2020 CBMG Honors and Awards
Fall 2020 CBMG Honors and Awards
Undergraduate Student Award
NATALIE ACKER
CBMG Departmental Honors
Thesis Title: "Determining the Role of Virulence Factor, PDIM, Produced by Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Phagosome Protein Recruitment"
Mentor: Dr. Volker Briken
BSCI Specialization: Cell Biology & Genetics
Spring 2020 CBMG Honors and Awards
Undergraduate Student Awards
ELIANA HERMAN
Recipient of the Dr. P. Arne Hansen CBMG Honors Thesis Award
CBMG Departmental High Honors
Thesis Title: "Biosynthesis and Role of ACC vs. Ethylene in Marsilea vestita"
Mentors: Dr. Caren Chang and Dr. Stephen Mount
BSCI Specialization: Cell Biology & Genetics
Dr. Chang's comments on Eliana: "Eliana brought a specific idea of what she wanted to study in my lab, utilizing sequence data she was generating in Dr. Stephen Mount's lab for the fern Marsilea vestita and applying this new knowledge to wet bench experiments in my lab. She was the driver of her research from start to finish, and her honors thesis is the outstanding product of her exceptional efforts."
ALEXANDRA SCHNEIDER
Recipient of the Outstanding CBMG Undergraduate Award
CBMG Departmental High Honors
Thesis Title: "Characterizing eEF2 mutations for altered translational fidelity and proteostatic stress"
Mentor: Dr. Jonathan Dinman
BSCI Specialization: Cell Biology & Genetics
Dr. Dinman's comments on Lexie: "Lexie joined the Dinman lab two and half years ago and rapidly mastered the techniques of molecular biology and yeast genetics. She regularly spent over 30 hours per week in the lab, and truly devoted herself to the research and to mastering the literature. The data she produced and analyzed are flawless and will be the centerpiece of a publication."
SHAVIN THOMAS
CBMG Departmental Honors
Thesis Title: "Guiding gene-specific methylation of histones in C. elegans"
Mentor: Dr. Antony Jose
BSCI Specialization: Physiology & Neurobiology
Dr. Jose's comments on Shavin: "Shavin is a source of positive energy for our group and a dynamo at the bench. Thanks to his fearless independence, his project has now turned from a vague idea into an active direction in the lab."
ALEXANDER LAURENSON
Recipient of the Appleman-Norton Plant Biology Award
Mentor: Dr. Charles Delwiche
BSCI Specialization: Cell Biology & Genetics
Dr. Delwiche's comments on Alexander: "He has been a hard worker in my lab for four full years, and has done a really interesting project on how single celled dinoflagellates respond to changes in light. He's been doing this -- and finishing his bachelors -- while also working as an EMT for Prince George's County, so he's out there on the front lines whiles we are all sheltering in place. I can also say that his thesis ended up involving a lot of complex statistics that I know he didn't want to have to learn, but knuckled down and did a great job with it."
COLIN FIELDS
Recipient of the Outstanding CBMG Undergraduate Award
Mentor: Dr. Daniel Stein
BSCI Specialization: Microbiology
Dr. Stein's comments on Colin: "Colin is the most complete undergraduate I have interacted with in years. He was somehow able to balance three research projects, maintain an exceptional GPA while double-majoring in Biochemistry and Microbiology (with a minor in Astronomy), find time to be an undergraduate Teaching Assistant in Virology and Organic Chemistry and squeeze in exceptional leadership skills, captaining two different intermural soccer teams and an intermural futsal (a type of indoor soccer) team.
Initiation of New Sigma Alpha Omicron (SAO)
EVA AGOSTINO
BSCI Specialization: General Biology
Eva is a General Biology major with a focus in microbiology entering the final semester of her undergraduate education. For the past two years, she has been an active member of an FDA research lab studying pathogenic E. coli outbreaks and is excited to start research in an academic virology lab in the fall. Eva has made the most out of her undergraduate experience by also pursuing interests in humanities through her History minor, multidisciplinary Honors seminars in the University of Maryland Honors College, and here study abroad experiences in Spain and England. She enjoys giving back to the University of Maryland community as a UMD Campus Tour Guide and through involvement in community service student organizations.
JOSHUA PICKENS
BSCI Specialization: Microbiology
In Joshua's sophomore year, he had a large setback in his academic career. A motorcycle accident on campus that caused him to have short term brain loss and he had to repeat a semester and Organic Chemistry. However, he fought through his adversity and now works as a microbiologist at a lab for Emergent Biosolutions! Joshua is truly putting his microbiology degree to good use.
Graduate Student Awards
FUXI WANG
Recipient of the Carroll E. Cox Award
Lab: Dr.Zhongchi Liu
Project Title: "Investigating Arabidopis meristem development by studying a genetic suppressor of tso 1"
BISI Specialization: Molecular and Cellular Biology (MOCB)
Fuxi Wang is currently a fifth-year BISI-MOCB student. Her PhD research investigates how cell cycle regulation is coordinated with stem cell maintenance in Arabidopsis, a flowering plant. Fuxi has identified and characterized a cell cycle regulator (CYCA3;4), whose mutation can suppress the over-proliferation of stem cells exhibited by mutants of TSO1, a member of a conserved transcription complex DREAM. Her research directly links key cell cycle components with stem cell regulators, providing mechanistic insights into stem cell maintenance. Fuxi thinks critically and analytically with attention to detail. She is generous with her time in guiding undergraduate students and contributed to several collaborative projects. The Carroll E. Cox award recognizes her research excellence in plant biology.
REZIA BRAZA
Recipient of the MOCB-BISI M. Zain-Ul-Abedin Memorial Scholarship Award
Lab: Dr. Kevin McIver
Project Title: "Functional Analysis of a Group A Streptococcal Lous Important for Fitness in Soft Tissue"
BISI Specialization: Molecular and Cellular Biology (MOCB) / Host-Pathogen Interactions (HPI)
Rezia Era Braza is a 4th-year student in the MOCB concentration area of the BISI graduate program. She immigrated from the Philippines as a young teenager and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. from Morgan State University. Rezia was a trainee on the NIH Host-Pathogen Interactions (HPI) graduate training grant, was awarded the Isabel R. McDonald Service Award, and currently holds a prestigious NIH/NIAID F31 Diversity Pre-doctoral Fellowship. Her research in the McIver laboratory focuses on understanding how the human pathogen Streptococcus pyogenes (Group A Streptococcus) obtains critical nutrients during infection that impact the outcome of disease. Rezia's work has resulted in a first author manuscript in Infection and Immunity in 2019 and co-authorship on a paper in Frontiers in Cell Infection and Microbiology in 2018.
ALEXANDER SIMON
Recipient of the Andrew J. Moyer Outstanding Graduate Student Award
Lab: Dr. Jose Feijo
Project Title: "Molecular Evolution and Biophysical Characterization of Plant Glutamate Receptors"
BISI Specialization: Physiological Systems (PSYS)
Alex is an extremely dedicated and hard-working graduate student, with elevated sense of responsibility, commitment to his project and endless curiosity about science. In accordance, he excelled in many ways, from sorting out the optimization of mammalian COS7 cells system expression plant ion channels that became an international reference in the field, to experimental records published on top shelf journals and relevant conceptual thinking that made it to seminal reviews about ion signaling and biophysics. Last but not least, Alex is the ultimate team player, always ready to help and collaborate, and someone which makes everyone happy just for being around.