Cristian is a student in the Weill Cornell Tri-Institutional Medical Scientist Training Program, joining the medical college in 2022 and the Awesome Jones Lab in 2024.  He completed his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences and Immunology at DePaul University in 2017 and earned a Master of Medical Sciences from Brown University in 2021. As an undergraduate, he completed an honors thesis studying the role of protein signaling mechanisms in autoreactive B cells under the mentorship of Dr. Philip Funk. He then completed a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School/Boston Children’s Hospital in the laboratory of Dr. Judy Lieberman where he investigated how natural killer cells in the decidua of pregnant individuals protect against invading pathogens. Following his time at Brown, Cristian worked in the laboratory of Dr. Carolyn Coyne at Duke University working on the development and long-term culture of placenta-derived organoids for immunologic characterization. In the Awesome Jones Lab, Cristian investigates how natural killer cells interact with latently infected cells of the HIV-1 reservoir and how these interactions contribute to viral persistence. As an aspiring physician-scientist, Cristian aims to train as an obstetrician and gynecologist, specializing in high-risk obstetrics, and bring foundational immunology for the improved health of his patients.

Fun Fact: Cristian enjoys spending his evenings at Carnegie Hall listening to world-class orchestras and visiting soloists, or near the East River reading his next literary obsession.