Mentors
Table of contents
Current Mentors
Bruna Genisa Costa Lima (2023-2025)
Email: bcostali@asu.edu
Bio: Bruna was born in Imperatriz, MA, Brazil. After graduating as a pharmacist and completing part of her undergraduate studies in Australia, she earned a Master’s degree in Pharmacology from the University of São Paulo in 2019, when she was first introduced to Dr. Dietrich. In January 2020, she joined Dietrich’s Lab in the Department of Comparative Medicine at Yale University and worked under his supervision until August 2022. She is currently a Ph.D. student in Neuroscience at Arizona State University and strongly believes in the transformative power of education and science and their positive impacts on the development of Brazil.
Jessica Gois Santana (2022-2025)
Email: jessica.santana@yale.edu
Bio: Jessica is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at Yale. She received her B.Sc in Biomedical Sciences from the Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz (UESC), Brazil, with further research experience from McGill University, Canada, and Harvard School of Public Health, USA. Upon graduating from UESC, she received her fully funded master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from Radboud Universiteit, Netherlands. She concluded her program at the Department of Immunobiology at Yale University and worked as a Postgraduate Research Associate at the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging.
Paula Costa (2025)
Email: paula.costa@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Bio:
Renata Prôa (2024-2025)
Email: renataproa@hsph.harvard.edu
Bio: Renata is currently doing her Masters of Public Health in Global Health at Harvard as an interlude in her Ph.D. in Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University. She holds a bachelors in Applied Mathematics and another in Molecular Sciences, both from the University of São Paulo. Her research interests span the intersection of mathematical modeling and data analysis with biology and healthcare. She works as a data scientist for Hospital Albert Einstein in a project to integrate AI in Brazil’s public health system SUS and she is passionate about using technology to help improve access to care in Brazil.
Timothy Cox (2025)
Email: timothy.cox@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Bio: Tim was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts and studied molecular biology while conducting Alzheimer’s research in the Strittmatter Lab at Yale University. He then received a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania in 2024 under the mentorship of Christoph Thaiss and Virginia Lee investigating microbiome contributions to cognitive decline. He is now back in medical school and will complete his MD in 2026.
Victória Puccini (2023-2025)
Email: victoria.puccinidecastro@yale.edu
Bio: Victória is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University. For her undergraduate degree, she studied Veterinary Medicine in Brazil, but switched her major/minor to Biology and Chemistry when she moved to the U.S. She completed her bachelor’s degree at Northeastern Illinois University, before starting her graduate school journey at Yale. Her research is focused on nuclear envelope dynamics and chromatin organization during mitosis. Victória is excited to help and share experiences with other Brazilian students.
Vinicius Suzart (2024-2025)
Email: vgs18@case.edu
Bio: Vinicius Suzart received his BSc degree at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in Brazil before moving to the U.S. to work as a research assistant at Case Western Reserve University. Vinicius joined the Biomedical Research Training Program (BSTP) in July 2021 and his previous experiences include research on CAR-T cell therapy, HIV-1, Zika virus, and SARS-CoV-2. His graduate work focuses on applying cutting-edge technology and immunological assays to investigate human CD4 T cell recognition of Mtb-infected macrophages.
Past Mentors
Anderson Brito (2021)
Email: andersonfbrito@gmail.com
Antonio Oliveira Fonseca (2021)
Email: antonio.fonseca@yale.edu
Bruna Mafra (2021 - 2022)
Email: bruna.mafradefaria@yale.edu
Carolina Piletti Chatain (2021 - 2022)
Email: carolina.pilettichatain@yale.edu
Gabriel Belem de Andrade (2021)
Email: gabriel.belemdeandrade@yale.edu
Gustavo Madeira Santana (2021 - 2022)
Email: gustavo.santana@yale.edu
Ilze Olivi Gomes (2022)
Email: ilze.olivigomes@yale.edu
João Victor T. Gomes (2022)
Email: joao.gomes@yale.edu
Ligia Boisserand (2021)
Email: ligia.boisserand@yale.edu
Lucas Weba Soares (2023-2024)
Email: lucas.soares@yale.edu
Marcus Vinicius Pinto Pereira Junior (2023)
Email: marcus.viniciuspintopereirajunior@yale.edu
Natália Castelo Branco Matos (2023-2024)
Email: natalia.castelobrancomatos@yale.edu
Valter V. Silva Monteiro (2022 - 2023)
Email: valter.silvamonteiro@yale.edu