Leadership
Institute Directors
E. John Wherry, PhD
Director
E. John Wherry, PhD, Director of I3H, is the Barbara and Richard Schiffrin President’s Distinguished Professor; Chair of the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics at the Perelman School of Medicine; and the leader of the Colton Center for Autoimmunity at the University of Pennsylvania. Penn’s Colton Center joins the Colton Centers at New York University, Yale University, and Tel Aviv University to form the Colton Consortium, a coalition dedicated to advancing autoimmunity research internationally and transforming the field of autoimmune disease treatment.
Dr. Wherry helped pioneer the study of T-cell exhaustion. His work has defined the molecular and epigenetic mechanisms by which T-cell responses become attenuated during chronic infections and cancer. He has helped to identify the role of the checkpoint molecule PD-1 (and others) in reinvigorating exhausted T cells to fight cancer.
More recently, Dr. Wherry’s laboratory has applied systems immunology approaches to define patients across a spectrum of diseases. In 2020 and 2021, his lab focused considerable effort on the immunology of COVID-19 and vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, establishing a new project to interrogate and use immune features to identify novel COVID-19 treatment opportunities.
Dr. Wherry has authored or co-authored more than 330 publications, and his work has been cited more than 100,000 times. He has an H index of 132.
Allie Greenplate, PhD
Director of Strategic Alliance and Operations
Allie Greenplate, PhD, Director of Strategic Alliance and Operations, I3H, brings to her role more than a decade of experience in microbiology and immunology, with specific expertise in longitudinal immune monitoring, systems immunology, and computational immunology. She helped pioneer the use of mass cytometry for deep immune profiling of clinical samples to support clinical care.
Under Dr. Greenplate’s leadership, I3H has become a primary hub for performing patient immune assays and delivering results to clinicians at the University of Pennsylvania. She has built a team of more than 25 staff, trainees, and faculty, spanning four divisions. They have recruited more than 25,000 study subjects from whom they have collected and processed blood samples, and analyzed and stored immune system data. The I3H team has generated more than a dozen publications and developed a new test with results delivered to the electronic medical record.
Dr. Greenplate received her PhD from Vanderbilt University in 2018 and performed postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania from 2019 to 2020.
Kaitlyn Piazza, MS, MSEd
Director of Business Administration and Operations
Kaitlyn Piazza, MS, MSEd, Director of Business Administration and Operations, I3H, is a skilled administrator with more than 15 years of experience in long-range strategic planning and operational and financial oversight in biomedical research. She played a key role in establishing and developing the largest immunology research institute in the country at the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Piazza brings key strengths to her role at I3H, including operational leadership, budget development, strategic growth, event management, process improvement, business development, recruitment, and resource planning, along with a proven track record in aligning people, processes, and resources for successful execution of initiatives and programs.
Ms. Piazza holds master’s degrees in higher education management and business anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Division Directors
Damian Maseda, PhD
Scientific Director of Immune Health Laboratories
Damian Maseda, PhD, Scientific Director of Immune Health Laboratories, investigates development and manipulation of and functional enhancements to human immune cells for therapeutic purposes, especially as they relate to autoimmune conditions. Previously, as a junior faculty member at Vanderbilt University, he studied the effects of different types of inflammation on T-cell metabolism, pathogenicity, and overall function.
Dr. Maseda studied biology at the University of Malaga in Spain, where he established a small preclinical research startup focused on bone regeneration. He received a fellowship to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, where he earned his PhD in immunology. He performed postdoctoral research on regulatory B cells in different inflammatory and autoimmune conditions at Duke University.
Cynthia Clendenin, VMD
Associate Director of Clinical Studies
Cynthia Clendenin, VMD, Associate Director of Clinical Studies, I3H, built and ran the Pancreatic Cancer Mouse Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, under Robert Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, and Ben Stanger, MD, PhD. She previously managed clinical trials in support of FDA NAD applications for a CRO.
Dr. Clendenin completed her undergraduate studies in biology at the University of Chicago, where she established and managed a core facility producing transgenic and gene-targeted mouse lines under the direction of Jeffrey M. Leiden, MD, PhD. She founded a new core facility for developing genetically engineered models at Penn’s Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, under the direction of M. Celeste Simon, PhD, before earning her VMD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
Michelle McKeague, PhD
Assistant Director of Platform Assays
Michelle McKeague, PhD, Assistant Director of Platform Assays, I3H, studied cancer immunology as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Olivera Finn, PhD, at the University of Pittsburgh prior to joining the immune health initiative at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. McKeague received her undergraduate degree in biology from Washington University in St. Louis and studied transplantation tolerance in the laboratory of Maria-Luisa Alegre, MD, PhD, at the University of Chicago, where she earned an MS in translational research and a PhD in pathology.
Dokyoon Kim, PhD
Associate Director of Informatics
Dokyoon Kim, Associate Director of Informatics, I3H, is an Associate Professor of Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania and the Director of the Center for AI-Driven Translational Informatics (CATI) at the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics. His boundary-breaking research focuses primarily on the integration of multimodal data, including omics, environmental, imaging, and phenotype data, from the electronic health record (EHR). Aimed ultimately at enhancing patient outcomes, his work is instrumental in bridging the gap between data science and clinical practice.
Dr. Kim began his academic career in 2016 as an Assistant Professor at the Biomedical and Translational Informatics Institute at Geisinger Health System. During his tenure there, he developed pioneering methods for integrating diverse data types to improve patient care.
Joost Wagenaar, PhD
Data Management and Infrastructure
Joost Wagenaar, PhD, plays an integral role in data management and infrastructure at I3H. Dr. Wagenaar serves as Assistant Professor of Informatics in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics; Director of the Neuroengineering Data Ecosystem in the Center for Neuroengineering and Therapeutics; and leads development of the Pennsieve Platform for data integration and collaboration for I3H and several large-scale NIH programs. Dr. Wagenaar brings to his roles significant experience in academic and industry platform technologies for large-scale scientific data management and analysis. His primary research interest lies in the intersection of data and workflows and development of novel technologies to foster collaborative science through technology.
Faculty Advisory Board
Jorge Henao-Mejia, MD, PhD
Deputy Director of Faculty Engagement and Science Discovery
Jorge Henao-Mejia, MD, PhD, Deputy Director of Faculty Engagement and Science Discovery, I3H, is an Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the use of innovative genetic tools on mice, particularly CRISPR/Cas9, to investigate the molecular mechanisms of chronic inflammatory disorders. Dr. Henao-Mejia's lab, established in 2014, specializes in studying noncoding RNAs associated with inflammatory pathologies.
In his administrative role at I3H, Dr. Henao-Mejia advises on strategic planning, outreach, and institutional goals. He actively participates in immunology-related faculty recruitment and retention, fostering collaborations between the University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Henao-Mejia serves on key committees and councils, playing a crucial role in strengthening ties within the immunology community.
Warren Pear, MD, PhD
Deputy Director of Strategic Programming and Research Administration
Warren Pear, MD, PhD, Deputy Director of Strategic Programming and Research Administration, I3H, is the Gaylord P. & Mary Louise Harnwell Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. His research focuses on hematopoietic cell development and differentiation, with particular emphasis on processes that lead to leukemia. Dr. Pear's laboratory is also developing methods to block Notch signaling as potential treatments for leukemia and other Notch-dependent diseases.
In his role at I3H, Dr. Pear oversees strategic programming and enrichment activities for the Penn immunology community and co-organizes key executive committee meetings to foster collaboration among Penn's immunology leaders. Dr. Pear represents I3H across various institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, The Wistar Institute, and the VA.
Golnaz Vahedi, PhD
Deputy Director of Innovation and Technology
Golnaz Vahedi, PhD, Deputy Director of Innovation and Technology, I3H, is a tenured Associate Professor of Genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine. She plays a critical role in strengthening connections between informatics and immunology as well as identifying and bridging gaps in technical innovation within the broader immunology community. As an independent investigator, Dr. Vahedi uses systems-based approaches to understanding molecular details of gene regulation in the immune system.
Dr. Vahedi studied electrical engineering at Sharif University of Technology in Iran and earned her PhD in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University. As a postdoctoral fellow, she joined the laboratory of John O’Shea, PhD, at the National Institutes of Health, studying the epigenomic regulation of T cells. There, she first encountered the similarity between the epigenome and electrical circuits.
Dr. Vahedi serves on the advisory boards of Cell Press Journal Immunity and Science Immunology and is a standing member of GCAT study section.
Taku Kambayashi MD, PhD
Immunology Graduate Group Coordinator
Taku Kambayashi, MD, PhD, Immunology Graduate Group Coordinator, I3H, is a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. He is the Associate Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Director of the Physician Scientist Training Program for Pathology Residency. Dr. Kambayashi also serves as Chair of the Immunology Graduate Group (IGG) at the University of Pennsylvania. As a physician-scientist, he specializes in transfusion medicine, cellular therapies, and immunology.
Dr. Kambayash’s research laboratory investigates targetable signal transduction pathways to modify immune cells in disease states, with recent focus on immune system effects on epithelial cells, barrier function, lipid metabolism, and transgenerational epigenetic changes. His lab aims to translate basic science discoveries into clinical applications.