The Team

Raman Lab Members

We are a group of people that come from all over the globe in various scientific disciplines, connected by a deep interest in science, complexity, and emergence. Read more about us below and feel free to contact us to learn more!

Arjun Raman

Arjun grew up in Houston, TX then attended the University of Chicago for his undergraduate studies where he double majored in Physics and Chemistry. He then went on to pursue a dual-degree Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at UT Southwestern where he joined the laboratory of Rama Ranganathan as a Molecular Biophysics Ph.D. student. His attraction to the Ranganathan lab was the pursuit of understanding principles of protein structure, function, and evolvability. His graduate work was interdisciplinary, spanning statistical genomics, fundamental protein biophysics, and molecular simulation, and culminated in a paper linking the concepts of evolution with the origins of allostery in proteins…

more about Arjun Raman

Hannah GIba

Lab Manager

Hannah graduated from Indiana University in 2022 with a B.S. in Molecular Life Sciences, concentrating in Structural and Molecular Biology, and a B.A. in Chemistry. She joined the Raman Lab in June 2022 and took over the role of Lab Manager in October 2023. She spends her free time playing games with friends, trying to grow plants, and chirping back at her very loud cat.

Rita Almeida De Oliveira

Staff Scientist

Rita Oliveira is a microbiome researcher focused on the intricate roles of gut bacteria in human health and disease. In 2015, Rita joined the Integrative Biology and Biomedicine program at the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine (formally Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência) to start a PhD under the supervision of Dr. Xavier, where Rita investigated quorum sensing and its effects on gut microbiota dynamics and recovery from dysbiosis.

Rita joined Dr. Pamer’s laboratory in 2021 as a postdoctoral scholar and stablished a collaboration with Dr Raman’s laboratory. She is passionate about designing tailored probiotic cocktails that integrate these findings into personalized microbiome therapies. With Dr. Raman, Rita is establishing innovative approaches that combines statistical modeling with experimental biology to address the complexities of microbiota-diet-host-pathogen interactions, driving forward the field of microbiome research.

Bipul Pandey

Post Doctoral Researcher

Bipul Pandey is a condensed matter physicist with a broad interest in understanding the freezing of individual degrees of freedom and the emergence of collective behaviors in many-body interacting systems. Drawing on concepts from physics, as well as machine learning and statistics, he aims to tackle the challenges associated with the lack of theoretical frameworks for proper quantification of interactions in heterogeneous systems. A key focus of his work is on hierarchical systems of biological origin, where self-consistency is enforced across multiple scales. In such systems, he works on developing techniques to infer the interactome from sparse datasets for a deeper understanding, quantification, and leverage of effective degrees of freedom to create novel, sparse, and robust systems tailored for specific functions.

Yongqing Lan

Post Doctoral Researcher

Yongqing got his PhD in genomics in Beijing Institute of Genomics Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is interested in understanding biological systems on various scales by integrating multi-comics data with statistics and mathematics tools. Currently he is focusing on how cells adapt to new environment with yeast as model organism.

Vivek Behera

Post Doctoral Fellow

Vivek completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan and worked for 1 year as a research technician at Johns Hopkins University before joining the MSTP at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he completed a Ph.D. in cancer biology, working on transcription factor biology and chromatin states in hematopoietic lineages. He then joined the University of Chicago PSTP and completed 2 years of internal medicine residency and 3 years of hematology/oncology fellowship from 2020 – 2025. During his postdoctoral training, he has worked in Arjun Raman’s lab, leveraging systems biology approaches to connect tumor spatial biology with immunotherapy response. He is currently a thoracic oncology attending physician and an Instructor of Medicine within the Department of Medicine, Section of Hematology/Oncology.

Benjamin Doran

Grad Student

Benjamin Doran graduated from Harvard University Extension School in 2018 studying computer science, biology, and english literature. He then worked at MIT’s Shalek Lab, as a research technician identifying diagnostic markers for treatment resistance in pediatric inflammatory bowel disease by analyzing single-cell RNA sequencing data. As a PhD student in molecular engineering, He now works on understanding the complex relationships that allow living systems to adapt to new environments, form emergent structures and behaviors, and behave (semi) intelligently. When not torturing his brain with challenging questions, he enjoys hiking, mountain biking, playing board games, photography, and cooking spicy food. But at his core, he just wants to build bio-mechanical spaceships.

Maggie Carroll

Graduate Student

Maggie is a Ph.D. candidate in the Committee on Microbiology in the Biological Sciences Division. Maggie earned a B.S. in Molecular Biology from Ithaca College, where their undergraduate research focused on intrinsically disordered proteins. After graduation, Maggie worked at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia studying immunology before coming to UChicago to pursue doctoral training. Their current research takes a systems biology approach to the microbiome, driven by a curiosity about the emergent functions of complex bacterial communities and how consortia can be designed to carry out specific functions. Maggie especially values mentoring and collaborating with trainees in the lab, finding energy and inspiration in shared problem-solving and discovery. Originally from Philadelphia (Go Birds), Maggie also fosters kittens and enjoys spending time swimming outside of the lab.

Stephanie Hartel

Graduate Student

Stephanie began her academic journey at a California community college before transferring to California State University, Northridge, where she earned her B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology in 2022. While her undergraduate training focused on eukaryotic cell types, she has always been most interested in bacteria and how they influence health and disease. Her current research explores how diet shapes the microbiome and whether we can design the diet to predictably guide microbiome recovery post-antibiotic treatment.

Caden Proctor

Graduate Student

Caden is interested in understanding how function emerges from a protein’s architecture, and how we can design synthetic proteins within the framework of an evolved system. He grew up in Port Huron, MI, and earned his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Michigan, where he studied redox-sensitive longevity pathways in C. elegans. Outside of lab, you might find Caden working out at Ratner Athletics Center, playing jazz piano around Chicago, or watching TV at home with his cat, Pascal!

Laura Wilhelm

Research Analyst

Laura joined the lab as a research assistant after completing her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at ETH Zurich. Outside of research, she loves making music and spending time with friends.

Emma McSpadden

Research Technician

Emma has worked as a research technician at the Duchossois Family Institute since 2022. She will begin graduate studies at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy in fall 2025. She enjoys spending her free time with her loved ones, training in endurance sports, and exploring art and music.

Shannon Hocker

Business Administrator

Shannon graduated from Indiana University in 2022 with a BFA in photography and a BA in Art History. She joined the DFI in September, 2023, directly assisting Arjun while helping support the members of lab. She is passionate about the intersection of STEM and the arts, and spends her free time book binding and playing DnD.