The Team

Angela Zeigler MD, PhD
Dr. Zeigler is a pediatric critical care fellow at UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital. She received her MD and PhD from the University of Virginia. Her thesis explored fibroblast signaling during the post-MI wound healing process. She trained at Yale New Haven Hospital as a pediatrics resident.  Dr. Zeigler Joined the Neonatal/Congenital Heart laboratory in Fall 2023. Her research interests include fibrosis and development of congenital heart disease. She is the recipient of the T32 UCLA Intercampus Medical Genetics fellowship training program award on her work.

Gloria Kafui Esi Zodanu, PhD
Dr. Zodanu obtained her PhD in Medical Genetics from the University of Szeged, Hungary. Her research focused on understanding the role of genetic factors, including copy number variants, in the development of congenital heart defects (CHD) in the pediatric and adult CHD patients in the Southern-Hungarian region. She also reported her findings on the role of a novel PAK3-mutation in a male patient with non-syndromic X-linked intellectual disability. Dr. Zodanu (Gloria) is a visiting assistant researcher in the Neonatal/Congenital Heart Laboratory Research Program since Fall 2023. She is interested in contributing to scientific discoveries that focus on genetic and genomic approaches for understanding congenital heart defects that will advance in improving diagnosis and timely intervention.

John Hwang, MD
Dr. Hwang (Johnny)  is pediatric resident at UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital. He received her MD at Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine and completed a Master’s in Biology and a Bachelor of Science in Physiology & Neuroscience at University of San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Hwang Joined the Neonatal/Congenital Heart laboratory in Fall 2022. His research is focused on investigating the role of Ppp1r1b-lncRNA in myogenic differentiation using computation and bioinformatics tools. He is the recipient of the CDI Research Recognition Award for Pediatric Residents and The 2024 Alice Litman Moss Resident Award (in recognition of Outstanding Clinical Care, Scholarship, and Professionalism during Residency). After Graduation from Pediatric Residency, Johnny will peruse a fellowship training in Pediatric Critical Care at UCSF!

Jordan Mudery, MD
Dr. Mudery (Jordan) is a pediatric critical care fellow at UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital. He received his MD at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, and completed a pediatric residency at UC Irvine/Children’s Hospital of Orange County Jordan Joined the Neonatal/Congenital Heart laboratory in Fall 2022. His research is focused on elucidating the mechanism of phospholipase D1 variants in causing a newly described severe phenotype of dilated cardiomyopathy. He was awarded the 2023 T32 UCLA Intercampus Medical Genetics fellowship training program award and the 2024 Shapiro Award (Third Year Fellow Best Research Abstract / Poster, CDI Annual Symposium) on his work. After Graduation as a pediatric critical intensivist, Jordan will persue a second fellowship training in Pediatric Cardiology at the University of Chicago!

Zubin Mehta, MD
Dr. Mehta is a Clinical Fellow in the Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Fellowship Program, Department of Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. As a Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Mehta Joined the Neonatal/Congenital Heart laboratory in Spring 2020. His project is to investigate the role of alternative RNA splicing in regulating the chamber- specific maturation of neonatal heart by utilizing deep RNA sequencing platform and systematic bioinformatics analysis tools. Dr. Mehta is the recipient of the 2021 Board Stem Cell Research Center (BSCRC) fellowship training program award on his project, and the 2021 fellowship award in Clinical Informatics.

Charlotte Wolf
Charlotte is an Undergraduate Student majoring in Mathematics-Applied Science at UCLA College of Life Science. SRP99/Peds99 Minor in Biomedical Research. Charlotte is interested in bioinformatics and sequence analysis focused on elucidating the impact of hypoxia on neonatal heart transcriptome regulation. Charlotte is also a Bruin In Genomics (B.I.G) of the 2024 UCLA B.I.G. Summer program.

Tatiana Hage
Undergraduate Student, UCLA College of Life Science, SRP99 Minor in Biomedical Research Training Program. Tatiana is interested in sequence analysis for identifying genetic variation and transcription factor binding motifs using bioinformatic prediction tools. 

Rabekah Alfred
Undergraduate Student, UCLA College of Life Science, SRP99 Minor in Biomedical Research Training Program. Rabekah is interested in functional annotation and pathway analysis of RNA-seq/gene expression datasets.

Iven Lopez (2015-2017)
Undergraduate Student, UCLA College of Life Science, SRP99 Minor in Biomedical Research Training Program. 
Upon completing his undergraduate degree, Ivan joined the Integrative Biology and Physiology M.S. program at UCLA. His work was focused on studying the genetic regulation of Kdm3b in neonatal heart. 
Current Position: Medical Student at Stanford University, Stanford, California. 

Reant Mapue (2017-2020)
Undergraduate Student, UCLA College of Life Science, SRP99 Minor in Biomedical Research Training Program. As an undergraduate laboratory assistant, he independently performed numerous lab techniques that ranged from DNA & RNA extractions, genotyping and quantitative real time PCR.
Current Position: Medical Student at Rush Medical College, Chicago, Illinois.