Suhas Rao, PhD

Suhas Rao is currently pursuing an MD/PhD at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Rao is the son of Indian immigrants, both of which were chemists before becoming software engineers so he grew up immersed in science and developed a love for the pursuit of knowledge and discovery as a young child. While working at the Broad Institute as a Harvard undergraduate, Rao became invigorated by the potential of the ‘genomics revolution’ to drive forward a new age in precision medicine and patient care. However, his experience as a staff member at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter taught him that revolutions in health care weren’t particularly useful if they weren’t accessible to those who need it most. It was this realization and his desire to be at the forefront of biomedical research while also working to effectively translate research into clinical practice that led him toward a career as a physician-scientist.

After graduating from Harvard, Suhas continued his research on the three dimensional structure of the genome at the Broad Institute and Baylor College of Medicine, resulting in two co-first authored publications in Cell and PNAS. This work, which resulted in the highest resolution maps of the three-dimensional genome to date and revealed numerous structural principles of genome folding, was featured in TIME, NPR, The Atlantic, Forbes, and Scientific American, and was lauded on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

In addition to the Hertz Fellowship, Suhas is supported by the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship.

Suhas was born in Massachusetts.