BBS PhD earned 2024
Concentration: Immunology and Infectious Disease 
Faculty mentor: Brian Rudd

Brief Biography
Viviana grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and in Tampa, Florida, where the abundance and diversity of wildlife sparked her interests in biology and in veterinary medicine. After graduating from Harvard College, Viviana spent two years as a research technician at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where her interest in immunology blossomed. Viviana hopes to channel her scientific curiosity and creativity during her PhD training, while using her veterinary training to tailor her research towards the most biologically and clinically relevant questions. In her free time, she enjoys basking in the sun, practicing yoga, and trying not to ruin new recipes.

Research Interests
Viviana's interests have been shaped by her time at Harvard, Cedars-Sinai, and Cornell. As an undergraduate, she mostly conducted research related to neurobiological processes such as neuronal alternative splicing and neural protein expression during stress. At Cedars-Sinai, she studied the microbiome's effects on the immune response to abdominal radiation in both a colitis model and a mammary tumor model. Viviana's current research with Dr. Brian Rudd focuses on understanding and manipulating CD8+ T cell maturation in order to gain insight into infection responses, T cell exhaustion, and neonatal immunity.

Education
B.A. in Neurobiology, Harvard College, 2016

Publications

• Limon JL, Tang J, Li D, Wolf AJ, Michelsen KS, Funari V, Gargus M, Nguyen C, Sharma P, Maymi VI, Iliev ID, Skalski JH, Brown J, Landers C, Borneman J, Braun J, Targan SR, McGovern DPB, Underhill DM. (2019) Malassezia is associated with Crohn's Disease and exacerbates colitis in mouse models. Cell Host & Microbe, 25: 377-388.
• Maymi VI, Solouki S, Elmore JP, Anannya O, Limper CB, Redko AL, August A. (2019). Immune system maturity and Th2/Th17 responses in murine models of asthma. (Poster) Boehringer Ingelheim National Veterinary Scholars Symposium, Tufts University, Worcester, MA