Our Team

Brendan graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from Lindenwood University in the spring of 2020, and joined the Bateman lab as a full time research tech in late 2021. He has since been primarily working with the team studying the Tau profile in Alzheimer’s disease.

Taraneh Atri is a junior undergraduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. She is majoring in biology, neuroscience and has minors in music and applied linguistics. Taraneh joined the Bateman Lab in the spring of 2023 and is working primarily with the NfL team to better characterize neurofilament light. She plans to attend medical school after completing her undergraduate education. Outside of the lab, Taraneh serves as a Matched Academic Mentor and is principal double bassist of the WashU Symphony Orchestra.

Nicolas Barthélemy obtained his PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of Strasbourg. He specializes in protein characterization and quantitation by mass spectrometry. He joined the Bateman laboratory as postdoctoral associate in 2015. As research instructor, Barthélemy focuses his research on tau protein phosphorylation in Alzheimer’s disease and tau modifications in other tauopathies. His research led to the discovery of new tau biomarkers for AD, including ptau217 in plasma/spinal fluid, and has provided new understanding on molecular mechanisms involved in tauopathies.

James Bollinger’s studies have focused on the development and application of novel analytical techniques for the profiling of enzymes of clinical relevance. Specifically, he has utilized the LC-ESI-MS/MS analytical platform to design reagents and assays that enable the sensitive and specific analysis of individual proteins as well as metabolite profiles derived from their enzymatic activity. In collaboration with multiple other labs, he has applied these assays to characterize relative abundance and kinetic profiles of several proteins with the greater intent of investigating in vivo roles in cellular homeostasis and disease progression. Current efforts in the Bateman lab are focused on LC/MS method development for; 1) the assessment of alpha synuclein protein turnover kinetics in human CSF 2) the assessment of Superoxide Dismutase 1 protein turnover kinetics in human CSF 3) the assessment of CNS amyloidosis through blood-based biomarkers 4) the assessment of Apolipoprotein E’s role in the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative disease.

Melanie Burton joined the lab in 2021. She gained an interest in the pathophysiology of neurological disorders from her previous work in a psychiatric hospital. Now, Melanie works in the Bateman lab helping develop and implement study processes, driven by her passion to make a difference in the future of Alzheimer’s disease. Outside of the lab, her passions lie in outdoor activities like camping, hiking, traveling and music festivals.

Janice Chang joined the Bateman Lab in Fall 2023. She graduated from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in Spring of 2023. Janice specializes in statistical data analysis and has a passion for analyzing data connected to people’s health. Outside of work Janice likes to travel and is an avid snowboarder.

John earned his PhD in analytical chemistry from Saint Louis University, where he developed novel sample preparation platforms for LC-MS based metabolomics. He joined the Bateman lab in the fall of 2021, and is working on IP-MS method development toward the characterization of neurofilament light in various biofluids.

Reid Coyle graduated from Maryville University in spring 2022 with his bachelor’s degree in chemistry along with two minors in math and physics. He joined the Bateman lab in summer of 2022 as a full-time research tech and currently works with the Tau team.

Rickey George received his BS in psychology in December of 2019. During his education, he became drawn to the prospect of research but decided to pursue other areas of work to broaden his experience. However, research was his true passion, which eventually brought him to the Bateman lab. He is currently working on the SUNBIRD project and is passionate in aiding the fight against Alzheimer’s disease through the progression of research aimed at improving diagnostic techniques. This involves screening participants and working closely on blood draws, as well as sample processing.

Yingxin (Chloe) He joined the Bateman laboratory in June 2019. She obtained her PhD in chemical engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology. She focuses her research on tau and amyloid-beta measurement in human CSF, plasma and brain. Her current work also includes the development of the IP-MS methods for measurement of NfL in human CSF, plasma and brain to enable SILK.

Kanta Horie is an Eisai-sponsored visiting researcher in Department of Neurology at Washington University.  He obtained his PhD in pharmacy from Kyoto University and specializes in proteomics and metabolomics research.  He joined Bateman’s laboratory in 2019.  His current interests center around translational research in neurodegenerative diseases using various analytical techniques e.g., mass spectrometry and the use for biomarker-driven medicine creation.

Josh Hou is a junior undergraduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. He is pursuing a major in Bio: Neuroscience and a minor in Computer science. He joined the Bateman lab in spring of 2023 to work on mass spectrometry analysis of potential biomarkers of neurodegeneration. Outside of lab, Josh is part of an acapella group, a dance team, club swim, and enjoys golfing and playing soccer.

Ziqiao (Aurora) Jiao is a rising senior undergraduate student at Washington University. She is double majoring in statistics and psychology. She joined the Bateman Lab in Spring 2023 doing computational works with datasets cleaning. Being interested in data, she is keen on the statistics use in lab works. Upon completion of undergraduate study, she will continue to graduate school in areas of statistics and biostatistics. Outside of the lab, she loves badminton and cooking.

McCrae graduated from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Science in Gerontology and then continued her education with a Master of Science in Nursing from Xavier University. After graduation, she worked at St. Elizabeth Edgewood Hospital in Cincinnati as an inpatient oncology nurse before joining the Bateman Lab in April 2024. Currently, she is focused on recruiting participants for various Alzheimer’s research studies, managing fluid samples and blood collection, and performing clinical procedures alongside principal physicians. Outside the clinic and office, McCrae is an avid runner and is always training for her next big race. She also enjoys reading, traveling, hiking, and discovering new restaurants and bakeries.

Costi Karakousis graduated from WashU in the spring of 2024 with a bachelor’s in classics and a minor in psychology. He joined the clinical team in the summer of 2024 and works primarily on SUNBIRD. He developed an interest in neuroscience after taking Biological Psychology at WashU, and the pathology and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases is an area of research that he finds particularly fascinating. Outside of the clinic he is an avid fan of the Buffalo Bills, Milwaukee Bucks and Baltimore Orioles and he loves playing soccer with friends.

Olivia Kersting graduated from Missouri State University with a Bachelor’s in Psychology and then received her Master’s Degree in Clinical Child Psychology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Following graduation, she switched paths and earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the Goldfarb School of Nursing. Olivia Joined the Bateman Lab in July 2024 to combine her passions of nursing and psychology. Her work in the lab focuses on our newest clinical study SUNBIRD. Outside of the lab, Olivia enjoys international travel, as well as trying new restaurants and gardening.

Rama K. Koppisetti joined the Bateman and Karch lab as a staff scientist in 2021. He has a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry, mathematics and a Master’s degree in analytical chemistry (specialization) from India (Andhra University). He has seven-plus years of working experience in drug discovery and structural & molecular biology projects. His primary focus is to accelerate ongoing collaborations between Celeste Karch, PhD, and Chihiro Sato, PhD, to understand Tau kinetics in cell models.

Matthew Larsen graduated from Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology in the fall of 2023. He joined the Bateman Lab as a sophomore undergraduate student to gain clinical experience and now works full-time as a research assistant. His work in the lab is with the clinical team and will be centered around the SUNBIRD study. Outside of the lab, Matthew spends his free time swimming and enjoying photography.

Melody Li joined the Bateman lab in 2016 and currently works as the lab’s Program Manager. She works on grants management and administration, scientific writing and editing for grants and publications, and study design and oversight of the lab’s clinical studies. Her background is in occupational therapy working with older adults to support successful aging in their homes. Melody works remotely from Seattle. Outside of the lab, she enjoys reading, hiking, running and trying new foods.

Yan Li is an instructor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine. She graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a PhD in biostatistics in 2017. Li’s research interest focuses on the design, analysis and interpretation of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) related research studies and clinical trials. She is currently working for the DIAN Biostatistics core and Bateman’s lab.

Samir Lopez Chahin has a BS in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in engineering management from Washington University, along with a BS in physics from Kansas Wesleyan University. He joined the lab in the beginning of 2021 to assist in bench work from ongoing projects, develop automated processes to improve throughput and quality of experiments, optimize data analysis and results and assist the team in decision making. His main goal will be to shorten the cycle time it takes from starting an experiment to having results while maintaining quality at its maximum.

Brendan Lucey is an associate professor of neurology.  He is the Sleep Medicine Section head and see patients at the Washington University Multidisciplinary Sleep Medicine Center.  Lucey is currently funded by a K76 Beeson career development award from the National Institute on Aging to study sleep and human amyloid-beta kinetics.  The primary focus of his work is to investigate if sleep disturbances may serve as a marker for Alzheimer’s disease and if treatment of sleep disturbances may prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Nikki Malvin joined the Bateman Lab in January 2024. She received her master’s degree in molecular biology from SIUE in 2009 and worked as a lab manager at WashU for 14 years prior to joining the Bateman lab. She brings a wealth of knowledge and general management, organization and assistance to the lab. Her background is in spatial imaging, molecular studies and bioinformatics of colonic, lung and kidney diseases. Outside of work Nikki enjoys her time knitting, cross stitching, playing video games and baking.

Justin Melendez received his PhD in genetics and genomics from Washington University in St. Louis where he worked on developing tools for molecular biology and sequencing technologies. His work in the Bateman lab focuses on studying the connection between human aging and neurodegenerative disease, understanding how and why we age and developing therapeutic interventions to extend human life and health span.

Soumya Mukherjee is a research instructor in the Department of Neurology at Washington University in St. Louis. He obtained his PhD in chemistry from the University of Calcutta and specializes in proteomics and mass spectrometry. He joined the Bateman lab in 2022. His current research interests are in understanding the molecular mechanisms in neurodegeneration and the role protein post-translational modifications (PTMs) has to play during disease progression. Specifically he is interested in the 1) cross-talk of PTMs during disease staging, 2) protein aging and 3) altered proteoforms in neurodegenerative diseases. His goals are in translation of these findings using analytical techniques for the development of disease biomarkers.

Nicolas Oatts joined the Bateman lab in 2018 after nine years of industry experience. His previous work included: lab testing for external clients, research and development, and quality control. His current work with the Bateman lab is mainly focused on the plasma amyloid beta project.

Peter Ochalek is a senior undergraduate student at Washington University in St. Louis, who is currently pursuing a biology major in neuroscience, and minors in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (PNP) and Japanese. He joined the Bateman lab in the summer of 2024 and is working with the NfL and Tau teams on their ongoing projects. Outside of the lab, he is part of Club Swim, the WashU Jazz Ensemble and enjoys brewing his own coffee and playing Magic: the Gathering.

Vitaliy Ovod is the first author on the very first paper that reports plasma aß measures as a biomarker for amyloidosis and has potential to become a simple blood test for underlying pathophysiology in AD. He runs LC-MS analysis of clinical plasma studies for validation of findings and improves LC-MS method for accuracy and robustness.

Ovod develops, maintains lab’s in-house research database. Also, he leads data analysis on major projects of the lab including but not limited to quantitation, visualization and software automation. Another of his duties is overseeing and advising on all data management matters. Ovod joined department of Neurology in 2008, previously he was employed by Pfizer and had been developing LC-MS methods and utilizing it to measure biomarkers for osteoarthritis.

Andrea Peterson-Brown has been assisting with Bateman’s research studies for over 15 years. While working in the clinical trials research unit (CTRU), she helped with a multitude of studies. Services included blood and CSF collection, infusion administration, LP assistance and routine nursing services. Peterson-Brown has been a registered nurse for over 26 years, receiving degrees from Jewish College of Nursing and Allied Health and Barnes College of Nursing at University of Missouri-St. Louis. She works on several studies with a primary concentration on the DIAN observational study. She enjoys interacting with patients and is extremely excited to be a part of Bateman’s world-wide, important and innovative research projects.

Manohar BN Pradhan has a MEng in electrical/control engineering and a BS in systems engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, along with a BA in analytical chemistry from Westminster College. His interest mainly involves modeling, simulation and control of dynamic systems. He joined the Bateman lab in May 2022 as a manager for quality control and equipment. He assists in developing automated processes, data analysis and up keeping of automated/analytical instruments which enables improvement in the quality of experiments and optimization of laboratory processes.

Jackson Rosewood joined the Bateman Lab in August of 2023 as a Project Manager. He graduated from Southern Illinois University in 2019 with a degree in biochemistry and a minor in psychology. After undergrad Jackson went on to work as an analytical chemist for the FDA until the summer of 2023. His scientific background is in LCMS, GCMS and other small molecule analytical techniques. Jackson has been interested in Alzheimer’s research since college and is very excited to be able to combine his two passions with the Bateman Lab. Outside of the lab Jackson is an avid video gamer and a private pilot.

Diane Salamon is a research nurse coordinator who joined the Bateman Lab in 2021. She has been with WashU since 2007 and has worked in the Departments of Surgery, Medicine, Psychiatry, and Nephrology. Her priority is the DIAN-Obs study, but she has helped with other AD studies over the past 3 years. She finds the work is very rewarding and is excited to contribute towards AD research. Outside of work she likes spending time with family and friends the most, cooking & baking, reading, puzzling and walking her dog.

Chihiro Sato is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and an NIH K01 scholar. She is currently researching the kinetics of tau in the human central nervous system in vivo and in vitro. She is also interested in studying tau profile in Alzheimer’s disease and various tauopathies hoping to improve early diagnostics.

Suzanne Schindler is an assistant professor of neurology.  She sees patients with memory concerns in a weekly clinic and attends on the inpatient neurology consult service.  Schindler has received a K23 career development award from the National Institute on Aging to study fluid biomarkers of Alzheimer disease.  The primary focus of her work is on predicting if and when cognitively normal individuals will develop symptoms of Alzheimer disease dementia.

Wendy Sigurdson is a clinical research nurse in neurology and has been with Bateman since April 2007. Her prior work experience includes research for the Department of Neurosurgery. She received her BScN at McMaster University in Canada and her MHSc at Washington University. Her focus is DIAN and DIAN-TU but also assists with the ongoing A-beta and Tau studies. She enjoys working with Bateman and the team because of the amazing, cutting edge research.

Deanna Simon joined the lab in 2024 as a full-time clinical laboratory technician working mainly with the Tau Team. She found a love for research at her internship with the Ben-Shahar genomics lab in 2019 where she worked predominantly with fruit flies. She then went on to work as a laboratory animal technician for Washington University where she worked with mostly immunocompromised mice. She is excited to help the fight against Alzheimer’s disease through better diagnostic procedures and biomarkers. Outside of the lab, she spends most of her time playing with her pets, cooking and gardening.

Lisa Soke has been at Washington University since December 2019, working in the psychiatry department before joining the Bateman lab in May 2022. She has a BA in psychology from University of Missouri – St. Louis where she worked in a neuropsychology lab researching Alzheimer’s disease. She tutored students in general psychology, biopsychology, hormones and behavior and French. She manages the clinical team for several studies, including SUNBIRD, and is thrilled to be a part of such groundbreaking projects. Outside of work, Lisa enjoys playing kickball, making art, hiking and traveling.

Chris Steger earned a BS in chemistry from Truman State University in 2020. After undergrad he worked as an analytical chemist for Pfizer before joining the Bateman Lab in 2022. He has enjoyed contributing to the accomplishment of the wide range of essential lab operations. Some examples include assisting in our many clinical studies by processing and archiving the human specimens collected and supporting our efforts to directly measure novel AD biomarkers by preparing human specimen samples for analysis. Outside of work, he likes to play piano, participate in sporting activities and spend time with his family.

Britt Wagner started at the Bateman lab as a clinical research nurse in April 2024, where she works on various studies recruiting participants and assisting with blood collection and LPs. She graduated with a BS in biological sciences from SIU Carbondale in 2021, where she worked in a neuroscience research lab on campus, and she obtained her BSN from Goldfarb School of Nursing in 2022. She worked on an inpatient BMT/hematology oncology floor until joining the lab, where she now enjoys combining her passion for patient care with being a part of impactful, life-changing AD research. Outside of the lab, Britt enjoys spending time with friends and family, playing sand volleyball, cooking and baking.