Samantha Morris, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Dr. Samantha Morris, Ph.D., Brigham and Women’s Hospital & the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, is an Allen Distinguished Investigator, and New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator. Dr. Morris trained as a Developmental Biologist at the University of Cambridge. In Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz’s group, she investigated mechanisms of cell fate decision-making in the earliest stages of development. She then joined the laboratory of George Daley at Harvard Medical School, where she focused on the analysis of gene regulatory networks to dissect and engineer cell identity. In 2015, she established her independent research group. In 2017, Dr. Morris was named a Vallee Foundation Scholar. In 2019, she was awarded the St. Louis Academy of Science Innovation Award and was named an Allen Distinguished Investigator. In 2020, she was named a Sloan Fellow, and a New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator. She sits on the Board of Directors of the Society for Developmental Biology, serves on the editorial boards of Development, Cell Systems, and Developmental Cell, and is an Associate Editor at Development.

Tayyab Adil, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Tayyab received his bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in 2014. During his undergrad, Tayyab spent a summer studying the role of TET3 in development and pluripotency in the Rudolf Jaenisch lab at the Whitehead Institute. For his PhD, Tayyab joined the Jon Henry lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he studied stem cells in the frog cornea, and their ability to heal/regenerate, and generate additional cell fates, such as lens cells, in an effort to develop novel therapeutic approaches for diseases/injuries. In the Morris lab, Tayyab’s work will involve dissecting the mechanisms of cellular reprogramming with an aim to advance therapeutically beneficial cell types.

Xue (Snow) Yang, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Xue (Snow) Yang received her degree in biological science from East China Normal University in 2018. During her years as an undergraduate, she worked in the lab of Dr. Yuan Wang, studying the interaction of transcription factors and microRNAs during hematopoiesis. She recently graduated from the Developmental, Regenerative and Stem Cell Biology Program at Washington University. In the Morris lab, Snow studies the role of transcription factor binding during lineage reprogramming. 

Madeleine Linneberg-Agerholm, Ph.D.

NovoSTAR Postdoctoral Fellow

Madeleine received her Bachelor of Science in Physiology from the University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom, after which she worked towards a Master of Science in Molecular Biomedicine from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. During this time, she joined the lab of Professor Josh Brickman at DanStem for her Masters thesis focused on developing endoderm differentiation protocols from human embryonic stem cells and eventually went on to earn her Ph.D. investigating the molecular mechanisms that underlie cell plasticity in the preimplantation embryo. Currently, Madeleine is a joint industrial NovoSTAR Postdoctoral Fellow between the Morris lab and Novo Nordisk, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. She will focus on understanding the gene regulatory networks that govern pancreatic differentiation using single-cell approaches.

Durga Thakral, Ph.D.

Clinical Fellow, Gastroenterology

Dr. Durga Thakral graduated summa cum laude from Yale University as a Goldwater and Beckman Scholar, earning concurrent B.S. and M.S. degrees in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. Working under Nobel Laureate Dr. Thomas Steitz, she discovered a novel antibacterial compound, receiving Yale’s highest departmental honor. She completed her M.D. and Ph.D. in Genetics at Yale School of Medicine as an NIH-Oxford Cambridge Scholar, followed by Internal Medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Currently a Harvard Clinical Fellow in Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Endoscopy, Dr. Thakral employs advanced single-cell genomics and computational analyses under Dr. Samantha Morris to map intestinal cell-type changes following bariatric surgery, aiming to identify mechanisms underlying surgery-induced diabetes remission. She also mentors peers and faculty in bioinformatics, teaches computational workshops, and promotes STEM careers, earning the Yale Community Service Award.

Gang Xue, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Gang specializes in computational modeling of cell fate decisions, lineage dynamics, and gene regulatory networks. Dr. Xue earned his Ph.D. from Peking University, where his research centered on elucidating the regulatory mechanisms driving multicellular pattern formation and differentiation. His computational expertise in systems biology and single-cell analytics aligns closely with the lab’s mission to decode and engineer cell identity transitions. Dr. Xue’s strong track record, with publications in high-impact journals such as eLife and PLOS Computational Biology, positions him to significantly advance the lab’s projects in single-cell genomics, transcription factor-mediated reprogramming, and lineage tracing technologies.

Douglas Abrams

DBBS Graduate Student, Computational and Systems Biology Program

Douglas received his degree in history and computational/systems biology from Colby College in 2019. Upon graduating, he worked as a bioinformatician in Dr. Sohrab Shah’s lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering to develop pipelines to analyze scDNA-seq data. Currently, Douglas is a member of the Computational and Systems Biology program.. He is currently enrolled in the Computational & Systems Biology program at Washington University.

Naoto Yamaguchi

DBBS Graduate Student, Molecular Genetics and Genomics Program

Naoto received his bachelor’s degree in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 2021. During his undergrad, he developed an imputation method for scATAC-seq data. He also worked on a project developing a Gene Regulatory Network inference method from time-series scRNA-seq data. His interest lies in cellular identity, direct reprogramming, and lineage tracing technology.

Jihyeon Jeong

Research Technician

Jihyeon received her M.S. in Molecular Neuroethology from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), where she investigated gut GPCR expression patterns in Drosophila using immunohistochemistry, light-sheet/confocal microscopy, and behavioral assays. At the Morris Lab, she supports research on cellular reprogramming and regenerative biology.

Yutong Zhou

Research Intern

Yutong Zhou is a senior undergraduate at Peking University. In Dr. Yihan Lin’s lab, she conducted a review on methodologies for studying cell fate and worked on developing computational tools to analyze single-cell lineage tracing data. Currently, she is a research intern in the Morris lab, where she is working on investigating the heterogeneity in direct reprogramming with lineage tracing technology.

We are hiring!

Ph.D. Students

We will welcome inquiries for rotation projects from any Harvard Ph.D. students.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Please e-mail your CV, including bibliography, to: samorris2{at}bwh.harvard.edu

Research Technicians

Please e-mail your CV to: samorris2{at}bwh.harvard.edu

Undergraduate Students

We welcome inquiries for research and training opportunities during the academic year and summer.