Members
Peggy S. Lai
, MD, MPH
Peggy is the PI of the lab. Peggy was born in Rochester, New York but has lived in Taiwan, the UK, Guatemala, Liberia, and the US. She is trained as a physician-scientist in pulmonary and critical care medicine and is dedicated to understanding how environmental exposures affect lung health and the human microbiome. Outside of work Peggy loves fountain pens, Pentax cameras, and travel.
Contact: plai@mgh.harvard.edu
Ching-Ying (Jessica) Huang, MS
Jessica is a data analyst in the lab. She completed her master's degree in biostatistics at the University of Connecticut with a concentration in quantitative data analysis and data manipulation. As an analyst, she loves being organized so that she can be the "glue" that holds together complex datasets, allowing the research team to see how to move the science forward. During her free time, Jessica can be found traveling, visiting exhibitions, and playing board games.
Contact: chuang38@mgh.harvard.edu
Minsik Kim, PhD
Minsik is a postdoctoral researcher at the lab. He graduated with his BS, MS, and PhD degree at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). During his prior postdoctoral fellowship, he became fascinated by the microbiome when studying how microalgae treatment of wastewater reduces pathogenic bacteria through competitive microbe-microbe interactions. On holidays, he loves riding something with wheels such as bikes, cars, Segways, and skateboards.
Contact: minsik.kim@mgh.harvard.edu
Ye Sun, BS, MD, MPH
Ye is currently a pediatric pulmonology fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital. She grew up in Connecticut and went to the University of Connecticut for medical school, where she also obtained a Master’s in Public Health. She then finished her pediatrics residency at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, NY. Her research areas of interest include pediatric asthma, health disparities, and how environmental factors influence health outcomes. Outside of work, she loves traveling, trying out new restaurants, and brewing coffee.
Contact: ysun39@mgh.harvard.edu
Thi Tran, BS
Thi is currently a research technician at the lab. Originally from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Outside of work, she can be found hanging out with friends visiting places, swimming, reading, and playing badminton
Contact: ttran73@mgh.harvard.edu
Affiliates
Lucas Chen, MD
Lucas received his MD from the University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine in Brazil. He is an internal medicine resident at Metrowest Medical Center in Framingham, MA and a T32 scholar at the Boston University Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology Department. His field area of interest is clinical epidemiology working with the Framingham Heart Study, asthma in adults, and global health. In his free time, he enjoys cooking and spending time with his family.
Laura Brenner, MD
Laura is an affiliated scientist in the lab. She grew up both in DC, North Carolina and San Diego. She has a BS in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Yale University and received her MD form Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. She then went for training at MGH for residency and did her pulmonary and critical care fellowship at the Harvard combined program. Her research now focuses on precision medicine and multiomic techniques. As part of the Lai lab, she focuses on the effect of glycemia on the microbiome. Outside of work she enjoys reading, hiking and travel, especially when she gets to try new foods.
Mike Kelly, MD
Mike is a current Internal Medicine and Pediatrics resident at MGH on a residency sponsored R38 research fellowship. He grew up outside of Buffalo, NY and does love the Bills. His research interests include asthma in children and adults, as well as health disparities. Outside of work he loves to run marathons, cook for friends and hang out with his dog Kipchoge.
Edwin Nuwagira, MBChB MMED
Edwin was born in Rukungiri, Uganda and has spent most of his time in Mbarara, western Uganda, where he did all his secondary and tertiary education. He is a lecturer in the Department of Medicine at Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST). Edwin is interested in the long term effects of infectious diseases on respiratory health. His current research is focused on pulmonary function and quality of life after acute tuberculosis infection in Uganda. Outside of academic work, Edwin is a cattle keeper and enjoys watching soccer and rugby.
Aribah Baig
Aribah is an undergraduate research assistant in the lab. She spent a 6 month coop in the Lai Lab in 2023 and subsequently received a highly competitive Northeastern University PEAK summit award for this work. Aribah grew up in Foxboro, MA and is currently studying Cell and Molecular Biology at Northeastern University in Boston. In her free time, she enjoys board games, crochet, and learning new languages.
Alumni
Dastan Haghnazari, BS. Research technician, 2023 - 2024. Dastan is originally from Columbus, OH and studied Health and Exercise Science with minors in Neuroscience, Chemistry, and Biology at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He enjoys lifting weights, reading, and being with friends and family in his spare time. Dastan helped the lab implement several new technologies, including digital droplet PCR and a tiling amplicon library prep protocol for sequencing of the V1-V9 regions of the 16S rRNA gene. He subsequently moved to a graduate program at Duke's Fuqua School of Business.
Sirus Jesudasen, MD. Trainee, 2019 - 2021. Sirus was a resdient in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital during his time with the Lai Lab. Born in England, he grew up for most of his life in Houston Texas, and obtained his M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. His research interests lie in data science and its applications in common and critically ill pulmonary infections. He particularly enjoys sailing on the Charles, and also spends his free time running, cooking, or watering his pet bamboo plant. Sirus worked on several projects, including the effect of supplemental oxygen on the airway microbiome of people with cystic fibrosis (PMID: 34424248, PMID: 36000724) and several projects related to COVID-19 (PMID: 36343687, 37438797).
Helen D'Couto, MD. Trainee, 2020 - 2021. Helen was a medicine resident during her time with the Lai Lab. She is from Houston, Texas and attended MIT for undergrad. While there she devoted her time to working with Engineers without Borders, sparking a lifelong interest in the intersection of technology and social justice. She then attended Harvard Medical School and MGH for residency. Outside of the hospital she enjoys hiking and the outdoors, aviation, exploring new food, and reading historical fiction and fantasy. Helen worked on a study showing that solar lighting intervention in rural Uganda changed the social determinants of health for study participants (PMID: 35295194).
Jacob Vieira, BS. Research technician, 2019 - 2023. Jake studied Microbiology and Biotechnology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with a special focus on bioinformatics training and research. He has never met a data science problem that he didn’t enjoy solving. He spends his spare time with games, hobby programming, photography, and piano. Jake worked on several projects, including the effect of supplemental oxygen on the airway microbiome of people with cystic fibrosis (PMID: 34424248, PMID: 36000724).
Huiyu (Birdy) Sui, BS. Research Technician, 2019 - 2021. She graduated from Montana State University majored in Microbiology. She is from Qingdao, a beautiful international coastal city in China which is famous for its beer. She is intrigued by the world of microbes and how they interact with the human body to affect our health conditions. Outside of work Huiyu enjoy skiing, traveling, and visiting museums. Birdy worked on optimizing methods for microbial nucleic acid extraction (PMID: 32528434).