<description><h2 id="welcome-to-my-site">Welcome to my site!</h2>
<description><h2 id="welcome-to-my-site">Welcome to my site!</h2>
<p>My name is Zachary Billman. I&rsquo;m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao&rsquo;s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: &ldquo;But Zach, Dr. Miao&rsquo;s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?&rdquo; What an astute question! Ed&rsquo;s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke.
<p>My name is Zachary Billman. I&rsquo;m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao&rsquo;s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: &ldquo;But Zach, Dr. Miao&rsquo;s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?&rdquo; What an astute question! Ed&rsquo;s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke.
<metaname="description"content="Welcome to my site! ATTACH
<metaname="description"content="Welcome to my site!
My name is Zachary Billman. I’m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao’s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: “But Zach, Dr. Miao’s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?” What an astute question! Ed’s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke.
My name is Zachary Billman. I’m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao’s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: “But Zach, Dr. Miao’s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?” What an astute question! Ed’s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke.
This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused.
This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused.
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!
<metaproperty="og:description"content="Welcome to my site! ATTACH My name is Zachary Billman. I’m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao’s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: “But Zach, Dr. Miao’s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?” What an astute question! Ed’s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke. This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused. This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!">
<metaproperty="og:description"content="Welcome to my site! My name is Zachary Billman. I’m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao’s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: “But Zach, Dr. Miao’s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?” What an astute question! Ed’s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke. This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused. This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!">
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@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!
<metaname="twitter:description"content="Welcome to my site! ATTACH
<metaname="twitter:description"content="Welcome to my site!
My name is Zachary Billman. I’m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao’s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: “But Zach, Dr. Miao’s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?” What an astute question! Ed’s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke.
My name is Zachary Billman. I’m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao’s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: “But Zach, Dr. Miao’s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?” What an astute question! Ed’s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke.
This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused.
This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused.
@@ -87,12 +87,12 @@ This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!
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"description":"Welcome to my site! ATTACH My name is Zachary Billman. I\u0026rsquo;m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao\u0026rsquo;s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: \u0026ldquo;But Zach, Dr. Miao\u0026rsquo;s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?\u0026rdquo; What an astute question! Ed\u0026rsquo;s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke. This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused. This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!\n",
"description":"Welcome to my site! My name is Zachary Billman. I\u0026rsquo;m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao\u0026rsquo;s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: \u0026ldquo;But Zach, Dr. Miao\u0026rsquo;s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?\u0026rdquo; What an astute question! Ed\u0026rsquo;s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke. This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused. This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!\n",
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"articleBody":"Welcome to my site! ATTACH My name is Zachary Billman. I’m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao’s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: “But Zach, Dr. Miao’s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?” What an astute question! Ed’s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke. This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused. This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!\nMaybe having a diagram will make my training timeline make a bit more sense.\ntimeline.svg\nMy research and scientific interests. I am broadly interested in innate immunology. I spent most of my time in graduate school studying the host-pathogen interaction between the intracellular fungus Histoplasma capsulatum and macrophages. There are many unstudied curiosities regarding the innate immune response to Histoplasma spp. and other intracellular fungi that I think are quite interesting. I also spent a considerable time thinking about the evolution of proteins involved in the programmed cell death pathway called pyroptosis.\nHobbies I may write about. Besides my science, I am interested in birding, baking sourdough bread (I swear I began years before the pandemic, though hearing of people baking bread brings me joy no matter when they first began!), board games, roasting coffee, and self-hosting free and open source software. Over the course of the pandemic, I have learned how to maintain a basic suite of services spread between a server I rent and a computer at home that have replaced my need for Google Photos and Google Drive. I’m hoping to be able to move away from these platforms entirely soon. I think they provide a great service, but at a substantial cost to privacy. Hopefully more to be said about my thoughts on FOSS soon! I also transitioned my old, (and quite frankly, embarrassingly slow) managed WordPress site with this lean, static site made in Hugo that I host myself. Now that I have mangled together some CSS to get my precious sidenotes up and running again, I’m ready to begin putting some ideas to paper. I love marginalia (the word to describe these notes on the side of this webpage). I’m not sure if this is unique to me, but I seem to get caught up in parenthetical / tangential thoughts very often, and I think using an Edward Tufte-esque sidenote is a great way for me to communicate in this way without distracting the reader too much. It seems marginalia such as this have been used throughout history, so perhaps it is normal, but most people can keep their thoughts focused better than me. The implementation I use is inspired by the Tufte CSS project and largely taken from this incredibly helpful post found at scripter.co. I’m quite proud of my progress in administering my server and self-hosting useful services.\nThe future of this site. On this site I plan to post updates about my journey through med school, grad school, and self-hosting I would like to share with the world. I have been helped immensely by many others’ advice and I hope to impart similar tips to others someday. I suspect most posts will be about much lighter fare, like whatever hobbies tickle my fancy at the time.\n",
"articleBody":"Welcome to my site! My name is Zachary Billman. I’m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao’s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: “But Zach, Dr. Miao’s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?” What an astute question! Ed’s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke. This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused. This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!\nMaybe having a diagram will make my training timeline make a bit more sense.\nFigure 1: An overview of my research training. I first began working for Dr. Sean Murphy in undergrad, then worked as a research scientist/lab manager for 3 years before heading to UNC for my MSTP training. During grad school, my lab moved from UNC to Duke, though my degree was awarded by UNC. The “Present” diamond was used on an older version of my CV and represents September 1st, 2025. Created using PlantUML.\nHopefully that can clear up the winding road I’ve taken a bit!\nMy research and scientific interests. I am broadly interested in innate immunology. I spent most of my time in graduate school studying the host-pathogen interaction between the intracellular fungus Histoplasma capsulatum and macrophages. There are many unstudied curiosities regarding the innate immune response to Histoplasma spp. and other intracellular fungi that I think are quite interesting. I also spent a considerable time thinking about the evolution of proteins involved in the programmed cell death pathway called pyroptosis.\nHobbies I may write about. Besides my science, I am interested in birding, baking sourdough bread (I swear I began years before the pandemic, though hearing of people baking bread brings me joy no matter when they first began!), board games, roasting coffee, and self-hosting free and open source software. Over the course of the pandemic, I have learned how to maintain a basic suite of services spread between a server I rent and a computer at home that have replaced my need for Google Photos and Google Drive. I’m hoping to be able to move away from these platforms entirely soon. I think they provide a great service, but at a substantial cost to privacy. Hopefully more to be said about my thoughts on FOSS soon! I also transitioned my old, (and quite frankly, embarrassingly slow) managed WordPress site with this lean, static site made in Hugo that I host myself. Now that I have mangled together some CSS to get my precious sidenotes up and running again, I’m ready to begin putting some ideas to paper. I love marginalia (the word to describe these notes on the side of this webpage). I’m not sure if this is unique to me, but I seem to get caught up in parenthetical / tangential thoughts very often, and I think using an Edward Tufte-esque sidenote is a great way for me to communicate in this way without distracting the reader too much. It seems marginalia such as this have been used throughout history, so perhaps it is normal, but most people can keep their thoughts focused better than me. The implementation I use is inspired by the Tufte CSS project and largely taken from this incredibly helpful post found at scripter.co. I’m quite proud of my progress in administering my server and self-hosting useful services.\nThe future of this site. On this site I plan to post updates about my journey through med school, grad school, and self-hosting I would like to share with the world. I have been helped immensely by many others’ advice and I hope to impart similar tips to others someday. I suspect most posts will be about much lighter fare, like whatever hobbies tickle my fancy at the time.\n",
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@@ -185,18 +185,26 @@ This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!
<h1class="post-title entry-hint-parent">
<h1class="post-title entry-hint-parent">
About me. 👋
About me. 👋
</h1>
</h1>
<divclass="post-meta"><spantitle='2025-09-27 00:00:00 +0000 UTC'>Saturday, September 27, 2025</span> · <span>3 min</span> · <span>Zachary Billman</span>
<divclass="post-meta"><spantitle='2025-09-27 00:00:00 +0000 UTC'>Saturday, September 27, 2025</span> · <span>4 min</span> · <span>Zachary Billman</span>
</div>
</div>
</header>
</header>
<divclass="post-content"><h2id="welcome-to-my-site">Welcome to my site!<spanclass="tag"><spanclass="ATTACH">ATTACH</span></span><ahiddenclass="anchor"aria-hidden="true"href="#welcome-to-my-site">#</a></h2>
<divclass="post-content"><h2id="welcome-to-my-site">Welcome to my site!<ahiddenclass="anchor"aria-hidden="true"href="#welcome-to-my-site">#</a></h2>
<p>My name is Zachary Billman. I’m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao’s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: “But Zach, Dr. Miao’s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?” What an astute question! Ed’s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke.
<p>My name is Zachary Billman. I’m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao’s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: “But Zach, Dr. Miao’s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?” What an astute question! Ed’s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke.
This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused.
This move was quite a trial, especially when compounded with the onset of the pandemic. I suspect my research timeline suffered, though this is an extremely minor inconvenience compared to the tragedy the pandemic caused.
</small></span>
</small></span>
This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!</p>
This makes for very interesting basketball viewing parties with my Duke friends!</p>
<p>Maybe having a diagram will make my training timeline make a bit more sense.</p>
<p>Maybe having a diagram will make my training timeline make a bit more sense.</p>
alt="Figure 1: An overview of my research training. I first began working for Dr. Sean Murphy in undergrad, then worked as a research scientist/lab manager for 3 years before heading to UNC for my MSTP training. During grad school, my lab moved from UNC to Duke, though my degree was awarded by UNC. The “Present” diamond was used on an older version of my CV and represents September 1st, 2025. Created using PlantUML."/></a><figcaption>
<p><spanclass="figure-number">Figure 1: </span>An overview of my research training. I first began working for Dr. Sean Murphy in undergrad, then worked as a research scientist/lab manager for 3 years before heading to UNC for my MSTP training. During grad school, my lab moved from UNC to Duke, though my degree was awarded by UNC. The “Present” diamond was used on an older version of my CV and represents September 1st, 2025. Created using PlantUML.</p>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hopefully that can clear up the winding road I’ve taken a bit!</p>
<h2id="my-research-and-scientific-interests-dot">My research and scientific interests.<ahiddenclass="anchor"aria-hidden="true"href="#my-research-and-scientific-interests-dot">#</a></h2>
<h2id="my-research-and-scientific-interests-dot">My research and scientific interests.<ahiddenclass="anchor"aria-hidden="true"href="#my-research-and-scientific-interests-dot">#</a></h2>
<p>I am broadly interested in innate immunology. I spent most of my time in graduate school studying the host-pathogen interaction between the intracellular fungus <em>Histoplasma capsulatum</em> and macrophages. There are many unstudied curiosities regarding the innate immune response to <em>Histoplasma spp.</em> and other intracellular fungi that I think are quite interesting. I also spent a considerable time thinking about the evolution of proteins involved in the programmed cell death pathway called pyroptosis.</p>
<p>I am broadly interested in innate immunology. I spent most of my time in graduate school studying the host-pathogen interaction between the intracellular fungus <em>Histoplasma capsulatum</em> and macrophages. There are many unstudied curiosities regarding the innate immune response to <em>Histoplasma spp.</em> and other intracellular fungi that I think are quite interesting. I also spent a considerable time thinking about the evolution of proteins involved in the programmed cell death pathway called pyroptosis.</p>
<h2id="hobbies-i-may-write-about-dot">Hobbies I may write about.<ahiddenclass="anchor"aria-hidden="true"href="#hobbies-i-may-write-about-dot">#</a></h2>
<h2id="hobbies-i-may-write-about-dot">Hobbies I may write about.<ahiddenclass="anchor"aria-hidden="true"href="#hobbies-i-may-write-about-dot">#</a></h2>
@@ -219,10 +227,10 @@ I’m quite proud of my progress in administering my server and self-hosting
<description><h2 id="welcome-to-my-site">Welcome to my site!</h2>
<description><h2 id="welcome-to-my-site">Welcome to my site!</h2>
<p>My name is Zachary Billman. I&rsquo;m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao&rsquo;s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: &ldquo;But Zach, Dr. Miao&rsquo;s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?&rdquo; What an astute question! Ed&rsquo;s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke.
<p>My name is Zachary Billman. I&rsquo;m a UNC MD-PhD student in my 4th year of med school applying to pathology residency programs. I completed my PhD in Ed Miao&rsquo;s lab. The curious reader may be thinking: &ldquo;But Zach, Dr. Miao&rsquo;s lab is at Duke, how did that come about?&rdquo; What an astute question! Ed&rsquo;s lab moved from UNC to Duke in early 2020, and I followed him down the street. My PhD was awarded by the UNC department of Microbiology and Immunology, but it just so happens that (nearly) all of my research took place at Duke.
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