Victoria W sperling

Victoria Walker-Sperling, Ph.D.

Victoria Walker-Sperling, Ph.D.

Post-Doctoral Fellow
Barouch Laboratory

Victoria earned her undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at Wellesley College, completing her honors thesis in the laboratory of Dr. Irene Newton on how genetic diversity in honeybee colonies affects the diversity of the colonies’ intestinal microbiota. During her graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Immunology Program, she did her dissertation research in the laboratory of Professor Joel Blankson, where she worked on projects examining the cytotoxic T cell (CTL) responses to HIV-infected macrophages in elite suppressors and the autologous CTL responses to latently infected T cells in chronically infected patients on cART post-reactivation, as well as the effects of various putative latency reactivating agents on CTL activation and exhaustion. Previously, she was a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Mary Carrington at the National Cancer Institute and Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, where she worked on the effect of tapasin expression upon malarial disease outcomes and genetic mechanisms altering the expression of tapasin and HLA-F. Victoria joined the Barouch lab in 2020, and in her free time, she enjoys painting, model-making, and haunting museums.