Lab Members
Elizabeth Shin, BA
Associate Research Technician
2024-Present
Elizabeth holds a BA in Neuroscience from Swarthmore College and previously worked for the Cardiovascular Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. In August 2024, she joined Dr. Chakravarti’s lab as an Associate Research Technician to join our Keratoconus Study and assist in daily lab operations.
Elizabeth is involved in research investigating the role of pathogenic mutations in keratoconus as well as utilizing mice models to study extracellular matrix interactions with immune cells in the context of corneal infection.
Madhuri Koduri, MS, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
2023-Present
Madhuri attained her Master’s in Biotechnology from Kakatiya University, India, in 2017. She then completed her Doctoral degree from L V Prasad Eye Institute, India, in 2023. In her PhD, she investigated the tear proteome and mechanism of lid margin keratinization in Chronic Stevens Johnson syndrome. Her research interests include ocular surface immunology and cornea. In 2023, Madhuri joined Dr. Shukti Chakravarti’s lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow. In this role, she focuses on the functional analysis of oxidative stress in keratoconus, corneal stromal cells, utilizing mice models, and working with corneal organoid cultures. In her free time, Madhuri likes to play chess, badminton and she enjoys pencil art.
George Maiti, PhD
Associate Research Scientist
2016-present
George obtained his doctorate degree from University of Calcutta, India in 2014. His Ph.D. work involved understanding the role of Wnt5a signaling in macrophage functions. He joined Dr. Chakravarti’s lab at Johns Hopkins University to study the role of small leucine-rich proteoglycans (SLRPs) in TLR4/TLR9 responses in macrophages and dendritic cells during ocular infection. He relocated with her group to NYU Langone Health to continue working on these projects.
Sean Ashworth, MS, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Sean completed his BSc in Biochemistry, followed by an MSc in Stem Cells, Development and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Southampton, in the UK. He then obtained his PhD in Vision Science from Cardiff University, where he investigated the effect of endogenous extracellular matrix proteins on the differentiation of corneal epithelial cells and other ocular cell lineages from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). His research interests include pluripotent stem cell modelling of development and disease, connective tissue biology and pathology, as well as molecular biology and cell and organoid culture. Sean joined Dr. Shukti Chakravarti’s lab in 2022 as a Postdoctoral Fellow, where he will primarily be investigating the impact of novel, potentially pathogenic mutations in the development of the cornea and keratoconus, using patient-specific, iPSC-derived corneal organoids.
Graduate Students
Violet Bupp-Chickering
Violet has a BS in Neuroscience from the University of Vermont and is currently a first-year PhD student in Neuroscience at the Vilcek Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at NYU. Her rotation project focusses on understanding fibrosis-related changes in human cornea organoids after treatment with pro-fibrotic factors.
Mahitha Sattiraju, MS Student
Mahitha is a Master’s student at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, currently working on her thesis in our lab. Her research focuses on investigating how lumican influences TLR9 signaling.
2023 Summer Interns
- Anusha Tuli
Anusha is comparing the proteoglycan-related gene expression between human corneas and corneal organoid models cultivated in our lab. She is also investigating the functions of newly discovered genetic variants related to keratoconus
- Jenny Klein
Jenny focuses on understanding how the extracellular matrix protein (ECM) lumican regulates toll-like receptors associated with innate immunity in response to viral attacks
- Deborah George
Deborah’s work focuses on understanding the role of pathogenic DNA variants in keratoconus-related genes discovered in our lab. She analyzes their expression, functions, and assesses their potential involvement in corneal repair processes