Karolak Lab
Aleksandra (Aleks, Ola) Karolak
Assistant Professor and Member
Education and Positions
2021 – present Assistant Member, Moffitt Cancer Center, Department of Machine Learning, Division of Quantitative Science, Tampa, FL
2021 – present Assistant Professor, University of South Florida, Department of Oncologic Sciences, Tampa, FL
2019 – 2021 Assistant Research Professor at City of Hope, Division of Mathematical Oncology, Departments of Computational and Quantitative Medicine and Population Sciences, Duarte, CA
2018 – 2019 H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions and Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology Postdoctoral Fellowship, Genome Data Science, IRB Barcelona, Spain
2015 – 2018 Postdoctoral Researcher at Moffitt Cancer Center, Department of Integrated Mathematical Oncology, Tampa, FL
2010 – 2015 PhD in Biophysical and Computational Chemistry, University of South Florida (USF), Tampa, FL
1995 – 2000 MSc in Metal-Organic Chemistry, Maxima Cum Laude, Individual Curriculum, Adam Mickiewicz University, Posen, Poland
OUR TEAM:
Mourad Stitou, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow - onboarding
Rohit Veligeti Research Trainee - onboarding
Meghna Manjith Research Trainee - onboarding
Education
2022 - 2026 (expected) Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at the University of South Florida
Trieu Nguyen
Research Trainee
Trieu is an undergraduate sophomore pursuing a Computer Science degree at the University of South Florida. He always aspires to invent and work on unexplored technologies and innovations.
Engaged as a research trainee in Dr. Karolak's lab, he is committed to contributing his utmost in the battle against cancer. This research opportunity has discovered the missing part of him that really strengthened his passion for all branches of science and motivated him to widen his knowledge of all scientific disciplines. He is on his own mission of doing important things for science.
Adam Wojtulewski
Research Trainee
Adam is an undergraduate junior majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Florida. As a research trainee in the Machine Learning Department, Adam hopes to bring his knowledge of database systems, artificial intelligence, and software engineering and to meaningfully contribute to the efforts of Dr. Karolak’s team. Through this opportunity, he wants to expand his understanding of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning approaches while helping to contribute to scientific understanding of cancer. At Moffitt, he currently studies heterogeneity in response to treatment among patients with similar characteristics.
Outside of coursework, Adam is heavily involved in the Polish Student Association (POLSA) at the University of Florida, having recently been elected as President of the club for the upcoming schoolyear and participates as a member in the Ukrainian Student Association and Society of Software Engineers to become more worldly minded and better equipped in his major respectively. In his spare time, Adam likes to watch and play sports, listen to music, travel, and code, primarily in Go, C++, and Python.
Education
2021 - 2024 (expected) Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with Minor in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Florida
2018 - 2021 International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme at Palm Harbor University High School
Education
2024 - Undergraduate Program at USF
2021 - 2023 (expected) Hillsborough Community College, Certificate in Biotechnology
2018 - 2023 (expected) High School
Sara M. del Valle
Research Trainee
Sara starts the undergraduate program at USF in January 2024. Currently she is doing full-time college classes at Hillsborough Community College. Through her appointment in our group at Moffitt ML, she is interested in collaborating, learning about AI, and continuing scientific growth. She currently studies applications of AI to Molecular Glue Degraders.
Being influenced by her younger sister’s and father’s medical journeys, she wants to learn more about oncology and do research on it. She recently became a part of the Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) Future Leaders Program - a program for people who are linked to TSC and are between 17-27 years old. The program focuses on advocating, researching, and helping to obtain support from the US Congress. In her spare time, she likes to read, draw, listen to music, and code. She has a very enthusiastic personality, loves horses, and loves to make people smile.
October 2022 - First place for the “Machine Learning in Oncology" poster at the HCC Research Poster Symposium
AFFILIATE MEMBERS:
Matthew Froid
PhD Candidate
Matthew is a Ph.D. student in the Cancer Biology Program at Moffitt in Integrated Mathematical Oncology Department in the group of Dr. David Basanta. He is science-minded, bright, young professional, dedicated to excellence in all pursuits, with a passion for evolutionary biology, mathematics, and machine learning. Matthew utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach to scientific problem solving. He is a pro-active self-starter with eight years of clinical laboratory experience and seven years of research experience, comfortable and adept in both settings. He utilizes his strong background in machine learning and agent-based modeling to study cancer evolution and treatment optimization. He joins our team for 10 weeks long rotations.
Education and Positions
2022 - present PhD in Cancer Biology, USF/Moffitt
2020 - 2023 MA in Mathematics, University of Nebraska, Omaha, NE
2019 - 2020 NASA Research Fellow, NASA, Omaha, NE
2014 - 2019 BS in Biology, University of Nebraska, Omaha, NE
Aleksandra Sikora
MD Candidate
Aleksandra is a fifth-year student of medicine at the Medical University of Warsaw. Her recent research in the Students’ Scientific Association focused on the risk factors for recurrence of pulmonary embolism. She currently expands her horizons and gains experience in the field of oncology, especially in the new opportunities for treatment of metastatic cancers of gastrointestinal origin. In her free time, Aleksandra enjoys kitesurfing, cycling, and traveling.
2018 - 2024 (expected) Medicine, Medical University of Warsaw, Poland
Ezhilpavai Mohanan, PhD
PK/PD Modeler
Pavai works in the field of Pharmacometrics specifically of the hematological disorders. She is interested in Pharmacokinetic-Dynamic (PK/PD) modeling of the drugs used as conditioning regimen and post transplantation immunosuppressants in hematopoietic cell transplantation. Recently extending the interest to integrated computational biology / mathematical modeling in addition to in-vitro & in-vivo experiments.
Education and Positions:
2020 - 2022 Postdoctoral Fellow, Population Sciences, City of Hope, CA
2012 - 2019 PhD in PK/PD and PGen, Thiruvalluvar University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
2005 - 2007 MSc in Biotechnology, Maruthupandiyar College, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India
2002 - 2005 Bachelor of Biotechnology, Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India
SUMMER INTERNS:
Currently interviewing the candidates for Summer 2024.
Archi Marrapu
Research Trainee / Summer 2023
Archi is a sophomore at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, passionate about the interdisciplinary fields of biomedical engineering, health sciences, and advanced technology. At Dr. Karolak's Lab at Moffitt, she uses AI for fragment based drug discovery.
She has done several projects in AI before (including an AI phone app for melanoma diagnosis and design of an affordable yet fully functional prosthetic arm from cheap electronics), a few of which have been specifically focused on various types of cancers. In addition to her projects, Archi is the Founder and President of STEMifyGirls, a nonprofit organization aimed to provide STEM opportunities and resources for young girls and minority cultures to bridge the gender gap in STEM fields. She loves competing and engaging in stressful public speaking competitions, specifically Model United Nation, where she’s bagged many awards. Archi also engages in Indian classical dance and enjoys performing it, as she has been doing for over 12 years.
Education
2021 - 2025 (expected) Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
Our executive assistant:
Kara Zupancic, BS
Executive Assistant
Kara originally started with Moffitt's Diversity team back in 2018. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Teaching and Training Technical Professionals from the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio and has working previously at Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center as a Pharmacy Administrative Support Clerk, as well as, SummaCare, Inc. as a Project Specialist in Medical Records and Data Management. She is responsible for all administrative tasks within our department and team.
Former members:
Nam Nguyen
PhD Candidate (Summer 2022 - Spring 2023)
Nam is a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering at the University of South Florida in the group of Dr. K.C. Chen, funded by Dr. Karolak during the semesters of Fall 2022 and Spring 2023. His experience is in algorithmic designs for classical and quantum AI for applications in cancer research. He is interested in translational AI to understand molecular dynamics, genetic biomarkers, and cancer evolution. As a research trainee at Moffitt, Nam aims to develop a set of neural intelligence pipelines which integrate information from mutational profiles and multiple modes of the human genome. With this information, he aims to understand oncogenesis and novel genetic drivers. His goal is also to design a collection of quantum neural networks which enables modeling of cancer evolution and molecular interactions toward precision medicine and drug design.
Education and Positions
2020 - 2024 (expected) PhD in Electrical Engineering, USF
2019 - 2020 MA in Statistics, USF
2017 - 2019 BS in Mathematics, Hanoi University of Education, Vietnam
Bi Zhao, PhD
Applied Research Scientist (Summer 2022)
Bi has experience in data science, machine learning, and database development for protein structural and functional research. Her research interests have focused on characterizing the intermolecular interactions and regulation under tissue and condition specificity, and discovering novel mechanisms of various diseases. Bi's goal is to establish these novel strategies and utilize them in biomedical research, especially targeting the heterogeneity of the microbiome and its relationship to cancer development and individual differences.
Education and Positions
2022 Applied Research Scientist, Moffitt Cancer Center, Department of Machine Learning, Division of Quantitative Science, Tampa, FL
2019 - 2022 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
2016 - 2019 PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology, USF
2013 - 2015 MSc in Medical Science in Biotechnology, USF
2007 - 2011 Bachelor of Bioscience, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China
Anna Greene
Graduate Student (Spring 2022)
Anna is a graduate student at the University of South Florida, majoring in bioinformatics and computational biology. She is currently involved in research at the University of South Florida on intrinsic disorder in circadian clock proteins. As a research volunteer, she is eager to hone her programming skills and learn various research and machine learning techniques from dr. Karolak's team. In her free time, Anna loves to play the drums and ukulele, watch sports, and travel.
Education
2021-2022 MSc in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, USF
2016-2020 BS in Biology, University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL
Katherine Rodriguez
Undergraduate Student (Spring 2022)
Katherine is an undergraduate senior at the University of South Florida, majoring in biomedical sciences and minoring in aging sciences. As a research trainee in the Machine Learning Department, Katherine is eager to learn by working with the team of dr. Karolak, and many other renowned researchers. She anticipates that the experience will contribute to her success in investigating the intersections of human biology, microgravity, and machine learning at the graduate level. Katherine also volunteers as a research assistant for the Evans-Nguyen Mass Spectrometry Lab in the Chemistry Department at USF. Outside of her academic and professional pursuits, Katherine is a Tampa native that enjoys reading, exploring downtown, and engaging in on-campus activities.
Education
2018 - 2022 BS in Biomedical Sciences, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL (USF)
2014 – 2018 High School Diploma, Walter L. Sickles High School
