Managing Board

Nisar Farhat received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the California State University, San Bernardino. He was an undergraduate researcher in the lab of Dr. Douglas Smith in collaboration with labs at JPL, studying the impact of kinetic forces and photo-excitation on organic compounds found on the surface of comets. After a short period in industry, Nisar earned his master’s degree in Bioengineering at the University of California, Riverside. There he worked on synthesizing and constructing nano-materials to stimulate wound healing. He was accepted to the Molecular and Medical Pharmacology program at UCLA in 2013 and joined Dr. Ting-Ting Wu’s lab as a graduate student. His thesis focuses on viral innate-immune evasion strategies of tumor-associated gammaherpesviruses.

Stephanie is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Molecular Biology Interdepartmental Doctoral Program at UCLA. After earning her B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology with an emphasis in Genetics, Genomics, and Development from U.C. Berkeley, Stephanie joined the Hill laboratory at UCLA to study how the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei regulates its social behavior. Passionate about science communication and telling engaging science stories, she has served as the Editor-in-Chief of Signal to Noise Magazine since February 2017. When she’s not wrangling her parasites in the lab, Stephanie likes to tap dance, try new restaurants in LA, and attempt to make the perfect plate of pasta carbonara.

Alexander Sercel is a PhD candidate in Michael Teitell’s laboratory at UCLA studying the mechanisms of intercellular mitochondrial transfer. He earned his undergraduate degree in Biology from the College of Creative Studies at UCSB in 2015. Alexander is a Los Angeles native who enjoys SCUBA diving, playing guitar, and searching for the best bowl of ramen in in LA with the rare hours he is away from the lab bench.