Our Team
Meet Dr. Weiss and the lab’s post-graduates, graduates, lab technicians, undergraduates, and our wonderful lab coordinator, Laura.
Click the link below each member’s profile to see what they are working on!
Principal Investigator
Dr. Daniel Weiss M.D. Ph.D.
Daniel Weiss began his education at Cornell University studying Anatomy and Physiology/ Biology where he graduated Cum Laude with his bachelor's degree in 1981. He then began pursuing his PhD and MD at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York where he graduated in 1988 and received a doctoral dissertation award for “Thesis of Unusual Distinction”. His work brought him from New York to Seattle, Washington where he worked in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Washington. He later moved to the University of Vermont to work as an assistant and associate professor in cell and molecular biology up until he became a professor in the department of medicine in 2011.
Dr. Weiss currently works as a pulmonary and critical care specialist and splits his time between leading his research team in several projects in the Weiss Laboratory and working at the hospital doing clinical work. Through his time working in research and academia, he has been able to obtain many research grants to continue his work on improving the lung health of patients. One of his more notable grants was recently awarded to focus on lung damage caused by COVID-19 which is a vital area of study now and looking forward to the future. Many of his works have been published and most significantly, was his work on stem cells and cell therapies in lung biology and lung diseases. Weiss’s passion for improving the health of patients afflicted with lung diseases has pushed him to bring together the great minds of a team of engineers, scientists, and laboratory specialists to better understand the physiology of these diseases and to create advanced therapies to help treat and prevent them.
Post-Graduates and Graduates
Jayita Barua
Joy is a phD candidate in the Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical (CMB) graduate program and has been working as a research student in the Weiss laboratory since June 2020. She has also worked as graduate teaching assistant at UVM. Her research is focused on the applicability of Mesenchymal Stromal Cell-based therapy in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. When she is not working in lab, she likes to spend her time tending to her houseplants, get crafty and enjoy the sun.
Chika Ikpechukwu
Chika is a phD candidate in the Biomedical Engineering graduate program and has been working in the Weiss lab since August 2022. She has also worked as a graduate teaching assistant at UVM. Her research focuses on understanding the role of mechanical cues on lung epithelial cells. Outside of the lab, she enjoys spending time with friends, exploring new places, shopping and cooking.
Alex Poniz
Alex is an MD candidate in the Weiss Lab, working to further improve a novel lung sealant that he helped develop as a mechanical engineering undergraduate at UVM.
After graduating in 2015 he worked for Tesla until 2021, approaching multidisciplinary systems-level problems in renewable energy across the organizational ecosystem before returning to UVM for medical school.
Alex is also a community organizer and volunteer EMT with experience in event medicine, street medicine, and disaster response. When he can, he enjoys martial arts, travel, and a hearty meal with friends and family.
Aiden Masters
Aiden is an MD candidate who is working in the Weiss lab to determine the role of fibrotic extracellular matrix proteins on aberrant alveolar stem cell differentiation pathways in diseased lungs. He graduated from Middlebury College in 2022 with degrees in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and spent a gap year investigating how different types of brain cells arise from a variety of heterogenous pools of neural progenitor cells. Outside of lab, Aiden enjoys being outdoors, playing ice hockey or frisbee, and listening to music.
Lab Coordinator
Laura Porritt
Laura received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from University of Colorado. She joined the Weiss Lab in October of 2023 after being a lab technician for 10 years at Anschutz Medical Campus where she worked on projects related to DNA replication phenomena in cancer. In the Weiss lab she manages lab operations, assists in project development, and instructs students in laboratory assays and techniques. In her free time Laura loves hiking, camping, cooking, making planted tanks, and studying ancient history.
Lab Technicians
Undergraduates
Ella Stasko
Ella is a senior at the University of Vermont studying biomedical engineering and computer science and has been working in the Weiss Lab since September 2023. Her research has been focused on studying the effects of stiffness and extracellular matrix plate coatings on pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells and pulmonary vascular endothelial cells. She also works on the lab’s lung decellularization and dissection processes. In her free time Ella loves spending time with family and friends, skiing in the winter, swimming in the summer and cooking.
Noah Dreifus
Noah is a senior undergraduate studying Biomedical Engineering and has been working in the Weiss Lab since October 2023. His research is focused on performing decellularization on mammalian and avian lungs to study the role of the extracellular matrix in cell differentiation and proliferation. His work helps the lab produce decellularized lung hydrogels that are shared with Weiss Lab’s collaborators. In his free time Noah enjoys fishing, skiing, camping, golfing, and spending time with family and friends.
Matthew Bishop-Gylys
Matthew is a senior undergraduate studying Biomedical Engineering and has been working in the Weiss Lab since June 2024. Currently he is working on a project to study airway epithelial cells on ex-vivo trachea tissue. Soon he aims to combine his passions of biomedicine and sustainability by studying how microplastics affect lung cells. Outside of the lab, Matt enjoys playing soccer with friends, working out, and exploring nature.
Sophie Berghammer
Sophie is a summer research assistant who is currently pursuing a B.A. in physics and neuroscience at Hamilton College. She is interested in the intersection of physics and biomedicine as well as biomedical engineering. Beyond the lab, she spends time playing ice hockey, running, and hiking.