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Welsh-McCarthy Lab Alumni

  • ​Dominic Landgraf, Ph.D.

    Postdoctoral Research Fellow, February 2012 - December 2015

    Dr. Landgraf is now Head of Independent Junior Research Group at Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.

  • Takako Noguchi, Ph.D.

    Assistant Project Scientist

    After earning her undegraduate, M.S. and Ph.D degrees at Osaka University, Dr. Takako Noguchi joined the Welsh Lab in 2009 as a Postdoctoral Fellow. She specializes in the use of bioluminescence and fluorescence imaging techniques to monitor circadian rhythms in SCN neurons and peripheral tissues. Dr. Noguchi was also a member of Steve Kay's lab at USC/Scripps Research Institute.

  • Alessandra Porcu, Ph.D.

    Postdoctoral Fellow

    Dr. Alessandra Porcu received her Pharm.D. from the University of Cagliari (Italy) and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Cagliari & University of Basel (Switzerland). Dr. Porcu joined the Welsh Lab in November 2016, and she has since been studying cellular circadian clock in mood disorders and the effects of photoperiod on peptidergic expression in the SCN in collaboration with the Dulcis Lab. In 2020 she received a K99 award from NIH-NCCIH. She will join the Department of Drug Discovery & Biomedical Science at University of South Carolina as Assistant Professor in June 2022.

  • Himanshu Mishra, Ph.D.

    Postdoctoral Fellow

    Dr. Himanshu Mishra earned a Ph.D. in Medical Research from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. His work focused on motor neuron disease modeling using human induced pluripotent stem cells. After completing his Ph.D., Dr. Mishra continued to study stem cells while investigating the role of the autophagy-lysosomal pathway in neurodevelopment and synaptic degeneration. His current work in the McCarthy Lab involves studying the role of circadian rhythm-associated clock genes and the biological basis of lithium-induced neuroprotection in a human stem cell model of mood disorders.

  • Valerie Benner, M.D.

    Research Biologist

    Dr. Benner attended University of Oregon for her undergraduate degree prior to receiving her M.D. from Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poland. During medical school, she assisted Dr. Ieszcynska, a Clinical Associate Professor at Poznan, in ENT clinical research. Specifically, she contributed to the research project by performing post-surgical evaluations of patients who underwent partial-laryngectomy as well as evaluating patients suffering from sinusitis. Since joining the McCarthy Lab in October 2017, she has taken part in analyzing how the metabolism of antipsychotic drugs interferes with circadian rhythm functionality via action on D2 Dopamine receptors in pancreatic islet cells.

  • Victoriah Nudell, B.S.

    M.S. Student

    Victoriah Nudell is continuing on as an M.S. student in the McCarthy Lab after earning her B.S. from UCSD in Biology. Prior to joining the McCarthy Lab in June 2016, she held a position as lab assistant and acting lab manager at the Zuniga Lab, where she studied immune responses to acute and chronic viral infections. Her main focus at the McCarthy Lab is to delineate the genetic trend of L-type calcium channel SNPs in patients with Bipolar Disorder.

  • Noelle Ying

    Undergraduate student

    Noelle Ying is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in Physiology and Neuroscience at UCSD. She joined the McCarthy lab in May 2017 and is in involved in reprogramming patient-derived stem cells into neurons in order to investigate the characteristics of Bipolar Disorder at the cellular level.

  • Samreen Haque

    B.S./M.S. Student

    Samreen Haque is an undergraduate student studying Physiology and Neuroscience at UC San Diego. Formerly a student researcher with the Delano-Wood and Schiehser Lab, she studied the relationship between mild-to-moderate truamatic brain injury history and left nucleus accumbens volume, as well as associated behavioral trends, in Veterans. She joined the Welsh lab in September 2017 with an interest in examining the mechanism of neurotransmitter switching as it relates to circadian rhythms and mood disregulation.

  • Angelica Luis

    B.S./M.S. Student

    Angelica Luis is currently an undergraduate in the M.S./B.S. program at UCSD, where she is majoring in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. After joining the McCarthy Lab in May 2017, she began work differentiating iPSC lines into NPCs. She is interested in studying how iPSC-derived neurons of bipolar disorder patients react to different treatments.

  • Rita Barandas, M.D.

    UCSD Visiting Scholar November, 2014 - May 2015

    Dr. Barandas is now a psychiatrist at the Hospital de Santa Maria in Lisbon, Portugal. 

  • Stephen Beesley, Ph.D.

    Postdoctoral Research Fellow, February 2011 - January 2013

    Dr. Beesley is now a postdoc at Florida State University. 

  • Tanja Diemer, Ph.D.

    Postdoctoral Research Fellow

    Dr. Diemer is now a Research Associate at UCSD. 

  • Ryan Darvish, M.D.

    Masters Student, 2009 - 2011

    Dr. Darvish is currently a resident physician in OB/GYN at The MetroHealth System in Cleveland, Ohio. 

  • Melissa LeRoux, M.S.

    Masters Student

    Melissa LeRoux is now a medical student at Ohio State University. 

  • Sepideh Bajestan, M.D., Ph.D.

    UCSD Visiting Scholar, April 2008 - June 2009

    Dr. Bajestan is now a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and the neurospychiatric consultant at Stanford University's Inpatient Neurology Units, Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, and Outpatient Neurology Clinics. 

  • Jennifer Evans, Ph.D.

    Postdoctoral Research Fellow, January 2007 - March 2009

    Dr. Evans is now the principal investigator of the Evans Lab and Assistant Professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.