People

Ralda Nehme, PhD

Principal Investigator

Ralda Nehme is a principal investigator in the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she also directs the stem cell program. Nehme has received recognition and funding from numerous groups, including the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative, the Maternal and Child Health Research Institute at Stanford University, and the National Institute of Mental Health. Nehme received her B.S. at the American University of Beirut. She completed her Ph.D. at Dartmouth College, where she studied neuronal development in C. elegans. She then conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University, where she became interested in modeling psychiatric disease, and developed efficient methods to generate human stem cell-derived neural cells.

Current lab members

Vy Ngo, PhD

Postdoc

Jointly mentored with Sami Farhi

Derek Hawes

Lab operations supervisor

Milena Andzelm, MD, PhD

Instructor, HMS

Jointly mentored with Steve McCarroll

Jax Xu, PhD

Postdoc

Jointly mentored with Sami Farhi

Ilinca Mazureac 

Research Associate

Noah Pettinari

Computational Associate

Jointly mentored with Steve McCarroll

Rachel Battaglia, PhD

Postdoc


Adrianna Maglieri

Project coordinator

Sartaj Habib

Research Associate

Autumn Johnson

Research Associate

Sarah Rojas

Undergraduate student

Isabel Flessas

Undergraduate student

Dhara Liyanage

Undergraduate student

Connie Yu

Undergraduate student

Emily Hansen

Undergraduate student


Alumni

Matthew Tegtmeyer

Graduate (Doctoral) Student

Now: Assistant Professor, Purdue University

Serwah Danquah

Research Associate

Jointly mentored with Sami Farhi

Vera Valakh, PhD

Research Scientist

Now: principal scientist, 

Stoke Therapeutics

Hilena Gebre

Research Associate

Now: medical student at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University

Emily Peirent

Research Associate

Now: Ph.D. candidate, University of Michigan

Aditi Trehan

Research Associate

Now: Ph.D. candidate, Columbia University 

Kathryn Boit

Undergraduate student

Now: Ph.D. candidate, Yale University 

Theresa Chen 

Research Associate

Now: Ph.D. candidate, University of Washington

Ethan Crouse

Research Associate

Now: in Boulder, CO

Autumn Bandy

Summer student, New Mexico State University

Jesus Velazques

Summer student, UCLA

Adhvaith Sridhar


Maria Girgis 


Eman Abdurezak


Neena Tarafdar











High school students