Join us in welcoming five Scripps Research Translational Institute Student Research Internship Program summer interns to the Andersen Lab! These aspiring scientists, selected from a large pool of candidates across the country, are eager to learn from renowned researchers at Scripps Research. Each intern is closely collaborating with a mentor to gain hands-on experience in applying computational methods to study the emergence, spread, and occurrence of infectious diseases.
Returning for a second summer internship, Jessica Liao is a rising senior at Amador Valley High School in the Bay Area. Her project builds upon the techniques she acquired from her mentor, Chrissy Aceves, and aims to evaluate various metrics of viral fitness and escape for SARS-CoV-2. In her free time, she enjoys photography, reading, and taking walks with her dog.
Elizabeth Murphy, an incoming second-year Biostatistics Master’s student at the University of California, San Diego, is under the guidance of Josh Levy. Their project centers around estimating the effective reproduction number (Re) of SARS-CoV-2 directly from wastewater viral load data. They are also exploring the potential of extending the method to estimate variant-specific Re. When she’s not studying or working, Elizabeth enjoys running, reading, and spending time with her friends and family.
Vedant Hathalia, a rising junior at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, California, is under the guidance of Praneeth Gangavarapu. He is currently working on training a deep learning model (ESM2) to predict the infectivity of influenza A protein sequences. In his free time, Vedant enjoys playing pickleball and solving the Rubik’s Cube.
Jaden Cordova, a recent graduate from UC Berkeley, but originally from Southern California. He is mentored by James McFeeters and is working on a project to develop a pipeline that utilizes large language models (LLMs) to extract annotations about influenza mutations from scientific literature. Jaden enjoys playing iMessage games with friends and watching movies when relaxing.
Ananya Sarva, a rising senior at Canyon Crest Academy in San Diego, California, is under the mentorship of Maryam Ahmadi. She is investigating amplicon dropouts in wastewater sequencing through the application of machine learning. In her spare time, Ananya enjoys playing soccer, reading mystery novels, and singing!
The summer curriculum includes integrating into the lab, participating in journal clubs, and practice presentations. At the end of the summer, the interns will present their independent research projects they developed with their mentors. We look forward to seeing the results of their hard work!