Current Members

Postdoctoral Scholars

Moumita Halder is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of NanoEngineering at UC San Diego. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry in 2023, under the supervision of Dr. Yashveer Singh at the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, where she worked on the development of self-assembled peptide-based biomaterials for drug delivery, tissue regeneration and biocatalytic applications. Her research in the Jokerst Group focuses on developing colorimetric diagnostic agents for disease and validating them with human samples and animal models.

Tamer AGh Abdelrehim is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of NanoEngineering at UC San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in the Science of measurements (Laser ultrasound, optical generation, and Interferometer detection of ultrasound) in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jaewan Kim at the Korea Research Institute for Standards and Science, University of Science and Technology (UST), South Korea. His research in the Jokerst Group focuses on the development of dental research applications of photoacoustic imaging.

Suhel Khan is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of NanoEngineering at UC San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2024, under the supervision of Prof. Srivathsan Vasudevan at the Indian Institute of Technology Indore, where he worked on the development of a cost-effective, compact pulsed excitation lasers and quantitative biomedical diagnostic instruments for photoacoustic sensing. His research in the Jokerst Lab focuses on developing a novel dual-mode imaging tool for periodontal disease.

Baiyan Qi is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of NanoEngineering at UC San Diego. She received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering in 2023, under the supervision of Prof. Jesse Jokerst at UC San Diego. Her research in the Jokerst Group focuses on the development of ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging tools for monitoring oral health and their translation into human clinical trials.

Email: bqi@ucsd.edu 

Yong Hua is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of NanoEngineering at UC San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Basel in 2024, where he developed photocleavable tags for their application in gas phase and bioconjugation under the guidance of Dr. Valentin Köhler and Prof. Marcel Mayor. At UC San Diego, his research in the Jokerst Group focuses on developing small molecular probes for advanced bioimaging techniques.

Ph.D. Students

Lubna Amer is a Ph.D. student in the Materials Science & Engineering program at UC San Diego. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Michigan State University and M.S. in Materials Science & Engineering at UC San Diego. Before joining UCSD, her past research focused on engineering chemical reactions and clean combustion technology. At the Jokerst Lab, she is currently investigating the self-assembly properties of plasmonic metallic nanoparticles and their use in colorimetric systems to detect oral pathogens.

Benjamin Lam is a Ph.D. student in the Chemical Engineering program at UC San Diego. Before joining the graduate program, he studied Chemical Engineering as an undergraduate at UC San Diego. His previous research explored solutions to address societal challenges in the intersection of Bioengineering, Chemistry, and Materials Science. As a researcher in the Jokerst Group, he is currently developing nanoparticles, coacervates, and peptides for health applications.

Emily Housel is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Nanoengineering at UCSD. She completed a B.S./M.S. degree program in Environmental Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She works as an environmental engineer and technical area leader for the U.S. Navy in the area of Oil Pollution Abatement and is a licensed Professional Engineer in Arizona. Her prior research has focused on oil-in-water imaging and analysis, detergents, and emulsions, bio-refining (corn-to-ethanol conversion process and energy balance), and disinfection chemical reactions. She is interested in using imaging techniques to investigate processes used in bioremediation for wastewater treatment. 

Liang Yuqing is a Ph.D. student in the NanoEngineering program at UC San Diego. She received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from KAIST and Chongqing University of Technology and her M.S. in Electrical Engineering at KAIST. Before joining UCSD, her past research focused on Ultrasound-guided DOT images.

Undergraduate Students

Alice Tsai is a junior at UCSD majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology and pursuing a pre-dental track. As an undergraduate volunteer in the Jokerst Lab, she is assisting with projects exploring how different angles of transducer placement affects ultrasound dental imaging and contributes to interexaminer bias.

Clayton Ng is a third-year undergraduate pursuing a B.S. in Chemical Engineering at UC San Diego. Before joining the Jokerst Lab, Clayton worked as a Plans Assistant with UC San Diego's Environmental Health and Safety Department (EHS), where he was responsible for collecting, maintaining, and processing the chemical inventories for all research/teaching laboratories across the UC San Diego campus. Additionally, he served as an undergraduate lab assistant in Professor Olivia Graeve's Xtreme Materials Laboratory, where he primarily focused on optimizing the synthesis process of phase pure BiFeO₃ (BFO) nanocrystals. 

Allison Lei is a sophomore at UCSD majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology and on the pre-dental track. In the Jokerst lab, she is focusing on building a point-of-care assay to detect bacteria in root canals to prevent secondary infection.