Outstanding Thesis Research Award Winners
In recognition of a graduate whose research findings, in the judgement of the faculty and the Dean, has significant impact in their field.
2023
Kathleen Morrill
The Genomics of Canine Behavior and its Comparative Relevance to Human Neuropsychiatric Conditions
Mentor: Elinor Karlsson, PhD
James Shen
Vps13D Is a Regulator of Pink1-Mediated Mitophagy and Membrane Contacts
Mentor: Eric Baehrecke, PhD
2022
Krishna Ghanta
An Exploration of the Properties of Repair Template DNA that Promote Precision Genome Editing
Mentor: Craig Mello, PhD
Jordan Smith
Reversing Cancer Cell Fate: Driving Therapeutic Differentiation of Hepatoblastoma to Functional Hepatocyte-Like Cells
Mentor: Wen Xue, PhD
2021
Zachary Milstone
Histone Deacetylase 1 and 2 are Essential for Early Cardiac Development
Mentor: Chinmay Trivedi, MD, PhD
Erica Mondo
Investigating Microglia -Vascular Interactions in the Developing and Adult Central Nervous System
Mentor: Dorothy Schafer, PhD
2020
Mona Motwani
Cytosolic DNA Sensing in Autoimmune and Autoinflammatory Diseases
Mentor: Kate Fitzgerald, PhD
Pranitha Vangala
Role of CIS-Regulatory Elements in Transcriptional Regulation: From Evolution to 4D Interactions
Mentor: Manuel Garber, PhD
2019
Maximiliaan Huisman
Vision Beyond Optics: Standardization, Evaluation and Innovation for Fluorescencemicroscopy in Life Sciences
Mentor: David Grunwald, PhD
Harish Palleti Janardhan
Histone Deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) Regulates Lymphatic Vascular Development
Mentor: Chinmay Trivedi, MD, PhD
2018
Mehmet Fatih Bolukbasi
Development of Chimeric CAS9 Nucleases for Accurate and Flexible Genome Editing
Mentor: Scot Wolfe, PhD
Reka Haraszti
Engineered Exosomes for Delivery of Therapeutic siRNAs to Neurons
Mentor: Anastasia Khvorova, PhD
2017
Hatem Elif Kamber Kaya
Regulation of the Drosophila Initiator Caspase DRONC through Ubiquitylation
Mentor: Andreas Bergmann, PhD
Yihang Li
Mechanisms of Synaptic Development and Premature Aging in Drosophila
Mentor: Vivian Budnik, PhD
2016
Bryan Lajoie
Computational approaches for analysis of chromosome conformation capture data and their application to study long-range gene regulation
Mentor: Job Dekker, PhD
Margaret Heider
Investigating the architecture and vesicle tethering function of the exocyst complex
Mentor: Mary Munson, PhD
2015
Laura Danai
Role of protein kinase Map4k4 in energy metabolism
Mentor: Michael Czech, PhD
Po-shen Chen
Regulation of embryonic stem cell pluripotency by the Tip60-p400 chromatic remodeling complex
Mentor: Thomas Fazzio, PhD