Joel McManus
Dr. McManus completed a B.A. in Chemistry at Hiram College and a Ph.D. in Biomolecular Chemistry from the University of WIsconsin-Madison working with Dr. David A. Brow studying pre-mRNA splicing mechanisms. After completing post-doctoral training with Dr. Brenton Graveley at the University of Connecticut Health Center, Dr. McManus started an independent research group. His lab uses a combination of experimental and computational approaches to study the roles of mRNA sequences and structures in regulating protein synthesis in human genes and in fungal pathogens. When not contemplating the mysteries of the riboverse, Joel enjoys running, hiking, and spending time with his family.
Gemma May
Gemma is a researcher in the McManus Lab. She received her masters degree in Evolutionary Genetics in 2004 from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Since then, she has worked on HIV vaccine research at UW-Madison, evolution of gene expression at Yale University, alternative splicing and the modENCODE project at the U-Conn Health Center, and translation regulation and RNA structural biology at CMU. She specializes in developing massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs) involving high throughput sequencing methods. Outside of the lab she enjoys yoga, cooking, and watching K-dramas.
Melisa Tosiano
Melisa is a PhD candidate in the McManus lab. Her thesis “Post-transcriptional Regulation Filamentation in Candida albicans” examines the role of P-body factors in the yeast to hyphal transition as well as associated changes to transcription and translation. She is a recipient of the Interinstitutional Program in Cell and Molecular Biology NIH T32 training grant and was selected for the Molecular Mycology: Current Approaches to Fungal Pathogenesis course in Woods Hole, MA funded through the Stupakoff Graduate Student Research Enrichment Award. Before her PhD program she developed an RT-qPCR HIV-1 assay and worked as a consulting toxicologist. Her research interests include fungal pathogens, genomics and genome editing of non-model fungi, and high throughput laboratory methods. Outside of the lab, she enjoys working out, live music, and spoiling her cat Sophie.
Lucy Johnson
Lucy is a postbac in the McManus lab. She is currently working on the project investigating the translation of the gene SNURF/SNRPN which is often affected in Prader-Willi Syndrome. Before working at Carnegie Mellon, Lucy’s undergraduate senior research project was working on reference-based genome assembly of cryptic bumblebee species native to Mesoamerica. Outside of the lab she enjoys soccer, track (sprinting), and binge watching TV.
Yuning Zheng
Yuning is a Computational Biology Master’s student at Carnegie Mellon University and a research assistant in the McManus Lab. Her work focuses on developing automated NGS pipelines to process and analyze high-throughput sequencing data, with a particular emphasis on RNA-seq and polysome profiling. Yuning applies machine learning and deep learning methods to uncover regulatory mechanisms underlying translation efficiency. Outside of the lab, she enjoys photography and ballroom dancing.
Emma Kulbida
Emma is an undergraduate researcher in the McManus lab, majoring in Biological Sciences with a minor in Computational Biology. In the past, she has investigated the occupancy of ribosomes on upstream open reading frames (uORFs), as well as the pausing patterns of ribosomes on certain codons across the whole transcriptome. Currently, she is analyzing the evolutionary conservation of certain codons in the protein-coding regions of the human genome to determine if there is a relationship between particular codon sequences and the conservation of surrounding codons. Outside of the lab, she is a member of CMU’s swim team and enjoys hiking.
Zeqing Jiang
Zeqing is an undergraduate in the McManus Lab, majoring in Biological Sciences and Computational Biology. She has worked on the structure and conservation of 5′ UTRs in the mammalian genome, focusing on identifying the most conserved 5′ UTR sequences using Multiz470way alignments and analyzing their functional relevance through Gene Ontology analysis. Currently, she is investigating specific 5′ UTR structural patterns and predicting whether specific upstream open reading frames (uORFs) could function as potential protein-coding regions. Outside the lab, she enjoys jazz dance and singing. She is also trilingual, speaking English, Mandarin, and Japanese.
Lab alumni
Post-Docs
- Salini Konikkat, Ph.D. Biological Sciences, 2016 (postdoc 2016-2018). Currently Postdoctoral Fellow in the Sharma Lab
Ph.D Students
- Christina Akirtava, Ph.D. Biological Sciences, 2023. Postdoc with Jay Hesselberth at UC-Denver
- Yizhu Lin, Ph.D. Biological Sciences, 2018. Professor, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai (http://linlab.sibcb.ac.cn/linlab/index.html)
- Pieter Spealman, Ph.D. Biological Sciences, 2017. Postdoctoral associate with David Gresham at NYU
Masters Students
- Rohan Munoth, M.S. Quantitative Biology and Bioinformatics, 2025. Bioinformatician, Columbia University
- Simon Chow, M.S. Computational Biology, 2023. Programmer/Analyst at Brigham and Women’s Hospital
- Sanat Mishra, M.S. Quantitative Biology and Bioinformatics, 2023. Bioinformatician, Yale School of Medicine
- Evan Corden, M.S. Computational Biologym 2023. Comp. Bio. Ph.D. student with Raluca Gordan at Duke University
- Saina Mahera, M.S. Computational Biology, 2020. Bioinformatics Engineer at Personalis, Inc | Advancing Personalized Cancer Therapy
- Ayushi Sood, M.S. Computational Biology, 2020. Senior Machine Learning Engineer at GSK
- Brendan Wee, M.S. Computational Biology, 2019. Senior Engineer at Calico Life Sciences
- Tianqi Tang, M.S. Computational Biology, 2018. Ph.D. student at USC
- Myles Mao, M.S. Computational Biology, 2017. Data Scientist at Roche Sequencing Solutions
- Chaohao Gu, M.S. Computational Biology, 2017. Ph.D student at Baylor College of Medicine
- Easwaran Ramamurthy, M.S. in Computational Biology, 2015. Senior Machine Learning/Computational Biology Scientist @ GenBio AI
- Alan Shteyman, M.S. Computational Biology, 2014. Bioinformatics Scientist at MRIGlobal
- Tara Tappen, M.S. in Biological Sciences, 2014. Nursing Student & Repro Health Worker
- Naveen Chandromahon, M.S. Computational Biology, 2012. Co-found Heragen and Carot Labs
Undergraduates
- Cassia Williams-Rogers, B.S. Biological Sciences, 2023. (MD/PhD student at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis)
- Kiran Mirpuri, B.S. Biological Sciences, 2021. (Ph.D student at Dartmouth)
- Valerie Collins, B.S. Biological Sciences, 2020. (MD student, Rutgers Medical School)
- Lauren Nazzaro, B.S. Biological Sciences, 2019. (MD student, Rutgers Medical School)
- Hunter Kready, B.S. Biological Sciences, 2019. (MD Drexel University; Dept of Emergency Medicine UPMC)
- Alexander Muralles, B.S. Biological Sciences, 2019. (Sr. Bioinformatics Engineer @ BlueSphere Bio)
- Laura Parella, B.S. Biological Sciences, 2016. Employed at Epic
- Alexis Oguh, B.S. Biological Sciences, 2014. (Ph.D student, Stoffers lab in the Genetic and Epigenetics group)