New York, NY – The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) is pleased to announce the Winter 2025 Class of CRI Irvington and Immuno-Informatics Postdoctoral Fellows, making investments in 26 promising postdoctoral fellowship trainees whose research spans tumor immunology, cancer prevention, data science, and cellular engineering.
A new class of visionaries, backed by CRI’s urgent commitment to keep progress moving forward.
This cohort represents a growing need, as fellowship applications dramatically increased this year in the face of funding uncertainty. CRI responded with an ongoing commitment to filling these gaps, funding 50 percent more fellows this year than originally anticipated.
“Postdocs are the invisible engine of biomedical discovery,” said Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, of CRI’s Scientific Advisory Council. “At a time when federal support is faltering, CRI is once again stepping up – just as it did decades ago when cancer immunology had few champions. Supporting these young scientists is not just an act of resilience; it’s a commitment to the future of science and the patients who depend on it.”
Each CRI Fellowship provides $243,000 over three years and supports high-impact research at leading academic institutions.
The Winter 2025 class includes:
CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellows
- Emmanuela Adjei-Sowah, PhD – Vanderbilt University
- Maria Cardenas Conti, PhD – University of Pennsylvania
- Xueyang Dong, PhD – Harvard University
- Ron Gejman, MD, PhD – Columbia University
- Zhouping Hong, PhD – Boston Children’s Hospital
- Fubo Ji, PhD – University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
- Joseph Kern, PhD – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
- Hyung Jun Kim, PhD – University of California, San Francisco
- Wantae Kim, PhD – The Scripps Research Institute
- Konrad Knopper, PhD – University of California, San Francisco
- Anna Kolarzyk, PhD – Cornell University
- Georgia Lattanzi, PhD – Salk Institute
- Yi-Tsang Lee, PhD – La Jolla Institute for Immunology
- Shi Li, PhD – Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
- Zhiyuan Mao, PhD – University of California, Los Angeles
- Andrea Muñoz Zamora, PhD – Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Qinli Sun, PhD – Stanford University
- Lion Uhl, DPhil – Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
- Hao Wang, PhD – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
- Hejia Wang, MD, PhD – Johns Hopkins University
- Yebin Wang, PhD – Harvard Medical School
CRI Immuno-Informatics Postdoctoral Fellows
- José Almeida Santos, PhD – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
- Sui Yuk (Candace) Chan, PhD – University of Texas at Austin
- Baolin Liu, PhD – Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
- Jingya Qiu, PhD – Gladstone Institutes
- Jiayu Ye, PhD – Stanford University
“A future immune to cancer begins with bold ideas—and the brilliant scientists who pursue them,” said Alicia Zhou, PhD, CEO of CRI. “At CRI, we are proud to support the next generation of leaders in cancer immunotherapy through our steadfast investment in early-career research and training.”
From a single bold idea in 1971 to a global network of more than 1,600 fellows, CRI’s support for early-career scientists has helped turn immunotherapy from a fringe concept into a front-line cancer treatment. Today’s fellows are not just continuing that legacy—they’re redefining what’s possible