meet our team
Maurizio Chioccioli BSc, MSc, PhD (he/him/his), Assistant Professor
Mau is an Assistant Professor in Genetics and Comparative Medicine at Yale School of Medicine. His research focus is to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms that govern tissue regeneration and repair in the lung, and how these pathways are hijacked in disease. His experience and expertise span multiple areas from biophysics and live-imaging microscopy to molecular biology, genetics, and human respiratory diseases. Mau is from Arezzo, Tuscany, city of Piero Della Francesca, S.S. Arezzo and the Giostra del Saracino (he is proudly supporting the “Quartiere di Porta Crucifera”). He obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Florence in Tuscany, before going on to obtain his PhD from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Australia. He then performed his postdoctoral studies at the Cavendish Laboratory, Physics of Medicine Institute at Cambridge University where he worked on the biophysical basis of dynamic ciliary beating in respiratory diseases such as cystic fibrosis and primary ciliary dyskinesia. He was recruited into the lab of Naftali Kaminski at Yale School of Medicine in 2018 where he focused primarily on establishing new techniques and approaches to investigate lung remodeling and repair. He was appointed Assistant Professor in Genetics and Comparative Medicine in September 2023.
Lei earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Microbiology from Wuhan University in China, focusing on the pathogenesis of Salmonella virulence-associated effectors and the host innate immune response in invasive Salmonella Typhimurium. Her postdoctoral training at the University of Iowa primarily focused on airway epithelial cell biology and gene therapy for cystic fibrosis (CF). This included studying the role of pulmonary ionocytes in chloride transport and airway surface liquid maintenance, developing gene addition strategies for CFTR in primary human airway epithelial cells (HBECs) using viral vector(s), and applying prime editing (PE) for genomic correction of CF ΔF508 mutations in HBECs. She has published several peer-reviewed articles and gained valuable research experience in these fields. Her research interests include cellular and molecular regulation during lung disease progression, lung regeneration, and recovery.
Lei Lei (she/her) PhD, Associate Research Scientist
Hyunah (Rosemary) Lee B.S., Postgraduate Research Associate
Hyunah (Rosemary) received her B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale University. At Yale, she worked as an undergraduate researcher in the Muñoz Lab, where she pursued an independent project investigating patterns of thermal physiological variability in Plethodon. Outside of the lab, she also served as a mentor for Yale Summer Science Research Institute (now known as the Yale Pathways Research Internships), where she helped connect New Haven public high school students with scientific research labs at Yale, volunteered as a Patient Aide at the Yale New Haven Health Smilow Cancer Hospital, and worked as a Collections Assistant at the Yale Peabody Museum. After graduating, she went on to work as a Clinical Research Coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where she supported NIH-funded studies that aim to characterize the subtypes and mechanisms of heart failure. Originally from South Korea, she enjoys learning new languages and is trilingual in English, Korean, and Japanese.
Carlos Abudo Maldonado
B.S. Candidate, Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
Carlos Abudo Maldonado is a pre-med rising senior at Yale University pursuing a B.S. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. In the Chioccioli Lab, Carlos is studying the subcellular dynamics that drive alveolar type 2 (AT2) cell behavior during lung repair. Using a fluorescent "Kaleidoscope" mouse model together with long-term live imaging of precision-cut lung slices, he is tracking how mitochondria, lysosomes, and the cytoskeleton reorganize as AT2 cells proliferate and migrate to regenerate the injured alveolus. Before joining the lab, Carlos conducted research at the Yale School of Medicine on regenerative strategies for glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration — focusing on Müller glia reprogramming, Hippo/YAP signaling, ASCL1, and nanoparticle-based delivery in human retinal explants and organoids — and earlier carried out microbiology research at UConn, where he isolated and sequenced bacteria from the digestive tract of Macrobdella decora and co-authored a genome announcement on Plesiomonas shigelloides. Outside the lab, Carlos serves as a Spanish interpreter at HAVEN Free Clinic, volunteers in the Yale New Haven Hospital Emergency Department, and teaches middle and high schoolers through Splash at Yale and the Yale Undergraduate Science Olympiad. Back home in Puerto Rico, he helps organize beach cleanups to protect local coastlines, and he enjoys ballroom dancing.
Overall view of the Mission Operations Control Room in the Mission Control Center, bldg 30, during the lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA) of Apollo 11 Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. NASA