Debarshi Mustafi, M.D. Ph.D

Jenna received her Master's in Genetic Counseling from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH and started her career working in Department of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, where her interest in and passion for retinal genetics grew. Jenna moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2019 to work in the UW Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology. Shortly thereafter, she joined the Mustafi Lab to continue work in the field of ophthalmic genetics. Jenna juggles many different responsibilities including the recruitment of new study participants and the coordination of sample collections, sample processing in the lab, data analysis, drafting manuscripts, and presenting the lab's work at national conferences. In her spare time, Jenna enjoys making pottery, gardening, hiking/camping, visiting breweries/wineries, traveling, and curling up on the couch with her dog (Lucy) and cat (Captain).

Kenji is a Seattle native and graduated with a B.S. from the University of Washington.  He joined the Van Gelder lab shortly afterwards and has led the bioinformatic development of targeted long-read sequencing for metagenomic analysis. Kenji began working with the Mustafi lab in its earliest days and was instrumental in applying adaptive sampling for human genomic uses in the lab. He has since helped develop numerous tools to aid in variant discovery that have helped solve complex genetic cases underlying inherited retinal diseases and retinoblastoma.

Mark is a native of Portland, Oregon and graduated from the University of Oregon with a B.S. in Biology in 2018. He is an MD candidate for the class of 2026 at the University of Hawaii. Mark has a passion for ophthalmology and is taking a gap year to work as a Research Assistant in the Mustafi lab to better understand the role of genetics in various retinal diseases. Mark's work focuses on clinical integration of genetics and ophthalmology to better diagnose patients with inherited retinal diseases. He is also actively involved in recruiting patients for the retinoblastoma project to understand the genetic signatures in pediatric and adult patients that lead to more severe disease. In his spare time, Mark enjoys playing basketball, golfing, skiing, running, fishing, and spending time with friends and family.

Stefan is currently majoring in Biochemistry with Interdisciplinary Honors at UW. Stefan's involvement in the lab dates back to high school where his interest in medical research led him to the Mustafi lab. Since then he has been an important member of the lab, now working as an undergrad researcher. Stefan is spearheading work looking at the evolving nature of population databases and how that impacts variant annotation for inherited retinal disease genes. He is also involved in retinal imaging projects examining the role of multi-modal imaging in the diagnosis of pediatric retinal disorders.