Our Team

Currently, I am working as a Research Scientist in Sheehan's lab, Dept. of Pediatric-Sickle Cell Disease, School of Medicine, Emory University. I am studying the role of IGFBP3 in HbF induction in SCD patients and HbF induction in vivo using NBSGW mice models and had been part of the other ongoing clinical research in the lab. I joined this lab as a postdoctoral fellow 3yrs back and very happy to be the part of this incredible team working towards improving the life of SCD Patients.

Before joining Dr. Sheehan, I was working as a Postdoctoral associate under the supervision of Dr. Shuta Ishibe, MD, Professor of Medicine (Nephrology), Nephrology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. There, I worked on elucidating the Molecular mechanism of APOL1 associated kidney diseases. I have also worked as Research Scholar and Postdoctoral Fellow under the supervision of Dr. Srinivasan Dasarathy, MD in the Department of Inflammation and Immunity at the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio. Here, I was involved in mitochondrial studies using High resolution respirometry techniques, Oroboros (O2K), in relation to liver cirrhosis.

I have done my Ph.D. in Biotechnology from Banaras Hindu University, India and have interest in molecular and cellular biology research and would like to advance my career in SCD Research.

Erica Evans, MBA is a research specialist specializing in microfluidic technology and red blood cell (RBC) biomarker development for sickle cell disease (SCD) and other hematological disorders. She leads the microfluidic projects with efforts to optimize, validate, and implement novel microfluidic assays designed to assess RBC adhesion to physiologically relevant proteins. Her work focuses on translating these technologies into clinically meaningful tools, improving treatment monitoring, and clinical trial design. She currently oversees the rheology assessments in Afimmune's clinical trial of their novel therapeutic agent for SCD. She has presented her research at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) conference among others and has contributed to multiple peer-reviewed publications.

Molecular & Systems Pharmacology doctoral student at Emory University focusing on work improving safety and efficacy of gene therapies in hematological disorders.

Hello, my name is Zak Kostamo, and I have been with the lab since 7/2022. I am a Research Specialist mainly interested in novel drug and gene therapy development for SCD. I have published with Nature Communications evaluating Hb-Makassar in a mouse model as a potential gene therapy in collaboration with Beam Therapeutics. In addition to mouse work, I work to extract CD34+ cells from non-mobilized patients with sickle cell for use in erythroid cultures, gene therapy experiments, and xenografts.

Jonathan is a Research Specialist in the Sheehan Lab. His bench work includes LoRRca ektacytometry, flow cytometry, and mouse bone marrow engraftment studies evaluating novel therapeutics. Additionally, Jonathan has developed tools in R to streamline data preprocessing and quality control and contributes to database integration and design for the lab's growing OMICs database. He earned his B.S. in Neuroscience from Furman University and will be enrolling in medical school this fall.

Jedidah is a research specialist who works in red cell function testing. She also assists with the mobilization project as needed. She graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology in Spring 2024 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering. In the future, Jedidah plans to pursue a PhD. In her free time, she enjoys writing, reading books and comics, drawing, and listening to music.

Monica Rivera, BS, is a first-year Master of Public Health student at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, graduating in May 2026. Her public health interests include biostatistics, epidemiology, bioinformatics, healthcare administration, data analytics, and health policy to improve all dimensions of health and outcomes for patients with Sickle Cell Disease and Anemia. Her tasks in the Sheehan lab include data cleaning, entry, management, and analysis using data collection software and statistical programs like REDCap, R, SAS, GraphPad PRISM, Excel, PowerBI, and similar research tools.