Spring 2022 CBMG Honors and Awards
Congratulations to our Spring 2022 CBMG award winners!
Undergraduate Student Awards
Initiates for the Sigma Alpha Omicron (SAO) Microbiology Honor Society
Graduate Student Awards
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Awards
[Information about these scholarships, awards and fellowships]
Undergraduate Student Awards
ASHLEY WEISS
Recipient of the CBMG Outstanding Student Award
Mentor: Dr. Brantley Hall
BSCI Specialization: Cell Biology & Genetics
Dr. Brantley Hall’s comments: "Ashley is an inquisitive, dedicated, and reliable student who is always willing to take on an intellectual challenge. Not only has she worked in my lab, but pursued different internships every summer she has been at UMD. Even though we will miss her in the lab, I am excited to see her future accomplishments during graduate school at UPenn and beyond."
LIZBETH SANCHEZ
Recipient of the Norman Laffer Scholarship
Mentor: Dr. Caren Chang
BSCI Specialization: Cell Biology & Genetics
Dr. Chang’s comments: "Lizbeth is highly capable and has great initiative and independence. She’s a true lab rat who can be found in the lab at all hours. As a high school intern in my lab, she started working with the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha and now as a UMD sophomore, Lizbeth leads several projects and teaches all the graduate students in the lab how to work with Marchantia. Lizbeth will soon be a co-author on her first paper and is on the path to becoming a successful scientist."
NHU LE
Recipient of the Anthony D. Brown (BS '93) Memorial Scholarship
Mentor: Dr. Cherisse Hall
BSCI Specialization: Microbiology
Dr. Cherisse Hall’s comments: “Nhu has been working in the FIRE Bacterial Pathogenesis stream since it opened in January 2020, first as a student and then as a peer research mentor. She is highly motivated and takes ownership of her research projects to drive them to completion. When the lab reopened in Fall 2021, Nhu played an instrumental role in developing new research protocols. She is a great role model for students and brings a positive energy when she works in the lab. She is always eager to help students, share ideas and troubleshoot experiments with other researchers in the lab. It has been a great pleasure working with Nhu for these past three years.”
AARON LEMMER
Recipient of the Dr. P. Arne Hansen CBMG Honors Program Outstanding Thesis
CBMG Departmental High Honors
Thesis Title: “Functional Mapping and Structural Characterization of a Novel Panel of Marburgvirus Glycoprotein Targeting Monoclonal Antibodies”
Mentor: Dr. Gilad Ofek (IBBR)
BSCI Specialization: Cell Biology & Genetics
Dr. Ofek’s comments: As a student, Aaron has shown a keen talent for learning quickly, both at the bench and analytically. This was evident in his ability to swiftly tackle projects on two distinct viruses that are studied in the lab, first on HIV and then on Marburg which was the focus of his thesis. During the pandemic Aaron continued his research, and for a period when most members of the group were unfortunately quarantined, he helped keep some critical crystallization experiments running. Aaron is a promising future physician-scientist and will continue his research at IBBR prior to attending medical school.
SAMANTHA SMITH
Recipient of the Appleman-Norton Award for Plant Biology
CBMG Departmental Honors
Thesis Title: “Investigating the ethylene-independent role of ACC in Arabidopsis thaliana root growth”
Mentor: Dr. Caren Chang
BSCI Specialization: Biochemistry
Dr. Chang’s comments: "Samantha (Sami) took on a challenging project in my lab and tackled it with enthusiasm, energy, and resilience. Her CBMG Honors Thesis, which Sami wrote with a high degree of independence, displays her intellect and provides key experiments for a manuscript that Sami will be co-authoring."
MOLLY MARANTO
CBMG Departmental Honors
Thesis Title: “Generation and characterization of a fluorescently tagged knock-in allele of a Drosophila FGF, Pyramus”
Mentor: Dr. Sougata Roy
BSCI Specialization: Cell Biology & Genetics
Dr. Roy’s comments: “Molly is a fearless undergraduate student who does not hesitate to undertake difficult projects. She is a quick learner and a very hard working scientist. As an undergraduate Honors student, she generated a Drosophila fly line that expresses an endogenously tagged FGF protein using CRISPR/Cas9 and uncovered the distribution pattern of the signal within the Drosophila muscle stem cell niche using high-resolution microscopic methods. This is a difficult task for an undergraduate student to accomplish especially during the pandemic. It was a pleasure to see her grow as a scientist. Not only she successfully defended her research thesis, she also contributed to cloning several DNA constructs and generating transgenic stocks. We appreciate her curiosity towards science and wish her all the very best for her future!”
SHOHAM GHOSH
CBMG Departmental High Honors
Thesis Title: “Systematic Identification of cGAMP Binding Proteins in Vibrio cholerae”
Mentor: Dr. Vincent Lee
BSCI Specialization: Physiology & Neurobiology
Dr. Lee’s comments: Shoham is a smart and hard-working student. During his time in my lab, he has found new binding proteins to cyclic-GMP-AMP for Vibrio cholerae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. I am sure these findings will be a part of a future manuscript.
ABHIRAMI (Ami) THAIVALAPPIL
CBMG Departmental Honors
Thesis Title: “A Comparative Analysis on the Effects of Methylene Blue (MB) and Toluidine Blue (TBO) on Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS)”
Mentor: Dr. Kan Cao
BSCI Specialization: Cell Biology & Genetics
Dr. Cao’s comments: Ami is a talented student researcher who worked persistently on her project of analyzing methylene blue and its analogs in cellular aging, despite the disruption of the pandemic. She has co-authored two publications from my group and proved herself to be a capable scientist. She is mature, reliable, and super organized. I am very proud of her accomplishment!
Initiates for the Sigma Alpha Omicron (SAO) Microbiology Honor Society
PHILLIP KURI
BSCI Specialization: Microbiology
Phillip has been an undergraduate teaching assistant for principles of genetics the last four semesters. Over the last year, Phillip has been doing a JIFSAN internship in Dr. Kase's lab, evaluating new techniques ability to select for and identify shiga toxin producing E. coli. After graduation Phillip will be working in the Viral Genomics Section & Systems Serology Core as a research assistant.
ASTRID WIDJAJA
BSCI Specialization: Microbiology
Astrid is an undergraduate senior studying microbiology and psychology at the University of Maryland. Astrid is an RA for the Learn To Talk Lab and is interested in learning how children develop as she pursues a career as a physician. Outside the lab, Astrid can be found volunteering as an EMT for her local fire department and spending time with her friends, family, and dog.
KEVIN BARNES
BSCI Specialization: Microbiology
Kevin Barnes is a senior microbiology student on the pre-med route with a special interest in the biophysical properties of voltage-gated membrane channels, as demonstrated in his research with the Triplin complex in the lab of Dr. Marco Colombini. Whether through his research, his five semesters of encouraging students as a Teacher's Assistant for Human Anatomy & Physiology, or through his internship with the Community Learning Garden, Kevin hopes that his service has made a positive impact to the UMD community as a whole.
CAROLYN CHEN
BSCI Specialization: Microbiology
Carolyn is a senior microbiology major who is graduating this semester (Spring 2022). She is currently interning at the Micallef Lab and has helped work on projects analyzing the phenolic content of apples. Additionally, she has assisted other lab members on projects studying the symbiosis of E. coli and lettuce, which has important applications to food safety. Carolyn is honored to be inducted into SAO.
DANIEL PETERSON
BSCI Specialization: Microbiology
Daniel is involved in Club soccer and loves playing guitar.
Graduate Student Awards
PHILIP JOHNSON
Recipient of the Carroll E. Cox Award
Lab: Dr. Anne Simon
Project Title: Characterizing the local and genome-wide structures of RNA plant viruses
BISI Specialization: Computational Biology, Bioinformatics and Genomics (CBBG)
Dr. Simon’s comments: Philip is unquestionably one of the intelligent, if not the most intelligent, graduate student I have encountered in my 35 year career. He is fearless in using new approaches in his research. He works very independently and comes up with highly creative explanations for his results. He was the recipient of an NSF predoctoral fellowship and already has two first author publications in outstanding journals: RNA Biology and Nucleic Acids Research, and is nearly finished with a third paper, which will also be a first author paper along with an undergraduate that he has been supervising. Philip made a highly significant contribution to the field of RNA biology by designing and implementing the most powerful RNA structure drawing program available. This program is currently being used by investigators all over the world and was instrumental in our solving the structure of a complete plant sub-viral RNA from citrus (nearly 3000 nt) that is being developed as a vector to control plant diseases. The solving of how to make plant virus VIGS vectors stable, which has eluded the field for 20 years, was only possible because of Philip’s program. Philip is going to have a very important career ahead of him.
MARY CHEY
Recipient of the Isabel R. McDonald Service Award
Lab: Dr. Antony Jose
Project Title: Understanding the molecular basis of heritable epigenetic changes
BISI Specialization: Molecular and Cellular Biology (MOCB)
Dr. Jose’s comments: Mary is leading our efforts to understand heritable epigenetic changes. She made important contributions to a foundational paper and published a critical review that sets up the problems that need to be solved. She is now working on explaining why some genes are susceptible to RNA silencing that can last for hundreds of generations and others are not. In addition, she is very conscientious and kind with a generous spirit that extends to all around her and the broader community. She has been part of the annual retreat organizing committee for multiple years. Mary is also very artistic. Her design of the logo for last year's retreat is a thing of beauty. It is aesthetically pleasing and incorporates most of the model systems that everyone in the department and graduate program works on.
ETHAN IVERSON
Recipient of the Andrew J. Moyer Outstanding Graduate Student Award
Lab: Dr. Margaret Scull
Project Title: Mucin-mediated and Interferon-driven Defense Mechanisms against Influenza Virus Infection in Human Airway Epithelium
BISI Specialization: Molecular and Cellular Biology (MOCB)
Dr. Scull’s comments: "Ethan has been instrumental in my lab in more ways than I can count. His skills at the bench, hard work, and collaborative nature are evidenced by the impressive number of publications he has co-authored during his time at UMD. Beyond this though, Ethan has contributed enormously to training new students and teaching undergraduates and his passion for studying influenza has always brought an energy to the lab that is hard to beat. His defense was one of the proudest moments of my career and also one of the saddest, as it's difficult to let the great students go! Needless to say, I’m thrilled that Ethan’s accomplishments have been recognized through this award and am excited to see where his talents take him next."
JUNGHYUN RACHEL KIM
Recipient of the Wallace Prescott Rowe Award
Lab: Dr. Jeffrey Cohen (NIH/NIAID)
Project Title: Development and Characterization of Epstein-Barr Virus Antibodies and Testing Their Efficacy in a Humanized Mouse Model
BISI Specialization: Molecular and Cellular Biology (MOCB)
Dr. Cohen’s comments: "Rachel developed a small animal model for Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection and disease after extensive optimization of a large number of variables. Using this system she has tested many EBV monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), as well as immune sera from mice immunized with EBV vaccines, for their ability to prevent EBV infection and lymphoma. In addition to producing these mAbs, she constructed bispecific antibodies and tested them in neutralizing and fusion blocking assays, and in humanized mice. This work led to a first author paper in Virology, a coauthor paper in Science Translational Medicine, a co-first author paper under review at another journal, and a first author paper currently being written. Her work has resulted in a new direction for our research with plans to develop mAbs for prevention of EBV infection and disease in immunocompromised patients."
AKSHAY PATEL
Co-Recipient of the MOCB-BISI M. Zain-Ul-Abedin Memorial Scholarship Award / Recipient of the Philip J. Provost Graduate Fellowship Award
Lab: Dr. Sougata Roy
Project Title: “Investigating the role of cytonemes in coordinating asymmetric signaling in stem cell niche”
BISI Specialization: Molecular and Cellular Biology (MOCB)
Dr. Roy’s comments: "Akshay is an outstanding scientist. He has been involved in research in my lab since his undergraduate time at UMD. He quickly learned fly genetics and microscopic techniques and contributed to his first paper in the Developmental Biology journal. He continued to pursue his research career as a Ph.D. student in my lab. Within three years, he could single-handedly characterize a new muscle stem cell niche in Drosophila by combining complex genetics, molecular biology, and several advanced high-resolution microscopic techniques. This terrific effort contributed to discovering a novel mechanism that coordinates asymmetric signaling and organization within the stem cell niche. A part of this work has already contributed to two publications in Nature and Nature Communications. It has been a pleasure watching Akshay grow as a scientist.”
ZAJEBA TABASHSUM
Co-Recipient of the MOCB-BISI M. Zain-Ul-Abedin Memorial Scholarship Award
Lab: Dr. Debabrata Biswas (AGNR)
Project Title: “Combination of Lactobacillus casei with berry pomace extracts in sustainable poultry production through gut microbiome modulation”
BISI Specialization: Molecular and Cellular Biology (MOCB)
Dr. Biswas comments: "Zajeba is a remarkable hardworking student. Her current research focuses on the combined role of prebiotic and prebiotic (synbiotics) in modulating gut microflora and its role in competitively excluding enteric bacterial pathogens, particularly Campylobacter colonization in gut and positively influence the host immune system and limit the inflammation. She is also impassioned in teaching."
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Awards
KEVIN TU
Recipient of the CBMG Diversity , Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Recognition Award
Nominator: Dr. Jonathan Dinman
BSCI Specialization: Physiology and Neurobiology
Dr. Dinman’s comments: Kevin does everything: cancer research, developing and teaching an iCourse, developing a rural telemedicine platform, student government, peer counseling, and he even has time to run a satirical newspaper. Most important for this award is his work with the Student Government Association on behalf of the LGBTQIA+ community. Kevin wrote and passed a bill in to support the university housing of LGBTQIA+ students during the summer if they have unsafe home situations; he worked to revitalize the 50 queer scientists project, which aims to increase the visibility of LGBTQ+ scientists at UMD; and he volunteers with the TREVOR Lifeline to prevent suicides in LGBTQ+ youth.
FUXI WANG
Recipient of the CBMG Diversity , Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Recognition Award
Lab: Dr. Zhongchi Liu
BISI Specialization: Molecular and Cellular Biology (MOCB)
Project Title: 'Mechanism of DREAM component TSO1 in plant stem cell regulation'
Comments from Dr. Liu: From the very beginning, Fuxi Wang displayed a sensitivity toward people of different backgrounds and was not afraid of speaking up on issues relating to fair treatments in classes, in the lab, the department, or on our campus. Fuxi always prepares a “diversity short talk” at our lab meetings, and recently made a short video on the Beijing Olympic’s mascot for the online CBMG Newsletter to introduce different cultural activities. Fuxi has contributed greatly to the recruitment of a diverse BISI graduate class through her work with the BISI office. Through various efforts, Fuxi made an important contribution to our department in creating a welcoming, inclusive, fair, and open environment.