Alec Hirsch

Associate Professor
I graduated from Swathmore College in Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Biology in 1989 and received I Ph.D. in molecular Biology from Princeton University in 1999. I came to OHSU on a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Jay Nelson as my advisor. I was hired as Assistant Scientist at OHSU Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute in 2010.

Jessica Smith

Senior Staff Scientist
I received a Bachelor in sciences degree in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2001. My Ph.D. research was conducted in the laboratory of Dr. Michelle Ozbun at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, studying human papillomaviruses. In 2008, I began my post-doctoral studies in the laboratory of Dr. Jay Nelson at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute (VGTI), Oregon Health and Science University, studying the molecular biology of flaviviruses, including dengue, West Nile, and Zika Virus.

Christopher Parkins

Senior Research Associate
I have been working at the VGTI since 2010.

Henry Harrison

Research Assistant II
I graduated from Washington State University in 2020 with a BS in Genetics and Cell Biology and a primary background in C. elegans lipidomics. After moving to Oregon with my partner, I joined the Hirsch lab in early 2022 and have enjoyed applying techniques learned from my stints in research across plant pathology, biomedical, and even entomology to a virology context. In my role, I contribute to various projects across our flaviruses of interest, support our daily cell and animal work tasks, and help produce and administer virus-like particles

Outside of work, I'm usually at home with my two rescue cats, Echo and Charm, enjoying records, coffee, and modular synthesizers.

Michael Crawford

Student Ph.D.
I'm a Ph.D. candidate in the Hirsch lab studying the efficacy of different Toll-like-receptor agonists as adjuvants in the formulation of a novel vaccine against Powassan virus, an emerging flavivirus spread by ticks in North America.

When I'm not in the lab, I'm either cooking, tending my plants, or birding. My goal is to photograph every bird species found in Washington state, where I'm from. So far I've managed to capture 116 of the 516 observable species.