Our Team

Jennifer Orthmann-Murphy, MD, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor of Neurology

Jenn Orthmann-Murphy is an assistant professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed an MD-PhD program at Penn and a neuroscience PhD with Steven Scherer, studying astrocyte and oligodendrocyte gap junctions. After finishing her neurology residency at Penn, she pursued a combined postdoctoral and clinical neuroimmunology fellowship at Johns Hopkins University where she trained with Dwight Bergles and Peter Calabresi. She started her lab at Penn in October 2018 to study the role of glial cells in myelin disorders. She also sees patients with multiple sclerosis and leads an ‘Undiagnosed White Matter Disorders’ neurogenetics clinic. She is co-director of the Age-Span Fellowship in Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroinflammatory Disorders, and is also associated with the Neuroscience Graduate Group at Penn.

Email me: jennifer.orthmann-murphy at pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Follow me: @JennOligoMyelin

Christine Mialki

Lab Manager and Research Specialist

Christine graduated from Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana) in 2017 with a B.A. in Psychology, certificate in Neuroscience and minor in Anthropology. In addition to her work with rodent models of demyelinating diseases like MS, she also collaborates with the Vanderver lab at CHOP on The Myelin Disorders Biorepository Project and Global Leukodystrophy Initiative which biobanks patient blood samples to identify biomarkers and advance the diagnostic tools and treatments of genetic leukodystrophies. While she will always have a soft spot for her mice, what she loves most is interacting with patients in the clinic and solving logistics puzzles around the lab to make things run as efficiently as possible. A Michigander at heart, she has a fierce enthusiasm for hiking, typography, foreign horror films, crocheting and baking cakes.

Email me: christine.mialki at pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Greg Perrin, PhD

Post-doctoral Researcher

Greg received his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Maryland in 2022 before becoming a welcome addition to our lab! In the Orthmann-Murphy lab, Greg is translating his expertise in electrophysiology and systems neuroscience to decipher how cortical circuits ‘re-program’ after demyelination. Greg can always be found tinkering with something, sharing his engineering and scientific wit to build our lab all sorts of toys, as well as forts and telescopes with his family.

Email me: Gregory.Perrin at pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Sidney Smith

PhD Candidate, Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Group

Sidney is a 3rd year PhD candidate in the Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Group at the University of Pennsylvania with a concentration in Cell Biology, Physiology, and Metabolism. She earned her B.S. in Molecular Genetics with a minor in French from The Ohio State University in 2021. Her thesis work focuses on characterizing immune and glial cell function and phenotype in CSF1R-related leukoencephalopathy (or CSF1R-ALSP), with the goal of identifying unique CSF1R-ALSP sample signatures that can be used diagnostically. In her free time, Sidney loves running, boxing, and trying new restaurants and bars in Philly!

Email me: sidney.smith at pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Hannah Loo

PhD Candidate, Neuroscience Graduate Group

Hannah is a 6th year PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Graduate Group at the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated in 2017 from SUNY Geneseo with degrees in Biology and Music (Vocal Performance). Her thesis work focuses on characterizing the role of microglia in cortical de- and remyelination. Her broader interests lie in educational equity and access, and she intends to work at an educational non-profit working with under-resourced and underserved Philadelphia high school students after the PhD. To this end, she currently serves as a Program Director for Philly-based non-profit Minds Matter, and is the Founder and former Executive Director of of Project SHORT, a non-profit that offers pro-bono consulting for medical and graduate school admissions. In her free time, she competes as an Olympic weightlifter and enjoys making music and playing volleyball!

Email me: hloo at pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Joseph Gallegos

PhD Candidate, Neuroscience Graduate Group

Joseph is a 6th year PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Graduate Group. He earned his B.S. in Microbiology from Colorado State University in 2018. His thesis work is to define the complex reactive responses of astrocytes after demyelination, with the ultimate goal to discover ways in which these cells can be targeted therapeutically in disorders like MS. Besides science, Joseph loves spending time hiking and camping, playing his guitar, and trying to keep his plants alive.

Email me: josephtg at pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Follow me: @josephtg27