Current Lab Members

Joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 2004.
merav.socolovsky@umassmed.edu

BA (1983), University of Cambridge, UK; MBBS (equivalent to MD), University College, London, U.K. (1986); Ph.D (1994), University of Cambridge, U.K. Member of the Royal College of Physicians, U.K. (1989). Postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute, MIT, Cambridge, USA, under the mentorship of Dr. Harvey Lodish. Received a number of awards including a Medical Research Council (U.K.) Training Fellowship (1989), a Howard Hughes Training Fellowship for Physicians (1994), a National Cancer Institute Howard Temin (KO1) Career Development Award (2002), Charles Hood Foundation Child Health Research Award (2004), American Cancer Society Scholar award (2006), UMASS Medical School Faculty Scholar award (2012), Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Scholar award (2012) and an American Society of Hematology Bridge Grant Award (2013).

Graduate Student, lab member since 2009
Research Associate II 2009-2016
daniel.hidalgo@umassmed.edu

Graduated from Clark University (Worcester, MA) in 2008 with a B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a minor in Mathematics. Received High Honors in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. In 2009, obtained M.A. from Clark University in Biology (concentration Molecular Biology) under the mentorship of Dr. Justin Thackeray, thesis entitled 'Characterization of a new PLC-gamma mutation in Drosophila melanogaster.'

Postdoctoral Research Associate, lab member since 2013
PhD Student 2013-2019
yung.hwang@umassmed.edu

Dissertation; "The Role of S-Phase Speed During an Erythroid Transcriptional Switch" December 18th, 2019. 

Graduated from Tzu Chi University in Taiwan in 2009 with a B.S in Life Sciences. Previous research interests included virus-induced anti-apoptotic pathways and viral vaccine development.

Postdoctoral Research Associate, lab member since 2013
aishwarya.swaminathan@umassmed.edu

B.Sc (2002, Botany), Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, India. M.Sc (2004, Biochemistry), Maharaja Sayajirao University, under the mentorship of Dr. Sarita Gupta, determining the effects of heavy metal toxicity on the female reproductive health of Charles foster rats. Ph.D (2010), Wayne State University, Detroit MI, USA, under the mentorship of Dr. Lori A. Pile, analyzing the effects of loss of the SIN3 co-repressor in Drosophila embryonic and larval development. Postdoctoral fellow, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2011-2013), under the mentorship of Dr. John M. Lopes, studying the mechanism of transcription regulation of phospholipid biosynthetic genes by basic helix-loop-helix proteins in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Medical School Student and Lab Intern, lab member since 2015
Research Associate 2015-2017
Melinda.Futran@umassmed.edu

Graduated from University of Delaware (Newark, DE) in 2015 with an Honors B.A. Degree in Biological Sciences and a minor in Medical Diagnostics. Previously a summer intern (2013, 2014) in the Socolovsky lab.

Research Technician I, lab member since 2019
Ashley.Winward@umassmed.edu

Graduated from the University of New Haven (West Haven, CT) in 2015 with B.S. Degrees in Marine Biology and Environmental Science and a minor in Chemistry. Previously an Animal Care Technician for UMass Medical School.  

Research Technician I, lab member since 2019
Sean.thackeray@umassmed.edu

Graduated from Connecticut College (New London, CT) in 2019 with a degree in Biology. Previously an intern with the Neurobiology Department at UMass Medical School in the Bénard Lab (2016) and Alkema Lab (2017).