Joanna Halkias, MD
Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics
Sara Park, BS
Sara graduated from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo with a degree in Biology and a minor in Biotechnology. As an undergraduate, she studied reproductive timing and environmental correlates in Pismo clam populations under the guidance of Dr. Benjamin Ruttenberg. While she loved her time conducting marine biology research, she was more interested in pursuing a career in immunology.
In the Halkias Lab at UCSF, Sara studies fetal thymocyte development in order to understand what signals drive the accumulation and functional potential of inflammatory fetal T cells. When she’s not in the lab, Sara enjoys hiking, going to the beach, and yoga.
Stephanie Makredes, BA
Stephanie graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in biological chemistry. During her junior and senior year, she completed a thesis in the Edelman lab at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Sciences. She studied endothelial cell scaffolds in a tissue engineering context, discovering this system as a new way to study hypoxia using transcriptomic sequencing. Stephanie is interested in the how the immune system develops.
In the Halkias lab at UCSF, she is discovering new projects to better understand the prenatal immune system. Outside of her scientific interests, Stephanie enjoys discovering new areas in SF, yoga, rock climbing, and baking. She is a native French speaker and is also fluent in Spanish.
