Jonathan Perera

Jonathan Perera, from Jacksonville, Florida, and Colombo, Sri Lanka, is pursuing an MD and PhD in genetics at Stanford School of Medicine. He graduated from Duke University with a degree in biomedical engineering. Jonathan aspires to become a physician-scientist developing computational approaches to unravel the genetic networks underpinning disease while ensuring equity in therapeutic discovery and implementation. After college, he trained as a computational biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, designing and analyzing in vivo CRISPR screens to uncover genes driving cancer immunotherapy resistance. His prior research spans stem cell therapeutics and cancer genomics at Duke, the Mayo Clinic, and Massachusetts General Hospital. Complementing his research, he initiated and organized an engineering design curriculum for the University of Ruhuna in Sri Lanka with the Duke Global Health Institute. Jonathan is a Duke Katsouleas NAE Grand Challenge Scholar, Broad Biomedical Post-Baccalaureate Scholar, and Stanford Sarafan ChEM-H Chemistry/Biology Interface Scholar.