakkas Student Research Assistant

Eric Sakkas

Eric Sakkas

Student Research Assistant

Eric Sakkas is a sophomore at Wesleyan University studying Molecular Biology & Biochemistry and Computer Science. At Wesleyan, he is a member of Dr. Michael Weir's lab, where he utilizes molecular dynamics simulations to better understand the CAR mRNA-interaction surface of the ribosome.

Eric's Publications:

The CAR–mRNA Interaction Surface Is a Zipper Extension of the Ribosome A Site

Our Lab Alumni

  • Alexandra Barry, BS | Research Assistant I, current Graduate Student at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

  • Christopher Benway, PhD | Computational Biologist, current Senior Bioinformatics Engineer at Exosome Diagnostics

  • Catherine Channell | Summer Research Assistant, current Undergraduate Student at Loyola Marymount University

  • Brendan Crawford, MD | Clinical Fellow, current Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Arkansas Children’s Hospital

  • Jenn Fishbein, MD | Pediatric Nephrology Clinical Fellow

  • Christopher Gillies, PhD, MS | Programmer Analyst Sr., current Senior Manager Computational Genomics at Regeneron

  • Betul Haykir, PhD | Postdoctoral Research Fellow, current Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital David Breault Lab

  • Gina Kalkar, BA | Research Assistant, current Research Assistant at Boston Children’s Hospital Friedhelm Hildebrandt Lab

  • China Nagano, MD, PhD | Visiting Research Fellow

  • Rose Putler, MS | Statistical Geneticist, current Data Scientist at Duo Security

  • Kaylia Reynolds, MS | Computational Biologist

  • Catherine Robertson, PhD, MS | Research Analyst, current Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Michigan

  • Parsa Seyfourian, BS | Computational Summer Research Intern, current Undergraduate Student at The University of British Columbia

  • Kalyn Yasutake, MPH | Research Specialist, current Senior Research Associate at Building Changes

  • Jennifer Lai Yee, MD | Clinical Research Fellow, current Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital

  • Jihoon Yoon, MD, PhD | Research Associate, current Clinical Fellow in the Department of Genomic Medicine at Seoul National University Hospital

Catherine Channell (left) and Alexandra Barry (right)
China Nagano, Seeing Kyu Han, Eric Sakkas, Michelle McNulty
Sampson Lab Team Valentine's Day
Eric Sakkas, Alexandra Barry, Dongwon Lee, Jenn Fishbein
Matt Sampson, Waverly Alcure, Anya Greenberg
Jenn Fishbein, Catherine Channell, Alexendra Barry, Dongwon Lee
Waverly Alcure, Anya Greenberg