Juan L. Mendoza
Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering
Freeman Hrabowski Scholar
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Email: JLMendoza@uchicago.edu
Juan Mendoza has expertise in cancer research, bioinformatics, protein engineering, structural biology, and immunology. Dr. Mendoza holds four patents and has been published in leading journals, including Cell, Nature, Immunity, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and the Journal of the American Chemical Society. His honors include an NIH NCI Career Development Award, Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Fellowship, and Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Fellowship. He received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from San Francisco State University and a doctorate in molecular biophysics from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. For his work on IFNs, Dr. Mendoza was awarded the prestigious Milstein Young Investigator Award by the International Cytokine & Interferon Society. In 2023, HHMI announced that Dr. Mendoza is an inaugural awardee of the Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program.
STAFF
Brandi S. Carr
Executive Assistant
Isabella Castillo
Research Technician
Gabriela Filipowicz
Research Technician
Crystal O’Leary
Research Manager
POSTDOCS
Rebecca Nusbaum, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Philipp Ross, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar
GRADUATE STUDENTS
Zhijie Chen, B.S. Chemistry (Nankai University, China)
Graduate Student Researcher
Chemistry
William Grubbe, M.S. (Northwestern University, US)
Graduate Student Researcher
Molecular Engineering
Aleksandra Kurowska, M.S. Eng. in Biotechnology (Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland)
Graduate Student Researcher
Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics
Shima Shabani, M.S. Medical Biotechnology (University of Tarbiat Modares, Iran)
Graduate Student Researcher
Molecular Engineering
UNDERGRADUATES
Aileen Kauffman
Undergraduate Student Researcher
Molecular Engineering
SUMMER RESEARCHERS
Laura Huynh
Reservoir High School, MD
Danielle Wilson
University of Maryland
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Major
ALUMNI
Celeste Mora
Research Technician 9/22-1/23
Sophie Hu
Undergraduate Student Researcher, 2021-22
Theint Aung, Ph.D. Chemistry
Graduate Student Researcher, 1/19-7/22
Genentech
Narisa Trabosh, B.S. Molecular Engineering
Undergraduate Student Researcher, 1/19-6/22
Revel Pharmaceuticals
Phoebe Hall, B.S. Molecular Engineering
Undergraduate Student Researcher, 1/19-6/20
New Culture
Atrish Bagchi, Ph.D. (U. Penn)
Postdoctoral Scholar, 1/20-1/21
Distributed Bio.
Dante Moreno
Masters, 2020
Molecular Engineering
Natalie Tsang
Technician (2019-2020)
Now an undergraduate student at the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Jacqueline Gomez
Undergraduate Student Researcher
Roger Romero
Undergraduate Student Researcher, 2019
Duy Tran
Visiting Scholar, Summer 2019 (SFSU)
Ibraheem Hamzat
Visiting Scholar, Summer 2019 (Leadership Alliance)