Steven Josefowicz, PhD
Principal Investigator
szj2001@med.cornell.edu

Steven Josefowicz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Division of Cell and Cancer Biology. Steven has appointments in the Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis (IMP) Program and the Physiology, Biophysics, and Systems Biology (PBSB), and Computational Biomedicine (CBM) Program. After a BA from UC Berkeley and three years as a research tech working in the area of human immunology and HIV at UCSF, Steve conducted his graduate work with Alexander Rudensky at the University of Washington and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His PhD work focused on mechanisms of immune tolerance and the differentiation and function of regulatory T cells-- how our powerful immune systems can so effectively combat pathogens while tolerating our own tissues, food, and commensal microbiota. He then joined the laboratory of C. David Allis at The Rockefeller University to study epigenetic mechanisms underlying cellular differentiation and stimulation events in the immune system. Joining Weill Cornell Medicine in May 2017, ongoing work in his lab combines the fields of molecular epigenetics and cellular immunology to focus on questions of epigenetic regulation of transcription and memory of inflammatory and immune genes and programs. A career goal is to reveal fundamental epigenetic mechanisms regulating inflammation and immunity and translate discoveries to develop new treatments for inflammatory disease and for activating anti-tumor immunity.

Alexia Martinez de Paz, PhD
Postdoctorate Fellow
alm2806@med.cornell.edu

Alexia joined the lab in April, 2018 after completing her PhD thesis at the University of Barcelona, Spain, and a short postdoctoral training at the University of Victoria, Canada. During that time, she was studying different mechanisms of epigenetic regulation, such as DNA and histone methylation, with especial interest in chromatin and transcriptional dynamics of neurons upon receiving activation signals or circadian cues. In the Josefowicz lab, Alexia is studying epigenetic mechanisms and chromatin structural changes controlling transcription in the immune response and their dysregulation in cancer.

Michelle Him Li
Lab Technician
mvh4001@med.cornell.edu

Michelle earned her B.S. in Biotechnology from City College of New York in 2023. During her undergraduate studies, she joined the Hubbard Lab, where she investigated oxidative stress in the prefrontal cortex of ovariectomized rodents following chemotherapy treatment. Her work also examined how oxidative gene expression is influenced by hormones such as estrogen in this context. In February 2024, Michelle transitioned to the Josefowicz Lab as a Lab Technician. This new role allows her to further explore the diverse opportunities within research and continue her journey in scientific inquiry.

Dughan Ahimovic, PhD
Postdoctoral Associate
dja4001@med.cornell.edu

Dughan grew up in the beautiful state of New Jersey and went on to receive a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Yale University. He then spent two years working in biotech before joining Weill Cornell’s IMP Program for his graduate studies. Dughan joined the Josefowicz Lab in June 2019 to study the epigenetic mechanisms by which histone proteins regulate gene expression and chromatin dynamics during immune cell development and inflammatory responses. After completing his PhD in August 2025, Dughan chose to stay on in the lab for his postdoctoral training. He now applies his expertise in epigenetic immune regulation to study inflammatory reprogramming of mature immune cells and progenitors in the context of diseases such as scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, IBD, and lupus.

Chenyang Jiang
BCMB Graduate Student
chj4004@med.cornell.edu

Chenyang received her B.S. in biological sciences from Sichuan University and M.S. in pathobiology from University of Connecticut. After graduation, she worked as a research assistant for three years at Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, Harvard, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital to study HIV/AIDS by developing and applying novel genetic and epigenetic tools to characterize viral reservoirs in HIV-1 elite controllers. Chenyang joined the Josefowicz Lab in July 2021 to investigate epigenetic regulation of transcription in rapid stimulation-induced immune cell responses.

Mythili Ketavarapu
Tri-I CBM Graduate Student
mke4001@med.cornell.edu

Mythili received her B.S. in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology from University of California, Santa Barbara in 2023. While completing her bachelor's degree, she worked as a researcher in the Ramani Lab at UC San Francisco for three years using computational methods to study chromatin remodeling and histone modifications regulating mammalian gene expression. She then began her PhD in the Tri-Institutional Computational Biology and Medicine program as an NSF graduate fellow. Mythili joined the Josefowicz Lab in May 2024 to apply and expand upon computational approaches to study epigenetics (co-advised by Dr. Christina Leslie), with a particular focus on the mechanisms underlying development and activation of immune populations.

Michael Bale
IMP Graduate Student
mib4004@med.cornell.edu

Michael received his B.A.s in Chemistry and Physics from the University of Kentucky in 2016 and a M.Sc. in Bioinformatics at Johns Hopkins University in 2020. During his masters, Michael was a post-baccalaureate research fellow at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland in the Translational Research Unit of the HIV Dynamics and Replication program where he worked on profiling integration site distributions in children living with HIV as well as intra-participant HIV-1 genetics. Michael joined the Josefowicz lab in July of 2021 to investigate the role of epigenetic regulation in the activation and memory differentiation of T cells.

Victoria Lawless
Tri-I MD/PhD Student
vrl4001@med.cornell.edu

Tori is from the sunny and definitely-not-rainy-at-all foothills of Seattle, WA. She received her BA in Biology from The University of Chicago, where her undergraduate research utilized the Drosophila egg chamber as a model to study organ morphogenesis. Deciding she was still too close to home, she then relocated to the UK to complete her MPhil with Dr. Greg Hannon at the University of Cambridge, Cancer Research UK – Cambridge Institute. Her master’s work focused on small-RNA mediated suppression of transposable elements in the Drosophila germline. Through this research, she became interested in histone biology and its outsized role in gene regulation. She joined the Tri-Institutional MD/PhD program in 2021 and the Josefowicz Lab in 2023, where she studies the inflammatory signals and chromatin features that guide durable immune memory in hematopoietic stem cells. Outside of lab, you can find her playing lots of soccer, admiring her cat, Sappho, and hunting down the best gelato in NYC.

Muxue "Snow" Du
IMP Graduate Student
mud4002@med.cornell.edu

Muxue “Snow” received her B.S. in Biochemistry and Music from Muhlenberg College in 2021. Upon graduation, she worked as a technician in the Michael Glickman Lab at MSKCC for two years, where she studied the effect of treatment for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis on the gastrointestinal microbiota. She joined IMP in 2023 and joined the Josefowicz/Niec Lab in June 2024.

Sean Healton
Visiting Fellow
seh4015@med.cornell.edu

Sean grew up in New York and Washington D.C. and attended Skidmore College, graduating with a degree in Chemistry and Music in 2012. He then obtained his medical and doctoral degrees from Albert Einstein College of Medicine where he studied the roles of linker histones in epigenetic regulation in the laboratory of Arthur Skoultchi, PhD. After completing a residency in Internal Medicine at NYU-Langone Hospital, he began a fellowship in medical oncology and hematology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2023. He currently sees patients in the lymphoma division at MSK. He joined the Josefowicz lab in 2025 where he studies chromatin signaling in B cell development and lymphomagenesis.

Francesca Foglino

Intern

fef4005@med.cornell.edu

Francesca received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University in 2025. She has been involved with the lab since 2024, where she has been compiling a single-cell HSC atlas with multimodal data collected using the lab's novel PIE-seq method. She also manages the lab website.

Arjun Ravishankar, MD
Physician Researcher

Jingyu Cheong
IMP Graduate Student

Ceyda Durmaz
Research Technician, Bioinformatician

Lexi Robbins
Research Technician, Lab Manager

Andrew Daman
IMP Graduate Student

Lucinda Paddock
Research Specialist

Reshma Ramaiah
Senior Bioinformatics Analyst

Vigneshwari "Viggy" Kumar
BCMB Graduate Student