Inês comes to us from the restaurant industry–she is a certified Sommelier, was the general manager at The Salty Pig in Boston for several years, and later was an operations manager for the Coda group (which also includes SRV, and the recently opened Gufo.) She was the primary caretaker for her family during the first few years of Covid, but kept her skills sharp by running budgets for friends as well as a small copy editing business. Inês has a background in journalism and loves to edit scientific articles and papers.

Stefan was raised in the crossroads of rural America—Parker City, Indiana. He received his bachelors from Ball State University, where he conducted research under Prof. Philip Albiniak exploring the reactivity of 2-benzyloxy-1-methylpyridinium triflate derivatives. Thereafter, he went to Johns Hopkins University for his doctoral studies under Prof. Thomas Lectka, researching radical-based fluorination reactions while developing several directed methods for functionalizing complex natural products. Currently, he aims to use small molecules to exploit novel druggable targets.

Stefan is an ACS Postdoctoral Fellow.

Chao is from Shandong Province of China and received his bachelors from Jilin Univeristy. He conducted his Master's research under Prof. Biao Yu in Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (CAS), focusing on carbohydrate synthesis. Then he obtained his doctoral degree at Boston College under Prof. Jia Niu, exploring the chemical biology centering on O-sulfated biomolecules.

Currently, Chao is a postdoc in Liau Lab, employing chemical probes for epigenomic mechannism study. Out of the lab, Chao is a big fan of badminton and moviegoer.

Amanda is from Chicago, IL and received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Chicago. Then she obtained her doctoral degree at Harvard University under Prof. Brian Liau exploring the mechanism of LSD1 inhibitors and intrinsically disordered regions in chromatin regulators.Currently, Amanda still hasn’t had enough of the Liau lab and is back as a postdoc to study gene regulation using chemical genomics approaches. Out of lab, Amanda enjoys hiking, running, climbing, and hanging out with her cat while reading.

Ji Sung was born in South Korea and grew up in Toronto, Canada.
He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto
and conducted his doctoral work there under the supervision of
Professor Patrick Gunning, where he developed the synthesis and
application of poly-fluorinated aryl sulfonamides for covalent
probes. He joined the Liau lab in July 2024 to study transcription
factors using chemical genomics approaches. Outside the lab, he
enjoys running and playing with his baby.

Ryosuke grew up in Japan and received his BS and Master’s degrees from the University of Shizuoka, where he developed dynamic kinetic resolution reactions using metal–enzyme catalysts under the mentorship of Prof. Shuji Akai. He then earned his PhD from Hokkaido University, conducting research on the synthesis of taxanes under the supervision of Prof. Keiji Tanino. Following his doctoral studies, he joined Ono Pharmaceutical, where he worked as a medicinal chemist and chemical biologist. Since 2025, he has been a visiting scientist in the Liau Lab, applying a chemical genomics approach to study transcription factors.
Outside the lab, he enjoys playing tennis, watching sports, baking, and traveling with his family.

Sarah grew up in Rome, NY, and earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Le Moyne College. Sarah then moved to Massachusettts to pursue her doctoral studies at Boston College, where she joined the lab of Dr. Eranthie Weerapana. Her research focused on developing covalent peptides, aiming to target cysteine-mediated protein activities involved in metabolic and autoimmune diseases. She joined the Liau lab in May 2025 in order to expand her expertise in functional genomics and chemical biology.

In her spare time, Sarah enjoys baking, reading, and traveling!

Mekedlawit was born in Ethiopia and grew up in Columbus OH. She received her B.S. in chemistry from Rice University in Houston, TX where she worked on synthesis of probes for selective modification of protein backbone. She then continued her career at Stanford University where she received her Ph.D. in chemistry with Prof. Laura Dassama. There she worked on the development of chemical tools and strategies to engineer permeant protein biomolecules for hemoglobin regulation in erythrocytes. She joined the Liau lab in October 2025 to explore protein-ligand or protein-protein interactions in gene regulation and rewiring E3 ligases for new targets using chemical genetics. Mekedlawit is a Harvard CCB Chemistry Future Leaders Fellow.

Outside of research she is interested in increasing accessibility and equity in science, music/concerts (such as Beyonce), soccer/tennis, art, poetry, and reading!

Simon is from Phoenix, Arizona. He went to Harvard for undergrad, studying Chemistry and Physics with a secondary in Computer Science. During that time, he worked in Prof. David Liu’s lab on projects involving protein evolution and genome editing.

Simon is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and enjoys biking and eating delicious food.

Julia grew up in Hastings on Hudson, NY before moving to Pennsylvania to attend Swarthmore College, where she worked with Professor Daniela Fera to characterize the structure and binding of antibodies to HIV. After graduating in 2019 with a B.A. in Chemistry and Biology, she worked as a research assistant in Fei Chen’s lab at the Broad Institute, developing spatial genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic technologies.

Julia is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Outside of lab, she enjoys gardening, baking, and biking.

James is from Corvallis Oregon. He studied biochemistry at Brigham Young University in Provo Utah and performed research under Joshua Andersen. As an undergraduate he helped characterize a phosphorylation specific interaction between 14-3-3 and PTOV1, a transcriptional regulator involved in prostate cancer. After college, he completed a post-baccalaureate fellowship at NIH working with Eric Long on natural killer cells and cancer immunology.

He enjoys podcasts, science history and long-distance trail running.

Calvin grew up in Merced, CA and is currently living in Somerville, MA. During his undergraduate he majored in chemical biology and worked with Professor Michelle Chang at UC Berkeley on bioinformatics and biosynthetic pathways for noncanonical amino acid synthesis. Calvin also has interests in applying computational tools such as machine learning to answer questions in biology.

Outside of school, he likes to swim, read manga, and produce music.

Marc Anthony grew up Thousand Oaks, CA and studied biochemistry at UC San Diego. During his undergraduate studies, he worked with Dr. Alexis Komor to investigate how mutations in DNA repair genes give rise to hereditary colorectal cancer.

Outside of research, he enjoys lifting, running, and outdoor adventures.

Idris completed his undergraduate training at Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD. He did his undergraduate research training under the mentorship of Prof. Stephen Habay. Here, he performed classical organic synthesis and investigated the application of intramolecular cycloaddition reactions to assemble a diverse library of compounds called tetrahydroindolones, which are privileged building blocks for photochemotherapeutic agents. After receiving his B.S. in biochemistry, he joined the Terrence R. Burke group at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a Postbac fellow. At NCI, he developed covalent inhibitors directed against the tyrosyl-DNA phosphodiesterase 1 (TDP1) enzyme, which is implicated in the downregulation of topoisomerase 1-targeting anticancer therapeutics.

Idris likes to consider himself as a global citizen. He is originally Sudanese (North Eastern Africa), but grew up in the Middle East. He enjoys working out, playing soccer, watching movies, doing outdoor activities, and occasionally traveling.

Olivia grew up in the suburbs of Boston, and decided to stay in Massachusetts for her undergraduate and graduate education. She earned her BS in Biochemistry from Boston College in 2021 where she did research in the Weerapana Lab developing peptide probes for cysteine-profiling mass spectrometry. She then spent two years as a technician in the Harrison Lab at HMS working on vaccines and viral immunology.

Chae Rin grew up in Seoul, South Korea and moved to Boston for undergrad. She studied Chemistry and Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developing a polymeric carbohydrate vaccine with Professor Laura Kiessling. She also worked with Prof. Bradley on discovering peptide binders with phage display.
Outside of lab, she enjoys running, swimming, and cooking.

Karl grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He obtained a B.S. in biochemistry from UCLA in 2024. As an undergraduate, he was a researcher in the lab of Prof. Yi Tang, conducting projects related to fungal biosynthetic pathway elucidation, metabolite structure identification and enzymology. After his junior year, he was a summer research intern in the lab of Prof. Matthew Bogyo in the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he performed high-throughput screenings of fragment libraries to develop covalent inhibitors of the West Nile NS2B-NS3 viral protease. He moved to Boston from the best coast in summer, 2024 and joined the Liau lab in December of 2024 as a biochemist. Outside of lab, Karl likes to play soccer, tennis and go hiking. He also enjoys reading, playing jazz saxophone and is currently struggling to learn guitar.

Camille is from Chicago, Illinois, and studied Chemical and Physical Biology at Harvard College. As an undergraduate, she worked in Professor Rachelle Gaudet’s lab, where she investigated the mechanisms of substrate selectivity in bacterial metal transporters. Outside the lab, Camille enjoys contemporary dance, yoga, and listening to podcasts while cooking