Amanda Poholek, PhD 

Dr. Amanda Poholek is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (UPSOM). She is the director of the Pitt Center for Advanced Genomics and the Director of the Microbiology and Immunology Diversity Scholars (MIDS) Program. 

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Dr. Poholek grew up in Massachusetts and  recieved her PhD in cell biology at Yale University under the mentorship of Dr. Joe Craft. Dr. Poholek  performed her postdoctoral studies at the NIH/NIAMS under the mentorship of Dr. John O'Shea. Dr. Poholek started her lab at the University of Pittsburgh in 2015. 

Shilpi Giri, PhD

Dr. Shilpi Giri is originally from Inidia and obtained her PhD in Immunology from NCCS, Pune University. With 3 years of postdoctoral experience in studying IFNg regulation of tissue-resident macrophage function during bacterial and parasite infection, she joined the Poholek lab in 2024.
Her current focus is on investigating Blimp1 regulation of tissue-specific immune responses, particularly in the development and function of CD4 tissue-resident memory cells. Outside of the lab, Shilpi enjoys spending time with her son, practicing yoga, and watching movies.

Aaron Yang

Aaron grew up in Andover MA and recieved his B.S. in Biology and Health: Science, Society and Policy at Brandeis University. He worked at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the lab of Dr. Eric Wong, at the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and at Gritstone Bio prior to becoming a PMI graduate student at Pitt. 

His project is focused on understanding 3D chromatin topology in terminally exhausted T cells from the tumor and applying bioinformatic and systems immunology approaches to understand these changes and how they relate to T cell dysfunction.  In his free time, he plays volleyball, runs a lot and playing fetch with his tiny dog. 

Yibo Zheng

Yibo is a visiting scholar from Tsinghua University. He is from Shanghai and joined the lab in spring of 2022. He is an undergraduate student in the 4th year of his M.D. program in an 8 year curriculum.  His project is on understanding Blimp-1 expression and function in type 2 innnate lymphoid cells (ILC2s). In his free times, he enjoys watching anime, learning Japanese (to watch anime) and in learning how to cook!

Harshita Beeravolu

Harshita was raised in California and lived in Boston, MA for five years before moving to Pittsburgh. While in Boston, she completed an MS in Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University and worked in industry for 3 years.Currently, she's working on uncovering the role of Prdm1-associated enhancer regions on Blimp-1 expression in T cells. Her hobbies are binge listening to mystery-thriller audiobooks and podcasts, cooking/baking, and shopping at Trader Joe’s

Xingjian Qiu

Xingjian is a visiting student from Tsinghua University majoring in clinical medicine. His research is focused on CD8+ T cell exhaustion in the tumor microenvironment and investigating how epigenetic remodeling influences the progression of  T cell exhaustion. Outside the lab Xingjian enjoys playing western flute and writing poetry. 

Yijia Chen

Yijia graduated from Rutgers University-New Brunswick with a degree in Plant Biology. After completing his undergraduate studies, he moved to Columbia University for the MA Biotechnology program. His master's thesis, mentored by Dr. Alex Tsankov, focused on copy number variation and its impact on the tumor microenvironment, utilizing next-generation sequencing (NGS) datasets and computational methods. Yijia is currently a PhD student in the ISB program, co-mentored by Dr. Jishnu Das. His research interests lie in utilizing spatial technology to address key questions in immunology. In his free time, he enjoys playing tennis and engaging in the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game for fun.