Our Team

Jeffrey Bednarski grew up in northwestern Pennsylvania and completed undergraduate degree in chemistry at Duke University. He then received his MD and PhD from University of Michigan. He completed residency and fellowship training in pediatric hematology and oncology at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. He joined the pediatrics faculty at Washington University in 2011. In addition to the research lab, he works with the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy program at St. Louis Children’s Hospital to treat children with cancer and immune deficiencies.

Stephanie enrolled in the DBBS Immunology program in 2019 and joined the Bednarski lab in 2020. She graduated in 2017 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst before coming to St. Louis. Outside of lab, she enjoys spending most of her time in Forest Park running or biking. Stephanie is currently studying how known B cell transcription factors contribute to other lineages of hematopoietic development.

Neetij completed his undergraduate degree at St. Olaf College with a major in Biology and a minor in Biochemistry. He spent a year in the Postbaccalaureate Intramural Research Training program at NIH, and was later awarded a Fulbright research grant to conduct research at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas in Madrid, Spain. In Fall 2022, Neetij started medical school at WashU. During summer 2023, he did a research elective in the Bednarski lab studying the function of BCLAF1 in AML pathogenesis, and he plans to spend a year in the lab in 2024. Outside of lab, Neetij plays the piano and ping-pong, and he’s a whiz at bar trivia.

Brendan completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May of 2016 and enrolled as a Biochemistry student at WashU later that fall. After a few rotations he joined the Bednarski lab in the fall of 2017. Outside of the lab you can almost always find him jamming to some music or creating some of his own. Brendan’s research focuses on the H2A deubiquitinase MYSM1 and its role in modulating the DNA damage response in developing B cells. Brendan recently defended his thesis and officially graduated as Dr. Mathias!

Le’Mark received his bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Biochemistry. His undergraduate research studied regeneration in larval Drosophila. He entered the DBBS Cancer Biology program in 2022 and joined the Bednarski lab in 2023. Le’Mark is studying mechanisms of pre-B cell leukemia initiation focusing on cooperative activities of ETV6-RUNX1 fusion protein and DNA damage signaling. Outside of lab, Le’Mark plays frisbee, jams on the trombone, and enjoys trying new restaurants.

Haley attended Southern Illinois University and received her bachelor’s in 2018. After graduating, she spent two years in Baltimore researching HIV in Dr. Aaron Tobian’s lab at Johns Hopkins before returning to the Midwest to begin the Immunology PhD program at WashU. She joined the Bednarski lab in 2022 and studies how developmental programs and DNA damage responses are regulated in pre-B cells. Outside of the lab she enjoys reading, hiking, and feeding the stray cats in her neighborhood.

Lynn has been at WashU for over 30 years and is a founding member of the Bednarski lab. She received her undergraduate degree from RIT before working at Fort Detrick in Maryland prior to coming to WashU. She works on multiple projects in the lab as well as manages day to day lab operations. Lynn is an avid Katy Trail biker and loves animals.