STEER Fellows

2026 Fellows

Michelle Bang

Michelle is a PhD student in Statistics at UC Irvine, working under the supervision of Dr. Hengrui Cai. She completed her undergraduate degree at Oregon State University, where she studied mathematics and minored in computer science and statistics. Her research focuses on developing statistical methods for complex, heterogeneous, and high-dimensional data. In her free time, she enjoys watching survival shows and playing board games.

Anthony Agnew

Anthony is a Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering working with Prof. Kheradvar on developing a cardiac compression device for patients with advanced heart failure. He received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from UCI, where he completed a four-year co-op with Johnson & Johnson’s cardiac medical device division. In his free time, Anthony reads medieval fantasy and philosophy, ideally from a hammock.

Ulisses Rizo

Ulisses is a PhD student in Statistics at UC Irvine, advised by Arkajyoti Saha, Bogi Andersen, and Babak Shahbaba. His research focuses on developing machine learning methods for complex biological data with applications to spatial transcriptomics data; he hopes to extend this to improving methods for multiple other disciplines as well. He completed his undergraduate studies in Statistics at Pomona College. He has been teaching and tutoring in some form since high school as education is both a career goal and something he feels a genuine responsibility toward. In his free time, he enjoys lifting weights, playing basketball, and living an overall healthy lifestyle, as well as spending time with his dog Mikasa.

Daniel Geyfman

Daniel received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at UC Irvine, and is now staying at UC irvine for his Computer Science Ph.D., advised by Stephan Mandt. His research focuses on making efficient and well-calibrated generative models across a wide selection of areas such as diffusion models and Large Language Models. In his free time, he enjoys solving programming and math-related puzzles.

2025 Fellows

Kayla Raygoza

Kayla received her undergraduate degree in Microbiology from California State University, Long Beach in 2022. She then worked at the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project before joining the Whiteson Lab as a Junior Specialist in August 2023. Now a PhD student in the Whiteson Lab, her research focuses on clinical phage therapy, phage–antibiotic synergy, and bacterial–phage coevolution. Outside the lab, Kayla teaches acroyoga at a local climbing gym and enjoys going on adventures with her blind dog.

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Spencer Hilligoss

Spencer is a PhD student in Statistics at UC Irvine working with Dr. Annie Qu and Dr. Tianchen Qian. His research focuses on statistical and machine learning methods for biomedical data, including causal inference, longitudinal modeling, and representation learning. He is broadly interested in leveraging data-driven approaches to better understand and improve health outcomes.

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Sara Tyo

Sara is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Statistics at UC Irvine, advised by Prof. Zhaoxia Yu. Her research focuses on developing statistical methods for multiple testing and multiset canonical correlation analysis, with applications to calcium imaging data. She completed her undergraduate studies in Statistics at UCLA where she primarily focused on time series analysis.  

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Julie Loritsch

Julie is a PhD student in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior co-mentored by Dr. Craig Stark and Dr. Tianchen Qian. Her research focuses on the early detection of Alzheimer's disease by integrating neuroimaging and pathological data using machine learning and statistical approaches.