Postdoctoral Scholars
Filippo Artoni, PhD
Biography
Filippo Artoni, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar at the HNRCA working with Daniel Promislow, DPhil. Building on his PhD work at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany, his work will leverage longitudinal data from the Dog Aging Project to study the aging metabolome and genetic variation.
Education
BS, Biology, University of Washington, Seattle
PhD, Biology, Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany
Chisaka Kuehnemann, PhD
Biography
Chisaka Kuehnemann, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar at the HNRCA working with Dr. Christopher Wiley, PhD. Her research focuses on studying the interactions between the cell fate decisions of cellular senescence and a form of regulated cell death known as ferroptosis. Her research also includes an exploration of the overlap between senescence and pyroptosis, another kind of cell death, to include the impact on immune responses in the context of aging.
Education
BS, Biological Science, University of Maryland Baltimore County
MS, Biotechnology, John Hopkins University
PhD, Biology of Aging, University of Southern California – Buck Institute for Research on Aging
Avani Mital, PhD
Biography
Avani Mital, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar at the HNRCA working with Daniel Promislow, DPhil. She completed her PhD studying life-history evolution and sexual selection in fruit flies in India. Afterwards, she spent three years in Sweden at Linköping University probing how age impacts mutational effects, also in flies. She is currently using her past research experience to understand how sexual dimorphism in the fruit fly metabolome changes with age.
Education
BSc, Zoology Hon. University of Delhi
MS, Biology, Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research
PhD, Biology, Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research
Christina Moraga Franco, PhD
Biography
Cristina Moraga Franco, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar working with Dr. Naglaa El-Abbadi, PhD, and Dr. Jose Ordovas, PhD, in the Precision Nutrition and Healthy Aging research directive. Her research focuses on addressing and understanding nutrition and health outcomes among vulnerable populations. Cristina obtained her PhD at the University of California, Davis, where she studied food fortification practices and purchasing patterns in the United States, as well as disruptions to food security and healthcare access due to COVID-19. She also has experience in nutrition policy and as a global nutrition research consultant.
Education
BSc, Nutritional Science, University of Arizona
PhD, Nutritional Biology, University of California, Davis
Kritika Vashishtha, PhD
Biography
Kritika Vashishtha, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar at the HNRCA working with Bruce Kristal, PhD. She is continuing her postdoctoral training that began at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the Division of Sleep Medicine, focusing on characterizing circadian rhythms in circulating lipids. Building on that foundation, Kritika’s current research examines how anthropometry, diet, genetics, the microbiome and other factors affect lipid biomarkers in an older population.
Education
BTech, Manufacturing Engineering, Central Institute of Plastics Engineering and Technology
PhD, Aerospace Engineering, Toronto Metropolitan University
Erfei Zhao, PhD
Biography
Erfei Zhao, PhD, is a postdoctoral scholar at the HNRCA in the Precision Nutrition & Healthy Aging research directive. He is interested in exploring both the biological and social determinants of longevity and health span, specifically among centenarians. Following his PhD in gerontology, Erfei's work focused on integrating biomarkers into population-level studies to understand the sociodemographic disparities in older adults' health trajectories. At the HNRCA, he aims to integrate biomarkers into precision nutrition to explore the interplay between dietary composition and age-related physiological changes in older adults' ability to utilize nutrients, and their combined effect on various health outcomes, such as physical functioning, chronic diseases, and cognition.
Education
Master of Social Work, Columbia University
PhD in Gerontology, University of Southern California