People
Principal Investigator
Minah Kim, PhD
- Assistant Professor of Pathology & Cell Biology at CUMC
Dr. Minah Kim is a tenure-track faculty member in Pathology and Cell Biology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where she began her appointment in 2019. She earned her PhD from KAIST under the mentorship of Dr. Gou Young Koh and completed her postdoctoral training in the lab of Dr. Donald McDonald at UCSF. Her research focuses on vascular destabilization as a niche for facilitating distant metastasis, particularly in the development of resistance to anti-angiogenic therapy. Additionally, her work explores vascular-immune crosstalk to understand how the vasculature regulates the immune microenvironment and influences responses to immunotherapy. Beyond cancer, her lab investigates vascular regulation of disease pathogenesis and progression in Alzheimer’s disease.
Lab Members
Ha-Ram Park, PhD
- Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Haram Park received her PhD in Oncology from Seoul National University, Korea where she focused on cancer immunotherapy and identifying the resistance mechanisms of targeted therapy in non-small cell lung cancer under Dr. Dae Seog Heo and Dr. Dong-Wan Kim. Now as a postdoctoral researcher in the Kim Lab, she studies the vascular regulation of immunosuppression and immunotherapy efficacy in melanoma.
Eunhyeong Lee
- Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Eunhyeong Lee received her PhD in Vascular Biology from the KAIST. During her PhD, she had studied the regulatory mechanism of vascular abnormality in glioblastoma under the guidance of Dr. Injune Kim. She has joined the lab of Dr. Minah Kim at Columbia University Irving Medical Center as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist. she has research interest in vascular and immune regulation in PanNET and AD for the translational research.
Yeonghwan Kim, PhD
- Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Yeonghwan Kim earned his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Sungkyunkwan University, where his research focused on the molecular mechanisms of angiogenesis and stem cell therapy under the guidance of Dr. Sukho Bhang. Since joining the Kim Lab at Columbia University Irving Medical Center as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in 2024, he has been investigating the resistance mechanisms associated with antiangiogenic therapy in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.
An Lo
- Postgraduate Researcher
An earned her Bachelor's from the University of Virginia where she double majored in Chemistry and Cognitive Science with a concentration in Neuroscience. She has previously researched Alzheimer's Disease with a focus on Apolipoprotein E secretion and protein prenylation in the lab of Dr. Heather Ferris.
Nika (Phoebe) Kozlov
- Postgraduate Researcher
Phoebe earned her Bachelor's and Master’s degrees from Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at Boston University, where she majored in Human Physiology with a concentration in Neuroscience. Previously, she researched inhibitory neuron subpopulations in patients with stage II Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy under the mentorship of Dr. Helen Barbas. Currently, in the Kim Lab, she studies the vascular regulation of the tumor immune microenvironment in melanoma.
Rachel Jiang Yaoyue
- Rotation Student
Rachel earned her Bachelor's from the University of California, Los Angeles where she majored in Biochemistry and minored in Biomedical Research. Previously, she researched inflammatory bowel disease and optic neuritis with an emphasis on investigating the role that the deoxyribonucleoside salvage pathway plays in macrophage differentiation under the mentorship of Dr. Peter M. Clark. She is currently a first year rotating PhD student in the CMBS program with broad interests in cancer immunology and pathogenesis.
Maraake Taddese
- Rotation Student
Maraake attended Johns Hopkins University where she completed her Bachelor's of Science in Molecular and Cellular Biology. There her research focused on improving early detection of pancreatic cancer. After graduating, she continued at Johns Hopkins as a research specialist where she aimed to uncover the single-cell virus landscape during chronic hepatitis B infection under the mentorship of Drs. Chloe Thio and Ashwin Balagopal. She's currently a 1st year rotating PhD student in the CMBS program with broad interests in pathogenesis and translational biology.
Juliette Shang
- Undergraduate Student
Juliette Shang is an undergraduate student at Columbia College, majoring in biology. She previously conducted research regarding spinocerebellar ataxia using mice models.
Claire Liu Zhu
- Undergraduate Student
Claire Zhu is an undergraduate student at Columbia University majoring in Neuroscience and Behavior. She is extremely passionate about scientific research and is involved in various organizations around campus. Claire started her research in the Kim lab in late 2023 and continues to be involved in the Alzheimer's disease project.
Shawn Jaeha Kim
- Undergraduate Student
Shawn Kim is an undergraduate student at Columbia College, majoring in biology. In the Kim lab, he studies the vascular regulation of immunosuppression in melanoma.
Former Lab Members
- Sangryeol Lee
(2024-2025, Postdoctoral Fellow)
Current Position: Assistant Professor at Physiology, Dong-A University College of Medicine - Sophie O’Keefe
(2022-2024, Postgraduate Researcher from the University of Chicago)
Current Position: Graduate Student at the University of Virginia - Ming Yu
(2023-2024, Undergraduate Researcher from CUNY Hunter College) - Yena Jang
(2023, Summer Research Student from the University of Chicago) - Ellen Jones
(2023, Summer Research Student from Georgia State University, GSAS program) - Portia Cummings
(2021-2023, Undergraduate Researcher from Columbia University) - Gauri Kasarla
(2022, Summer Research Student from Columbia University) - Alessandra Leong
(2019-2022, Postgraduate Researcher from the University of Chicago)
Current Position: Medical Student at University of Pittsburgh - Janani Varadarajan
(2020-2022, Undergraduate Researcher from Barnard College)
Current Position: Medical Student at Rutgers - Anahita Shiva
(2020-2022, Postgraduate Researcher from Cornell)
Current Position: Medical Student at University of Maryland - Subrata Chowdhury
(2021-2022, Postdoctoral Fellow) - Carol Dalgarno
(2019, Summer Research Student from Wesleyan University, GSAS program)