OUR TEAM
inspired by science, fueled by coffee
We are always looking for talented and curious people to join our work--whether that's as a collaborator, trainee, or
coffee-drinking buddy (local or zoom). In the meantime, here's a video that gives a window into what we're all about:
Students interested in rotating please email to coordinate--we look forward to welcoming you!
JENNIFER SRYGLEY SUCRE
Principal Investigator
Jen Sucre grew up in Tallahassee, Florida and graduated from the University of Georgia with degrees in genetics and creative writing (poetry). She graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed pediatrics residency at Washington University in St. Louis and neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship at UCLA. She has been delighted to call Vanderbilt and Nashville home since 2016. As her own path to science can be most charitably described as non-linear, she is passionate about making science accessible. Outside of lab, Jen enjoys rowing,writing, and adventuring with her 3 sons and 2 dogs.
CHRIS JETTER
Laboratory Manager
Chris Jetter is a master of learning new methods, and is especially facile with RNA in situ hybridization, organotypic co-culture, and precision cut lung slices. In addition to handling all issues of biosafety, training, and compliance, he oversees our Human Infant Lung Respoitory, an invaluable resource of more than 250 samples in varying stages of neonatal lung injury. He is without question the glue that holds the lab together. He's also mastered the art of the qPCR mix tape.
NICK NEGRETTI
Post-doctoral fellow
Nick grew up in Eastern Washington and completed his Ph.D. in Molecular Biosciences at Washington State University studying the foodborne pathogen Campylobacter jejuni. The summary: cook your chicken. Nick moved to Nashville in 2020 to work in the Sucre lab to contribute to big sequencing data analysis and imaging projects. A pile of 3D printed toys can usually be found on his desk along with too many sticky notes. In addition to generating very large datasets, Nick is often a dispenser of wisdom: Rule #1: Most problems could have been avoided by better communication one week ago.
MEAGHAN RANSOM
Assistant Professor
Meaghan hails from upstate New York, was a track star in college, and completed her MD and MPH at Georgetown University. She completed pediatrics residency and fellowship at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital and began her faculty appointent in 2023. Her research interests include clinical and translational work, and she has established a biorepository of tracheal aspirates from human infants, leveraging this resource to define the profile of extracellular vesicles in the developing lung. In addition to being the Associate Director of Translational Research for the BOLD Center Meaghan is the backbone of the lab, making sure everything runs smoothly and on time behind the scenes. Her passion for patient care drives all she does and she is the leader of the chronic lung disease team in the NICU.
SHAWYON SHIRAZI
Informatics Research Assistant
JOSEPH HIRSH
Research intern
Joseph is a sophomore at Dartmouth University, but he began working with us when he was a high school student at Gann Acacadamy in Massachussetts, working to develop an AI-assisted platform for automated machine learning. He is fascinated by the interplay of biology and machine learning. With hearty curiosity and a desire to serve, Joe enjoys studying cybersecurity, programming, history, and literature,. Beyond academics, Joe loves playing piano and soccer, running, reading, and time with family. The work on lung morphometry was recently applied to understanding cell-segmentation in spatial transcriptomics.
SAMUEL HIRSH
Research intern
Sam grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts (with his twin, see above) and is also a sophomore at Dartmouth. He also began this projoect of Ai-assisted morphometry in high school and his enduring interest has help us understand segmentation of spatial transcriptomics. He enjoys studying biology, math, and computer science. He i plays guitar, and likes to spend time with friends. During the pandemic, he founded and directed an online camp and raised money for the Massachusetts COVID-19 Relief Fund. He also thinks Australian Quokkas (Setonix brachyurus) are cute.
LAB ALUMNI
MEREDITH CAMPBELL
Lab alumna: Post-doctoral neonatology fellow
Dr. Campbell is an assistant professor of neonatology at the University of Florida. As a neonatology fellow, she was in Dr. Sucre’s lab from 2018-2021, working closely with co-mentor Lisa Bastarache to apply a PheWAS approach to discover perinatal risk factors of BPD. Her research is focused on improving long term cardiopulmonary outcomes for infants born extremely premature through a clinical and translational approach. She uses longitudinal cohort studies and data science to better understand complications of extreme prematurity including bronchopulmonary dysplasia and pulmonary hypertension.
Dr. Campbell’s work was supported with an NIH T32 Grant, and the Marshall Klaus Perinatal Neonatal Research Award.
ALICE HACKETT
Lab alumna: post-doctoral cardiology fellow
Alice grew up in St. Louis and graduated from Washington University. She completed her medical training at St. Louis University and pediatric residency at Rush University. As a fellow, Alice brought exciting new techniques to the laboratory, including neonatal mouse echocardiograpy and sparking our enduring work in vasculogenesis and pulmonary hypertension. In addition to continuing these projects, we also strive to continue her legacy of meticulous orgnaization and rigorous data generation. Alice is curently an academic pediatric cardiologist at Nemours Childrens Hospital in Delaware.
CLAIRE BUNN
Lab alumna: undergraduate reseach intern
Claire perservered through every pandemic obstacle, working remotely and in person for the better part of two years, making lasting contributions to our developmental mouse atlas and human lung repository. A recipient of the Gates Foundation Scholarship, Claire is currently pursing a PhD in developmental biology in the laboratory of Emma Rawlins at Cambridge University. She graduated from the University of Georgia, where she received the Foundation Fellowship and Barry Goldwater Scholarship. Her accolades are many, but we are most grateful for her teaching us the importance of having readily available snacks in the laboratory--we are ready with sour scandinavian swimmers whenever she comes back to visit.
