Award & Fellowship Recipients

2024

Gabriel Lucas Andrade de Sousa (PhD Candidate), Department of Physics, under the mentorship of Dr. Krishni Wijesooriya: “Predicting Immune Suppression for Pancreatic Cancer.”

Simona Bajgai (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, under the mentorship of Dr. Melanie Rutkowski: “Investigating the Effects of Mast Cells on Breast Tumor-associated Fibroblasts.”

Victoria Breza (PhD Candidate), Department of Biomedical Engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Richard Price: “Vascular Modulation for Enhanced Focused Ultrasound-Mediated Drug Delivery Across the Blood Tumor Barrier.”

Hyunjae Cho (PhD Candidate), Department of Statistics, under the mentorship of Dr. Hong Zhu: “Novel Dynamic Modeling and Propensity Score Matching Approaches for Cancer Comparative Effectiveness Research with Complex Observational Data.”

Jingwen Hu (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, under the mentorship of Dr. Andrew Dudley: “Angiogenesis and Immune Exclusion in the Tumor Microenvironment.”

Zefan Li, PhD (Research Scientist), Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, under the mentorship of Dr. Huiwang Ai: “In Vivo Proximity Labeling to Profile Tumor Proteomic Changes in Response to Therapy.”

Russell Hawes and Kevin Janes (PhD Candidate), Department of Biomedical Engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Kevin Janes: “Characterization of Recurrent Cell State Heterogeneities in Estrogen Receptor-negative Breast Premalignancy.”

Susan Kim, MD (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Surgery, under the mentorship of Dr. Allan Tsung: “Preoperative Exercise Therapy Attenuates Surgical-Stress Induced Liver Metastases and Preserves Anti-Tumor Immunity.”

Kyubin Lee, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, under the mentorship of Dr. Yuh-Hwa Wang and Dr. Aakrosh Ratan: “Prediction of DNA G-quadruplexes in Cells and its Application to Pediatric B-ALL.”

Katherine Nowak (PhD Candidate), Department of Biomedical Engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Richard Price: “Normalizing Glioma Vasculature to Potentiate the Therapeutic Effect of Sonodynamic Therapy.”

Caroline Riedstra (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, under the mentorship of Dr. Andrew Dudley: “ROCK Inhibition Prevents De-differentiation of Melanocytic Melanoma, Reducing Perivascular Invasion and Metastasis.”

Ariana Sabzevari (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, under the mentorship of Dr. Tom Loughran: “Use of Hypomethylating Agents to Reprogram the Epigenome in Large Granular Lymphocyte Leukemia.”

Shengyuan Wang, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Public Health Sciences, under the mentorship of Dr. Chongzhi Zang: “Integrative Analysis of lncRNAs and R-loops for 3D Genome Organization in Cancer.”

Hongpan Zhang (PhD Candidate), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, under the mentorship of Dr. Chongzhi Zang: “Prediction of Functional Transcription Factors in PDAC Metastasis with Single-cell Omics Data.”

Kat Zurowska (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, under the mentorship of Dr. Lou Hammarskjöld and Dr. David Rekosh: “Analysis of HERV-K Rec As A Tumor Promoter.”

2023​

Karl Kowalewski (PhD Candidate), Department of Chemical Engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Matthew Lazzara: “Hypoxic Cancer-associated Fibroblasts Promote Epithelial-mesenchymal Transition in Pancreas Cancer.”​​

Mehraju Lone (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Pediatrics, under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Engel: “Targeting LSD1-ChAHP Complex in Acute Myeloid Leukemia.”​

Katerina Morgaenko (PhD Candidate), Department of Biomedical Engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Rebecca Pompano: “The Impact of Tumor-draining Lymph Node Remodeling on Tumor Cell Invasiveness.”​

Cam Nguyen (PhD Candidate), Department of Physics, under the mentorship of Dr. Krishni Wijesooriya: “Developing Comprehensive Models to Predict Radiation-Induced Immune Suppression Following Lung Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy.”​​

Lydia Petricca (PhD Candidate), Department of Pathology, under the mentorship of Drs. Timothy Bullock and Richard Price: “Understanding Mechanistically how the Combinatorial Therapy of Thermal Ablative Focused Ultrasound & the Chemotherapy Gemcitabine Work to Constrain Triple Negative Breast Cancer.”​​

Christopher Prevost (PhD Candidate), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, under the mentorship of Dr. David Kashatus: “Investigating the Impact of NRF2 on Lipid Droplet Accumulation and the Pathophysiological Role of NRF2-Induced Lipid Droplets in Pancreatic Cancer.”​

Roza Przanowska (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Biomedical Engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Kevin Janes: “Functional Characterization of Recurrent Heterogeneously Expressed ncRNAs in ER+ Breast Cancer.” ​

Salma Sharmin (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, under the mentorship of Dr. David Kashatus: “Investigating the Role of Drp1 in RAS Targeted Therapy Resistance.”​

Aleksandra Ulman (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, under the mentorship of Dr. Hao Jiang: “Targeting cMYC Condensates Driving Cancer.”​​

Niket Yadav (MDPhD Candidate), Department of Neurology, under the mentorship of Dr. Benjamin Purow: “Synergistic Anti-tumor Activity of Simvastatin+irinotecan against Glioblastoma and its Underlying Mechanisms.”​​

2022​

Rob Barnes (PhD Candidate), Department of Biomedical Engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Sepideh Dolatshahi: “Utilizing Polarization and Glycosylation to Augment Tumor-associated Macrophage Immunotherapy Response.”​

Anna Bartosik (PhD Candidate), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, under the mentorship of Dr. Yuh-Hwa Wang: “Targeting G-quadruplex Structures as a Novel and Highly Promising Therapeutic Strategy.”​​

Justin Grams, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Chemistry, under the mentorship of Dr. Ku-Lung Hsu: “Targeting Oncogenic Proteoforms using Tyrosine-Reactive Chemistry.”​

Mitchell McGinty (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, under the mentorship of Dr. Melanie Rutkowski: “Investigating the Effect of TLR5 Signaling on Dendritic Cell Function and Response to PD-L1 Blockade for Ovarian Cancer.”​

Katerina Morgaenko (PhD Candidate), Department of Biomedical Engineering, under the mentorship of Drs. Rebecca Pompano and Melanie Rutkowski: “Ex vivo Model of Lymph Node Metastasis in Breast Cancer.”​

Xian Zhou, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, under the mentorship of Dr. Hui Zong: “Immune Surveillance in Breast Cancer Premalignancy.” 

2021​

Anna Baglione (PhD Candidate), Systems Engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Laura Barnes: “Modeling Side Effects and Adherence Patterns in Lung Cancer Patients.”​

Michelle Barbeau (PhD Candidate), Department of Chemical Engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Matt Lazzara: “Signaling Heterogeneity of the Epithelial-mesenchymal Transition in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.”​​

Michael Chi (PhD Candidate), Department of Radiation Oncology, under the mentorship of Dr. Tarek Abbas: “Functional Dissection of the Role of 53BP1 and Shieldin Complex in the Repair of DSBs.”​​

Ashish Kabra (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, under the mentorship of Dr. John Bushweller: “Targeting the KIX Domain of EP300: A Novel Approach to Therapy for SCLC.”​​

Benjamin Morris (PhD Candidate), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, under the mentorship of Dr. Marty Mayo: “Towards Personalized Medicine: Identifying and Targeting Aggressive MYBL2 High Disease.”​

Lindsey Power (PhD Candidate), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, under the mentorship of Dr. Jeff Smith: “Genome-wide Detection of DNA Double-strand Break Sites Associated with Aging and Cancer.”​​

Armita Salahi (PhD Candidate), Electrical Engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Nathan Swami: “Machine Learning-based Drug Sensitivity Classification of Pancreatic Tumor Models.”​

Dane Sessions (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, under the mentorship of Dr. David Kashatus: “The Balance of Mitochondrial Fusion and Fission in Oncogenic KRas Lung Adenocarcinoma.”​

Salma Sharmin (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology, under the mentorship of Dr. David Kashatus: “Investigating the Role of DRP1-mediated Mitochondrial Fission in MEK Inhibitor Resistance in Pancreatic Cancer.”

2024

Anna Bartosik (PhD Candidate), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. Platform and poster presentation at the “FASEB: Dynamic DNA Structures in Biology” Science Research Conference in Melbourne, FL. “DHX36/G4-driven Genome Instability Induces the Expression of Innate Immune Genes in Cancer Cells.”

Julia Blaszczyk (PhD Candidate), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. Poster presentation at Discover BMB, the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, in San Antonio, TX. “Understanding the Interaction of Lipid Metabolism and Gene Expression Changes in Cancer Progression.”

Emily Byrd (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology. Platform and poster presentation at the ASM Microbe (The American Society for Microbiology) meeting in Los Angeles, CA. “Friend or Foe: Uncovering the role(s) of Methanogenic Archaea in the Modulation of Colonic Physiology.”

Zehra Demir (PhD Candidate), Department of Biomedical Engineering. Platform presentation at the International Society of Therapeutic Ultrasound (ISTU) Annual Meeting in Taipei, Taiwan. “Immunological Protection in Breast Tumors via Focused Ultrasound Thermal Ablation and CD40 Agonism.”

Emerson Do Bú (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Public Health Sciences. Poster presentation at the 38th Annual Conference of the European Health Psychology Society in Cascais, Portugal. “The Myth of Racial Progress in Healthcare.”

Chris Dunlap (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Public Health Sciences. Poster presentation at the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s 45th Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia, PA. “Smoking Behaviors in Cars with Children Present and the Influence of Policies Restricting Smoking in Cars and Indoor Spaces.”

Sarah Groves (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Biomedical Engineering. Platform presentation at the 2024 NCI Junior Investigators (JI) meeting in Bethesda, MD. “Modeling Phase Separation of a Mitosis Signaling Network in Breast Cancer.”

Joey Kelly (PhD Candidate), Department of Chemistry. Poster presentation at the European Peptide Symposium in Madison, WI. “Targeted Acidosis Mediated Delivery of Antigenic MHC-Binding Peptides.”

Jacob Kennedy (PhD Candidate), Department of Chemical Engineering. Platform presentation in the National Center for Quantitative Biology of Complex Systems (NCQBCS) Annual North American Mass Spectrometry Summer School in Madison, MI. “Experimental and Computational Investigation of Nanoparticle Ligand Shell Morphology for Targeted Drug Delivery.”

Samir Lalani (PhD Candidate), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. Poster presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) conference in San Diego, CA. “Differential Dependency Mapping of Chimeric RNAs across Cancer Cell Lines Reveals a New Landscape of Functional Fusion Transcripts.”

Zhaoxia Ma (PhD Candidate), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. Poster presentation at the 16th Cold Spring Harbor Conference on Systems Biology: Global Regulation of Gene Expression in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. “Dory: A Computational Method for Differential Chromatin Tracing Analysis.”

Emir Maldosevic (PhD Candidate), Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics. Poster presentation at the Translational Control meeting in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. “Molecular Basis of Mitochondrial Protein Sorting on Ribosomes by NAC.”

Cam Nguyen (PhD Candidate), Department of Physics. Poster presentation at the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) 66th Annual Meeting and Exhibition in Los Angeles, CA. “Clinical Factors Impacting the Onset of Carotid Stenosis.”

Mina Ostovari (Postdoctoral Fellow), School of Nursing. Poster presentation at the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA. “Assessing Concordance of Real-Time Self-Reported Pain Events between Patients with Advanced Cancer and their Family Caregivers Using a Remote Health Monitoring System.”

Roza Przanowska (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Biomedical Engineering. Poster presentation at the Cell Symposia: Engineering Development and Disease in Organoids meeting in San Diego, CA. “Patient-derived Response Estimates from Zero-passage Organoids of Luminal Breast Cancer.”

Vicki Remley (PhD Candidate), Department of Pathology. Platform presentation at the SITC Spring Scientific Hub of Metabolism meeting in Miami, FL. “Role of Drp1 in Mediating Immune Suppressive TME in KRAS Mutant Pancreatic Cancer.”

Alexys Riddick (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology. Poster presentation at the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) and Gordon Research Conference (GRC) for Mammary Gland Biology in Lucca, Italy. “Utilizing Hormonal Stimulation to Sensitize Premalignant BRCA1-mutant Cells to PARPi for Prophylactic Intervention.”

Ariana Sabzevari (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology. Poster presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego, CA. “Use of Hypomethylating Agents to Reprogram the Epigenome in Large Granular Lymphocyte Leukemia.”

Abdullah-Bin Siddique (PhD Candidate), Department of Electrical Engineering. Poster presentation at the SCIX (The Great Scientific Exchange) 2024 conference in Raleigh, NC. “Tunable 3D Nanoconfinement via PDMS Diaphragm Collapse in Bead-Array Microfluidic Platforms for Enhancing Biomolecular Binding Kinetics.”

Shengyuan Wang (Postdoctoral Fellow), Center for Public Health Genomics. Poster presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. “Integration Analysis of lncRNAs and R-loops in 3D Genome Organization and Gene Regulation in the Cancer Genome.”

Xu Wang (PhD Candidate), Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Poster presentation at the 8th International Soft Matter Conference (ISMC) in Raleigh, NC. “Experimental and Computational Investigation of Nanoparticle Ligand Shell Morphology.”

Hajira Wehelie (MD Candidate), Department of Public Health Sciences. Poster presentation at the American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN. “Alcohol and Tobacco Co-use Patterns among US Adults: An Updated Epidemiological Analysis.”

Annalyn Welp (Resident), Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Poster presentation at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer in San Diego, CA. “An Analysis of Hormone Receptor Testing in Patients with Advanced or Recurrent Endometrial Cancer Treated with Pembrolizumab: A Single Institution Retrospective Cohort Study.”

2023 

Simona Bajgai (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology. Poster presentation at the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) and Seminar on Mammary Gland Biology in Lucca, Italy. “Commensal Dysbiosis Distally Reprograms Mammary Tissue Mast Cells to Promote HR+ Breast Cancer Metastasis.”

Ziyan Chen (MD Candidate), Department of Public Health Sciences. Poster presentation at the Society of Behavioral Medicine 45th Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia, PA. “Analysis of the Smoking Cessation App quitSTART: How Does Usability Differ Across Groups and Relate to Smoking Cessation?”

Crystal Chu (Postdoctoral Fellow), School of Nursing. Poster presentation at the 45th Annual North American Society of Medical Decision Making (SMDM) Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. “The Development of a Decision Aid to Promote Informed, Shared Decision Making for Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy (CPM).”

Kelsey Day (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Public Health Sciences. Poster presentation at the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) Annual Conference in Philadelphia, PA. “Associations between Home Neighborhood Environment and Changes in Physical Activity and Dietary Outcomes among Church Members Participating in a Faith-based Intervention.”

Yonatan Degefu (PhD Candidate), Department of Biomedical Engineering. Poster presentation at the 22nd International Conference on Systems Biology (ICSB) in Hartford, CT. “Identifying Mechanistic Regulators of the AP-1 State Heterogeneity via Computational Modeling and Multiplexed Single Cell Analysis.”

Adelaide Fierti (PhD Candidate), Department of Pathology. Poster presentation at the Gordon Research Conference in Smithfield, Rhode Island. “Targeting AVIL in Glioblastoma.”​

Maria Geba (Resident Fellow), Infectious Diseases and International Health. Poster presentation at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Seattle, WA: “Patient perspectives on anal cancer screening in people with HIV.”​

Joey Kelly (PhD Candidate), Department of Chemistry. Poster presentation at the American Peptide Symposium in Scottsdale, AZ. “Post-Translational Modification Impact on MHC Peptide Binding and TCR Engagement.”​​

Sung Hyun Lee (PhD Candidate), Department of Chemical Engineering. Poster presentation at the FASEB Protein Phosphorylation Conference in Steamboat Springs, CO. “Spatiotemporal Models of EGFR signaling Predict the Consequences of Stochiometric Pathway Bottlenecks and Receptor Endocytosis on ERK Activity.”

Laine Marrah (PhD Candidate), Department of Pathology. Poster presentation at the Mid-Atlantic Bioinformatics Conference in Philadelphia, PA. “High-Performance Computing Predicts Double Minute Chromosomes in Cancer Cell Lines.”​

Cam Nguyen (PhD Candidate), Department of Physics. Poster presentation at the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Annual Meeting in Houston, TX. “Quantify the Improvements due to the Addition of Lymphatic Flow to the Blood Circulation Model in Predicting Radiation-Induced Immune Suppression Following Lung SBRT.”​

Karl Ocius (PhD Candidate), Department of Chemistry. Poster presentation at the American Peptide Symposium in Scottsdale, AZ. “Non-invasive Analysis of Peptidoglycan Biopolymers from Living Animals.”

Roza Przanowska (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Biomedical Engineering. Poster presentation at the 22nd International Conference on Systems Biology in Hartford, CT. “Recurrent Heterogeneously Expressed LncRNAs in Luminal A Breast Cancer.”

Piotr Przanowski (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Biomedical Engineering. Poster presentation at the 22nd International Conference on Systems Biology in Hartford, CT. “Cell-state Transcriptome Heterogeneity in Basal-like Breast Cancer Premalignancies.”

Audrey Putelo (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology. Poster presentation at the Gordon Research Mammary Gland Biology Seminar and Conference” in Lucca, Italy. Distal Inflammatory Priming of Normal Mammary Tissue by the Gut Microbiome Drives Breast Tumor Metastasis via Metabolic Dysregulation.”

Luisa Quesada (PhD Candidate), Department of Biomedical Engineering. Platform presentation at the 22nd International Conference on Systems Biology (ICSB) in Hartford, CT. “Differentiation-state Specific Patterns of Histone Modifications Uncover New Epigenetic Vulnerabilities in Melanoma.”​

Hashir Rashad (Postdoctoral Fellow), Department of Radiation Oncology. Poster presentation at the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Annual Meeting in Houston, TX. “Quantitative Assessment of Dosimetric Effect of using Alternative Spinal Cord Delineation in Treatment Planning as Functions of Delineations, Setup Uncertainties and Planning Techniques using an Alternative Truth Assessment Method.”

Johnson Ung (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology. Presentation at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. “Acid Ceramidase Inhibition Enhances Venetoclax Sensitivity in Preclinical Models of Acute Myeloid Leukemia.”​

Sarah Wang (PhD Candidate), Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology. Poster presentation at the Lorne Cancer Conference in Lorne, Australia: “Mechanisms of perivascular melanoma dispersal and survival in the brain.”​

Shi Xinrui (PhD Candidate), Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. Platform presentation at the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting in Salt Lake City, UT: “The Landscape of Chimeric RNAs in Placental Health and Diseases: Implications for Cancer Biology.”