2024
Awards and Presentations
Awards
- Sangeetha Balasubramaniam, a graduate student, in the Hughes lab was chosen for a Utah Graduate Research Fellowship.
- Congratulations to undergraduate student, Nathan Patchen in the Liu lab who was awarded the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship.
- Amber Vogel, a postdoc in the Hill lab, received notice from the JDRF that her postdoctoral fellowship will be funded.
- Mark Lee, a graduate student, in the Hilgendorf lab was awarded an F31 fellowship.
- Ashish Toshniwal, a postdoc in the Rutter lab, was awarded an American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship.
- Congratulations to graduate students, Kade Loveridge and Jessica Pita-Aquino and postdoc, Radek Omelianczyk in the Sigala lab who were awarded 2-year fellowships from the American Heart Association.
- Ryan Andrews, a postdoc in the Bass Lab, received an NIH F32 postdoctoral fellowship to characterize dsRNA-contatining protein complexes in C. elegans.
- Amber Vogel received a postdoctoral fellowship from Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
- Congratulations to Sangeetha Balasubramaniam, who was awarded the Utah Graduate Research Fellowship.
- Congratulations to Shai-anne Nalder, a graduate student in the Sigala Lab who received the Native Excellence at the U Award, which "celebrates change makers and leaders who are making a positive impact on behalf of the Indigenous community."
- Sara Wong, a postdoc in the Hughes Lab, was awarded a 3rd year on her cardiovascular T32 award.
- Sam Scherer, a graduate student in the Kay Lab, won a poster prize at the Chemical Protein Synthesis symposium in Japan.
- Julio Fierro was selected as a recipient for the John Weis travel award and the Marge Gunn award.
- Congratulations to Miller Lab graduate student, Ahmed Abouelghar who was awarded both the Dickman Graduate Student Travel Award and the John Weis Memorial Graduate Student Award.
- Congrats to Miller Lab graduate student Michael Stewart, who was a co-awardee of the Marjorie Riches Gunn Award for Excellence.
- Abby Jackson, a graduate student in Hilgendorf Lab, was awarded a slot on the T32 Cancer training grant
- Aaron Ferrell, a graduate student in the Shen Lab, received the notice of award for his F31 fellowship
- Ashish Toshniwal was awarded an AHA postdoctoral fellowship.
- David Tafoya, a graduate student with the Starr Lab, was awarded a slot on the Molecular Pathogenesis Training Grant
- Daniel Greiner, a graduate student with the Roh-Johnson Lab, was awarded the Melanoma Center Trainee Award from the Huntsman Cancer Institute. This award recognizes outstanding trainees working in the field of melanoma.
- Grant Schaluderaff, a graduate student in the Liu lab, was awarded a T32 Genetics Training Grant.
Presentations
- Julio Fierro, a graduate student in the Roh-Johnson lab, was invited to the Salk Institute as part of their Rising Stars Symposium in early May.
- Congratulations to undergraduate researcher, Austin Bender in the Ducker Lab for submitting his honors thesis and being selected to present at the 2024 Honors College Awards Night.
2023
Awards and Presentations
Awards
- Jesse Velasco, a graduate student in the Ducker Lab, was awarded a slot on a metabolism T32
- Steven Draper, a postdoc in the Kay Lab, was awarded an NIH F32 postdoctoral fellowship
- Talia Cahoon, a graduate student in the Miller Lab, was awarded a T32 on the Genetics Training Grant
- Onyeka Obidi, a graduate student in the Brasch Lab, won the ASBMB Graduate Student Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award to attend the DiscoverBMB conference
- Kylie Jacobs, a postdoc in the Hughes lab, was awarded a position on the T32 in metabolism training grant
- Kevin Chui, a graduate student in the Hughes lab, was awarded an F31 from NIA (National Institute on Aging)
- Michael Stewart, a graduate student in the Miller lab, was awarded an an F31 from NCI to "Investigate the regulation and mechanism of tension-sensors Stu2 & Ndc80c at budding yeast kinetochores"
- Radek Omelianczyk, a joint postdoc in the Sigala and Leffler labs, was awarded a 1-year pilot grant from the Cooperative Centers for Excellence in Hematology to study metabolic changes in red blood cells due to sickle cell disease, hypoxia, and malaria infection.
- Caroline Craig, a MB graduate student in the Starr lab, was awarded a spot on the Genetics T32 training grant.
- Mark Lee, a graduate student in the Hilgendorf lab, received a T32 predoctoral training grant in metabolism.
- Meghan Curtin, a graduate student in the Hilgendorf lab, received the trainee award at the Metabolic Breast Cancer Research Conference.
- Ahmad Clunton, a postdoc in the Rutter lab, received a K99/R00 grant.
- Kylie Jacobs, a postdoc in the Hughes lab, was awarded an NIH F32
- Libby Mumby, a graduate student in the English lab, was accepted to the T32 Pitch Training Grant Program.
- Alexa Gormick, an undergraduate researcher in the English lab, was named a UROP scholar for the Summer 2023 and Fall 2023 semesters with respective allocated funding and was awarded the labs first $500 grant through the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) as well. Alexa was further awarded the College of Science Dean’s Scholarship and the School of Biological Sciences Continuing Education Scholarship for the 2023-2024 year.
- Kade Loveridge, a graduate student with the Sigala lab, was awarded the "Best Talk" award at the MD/PhD retreat and was selected for funding on the STARS Research Translation T32 training grant.
- Nate Krah, a clinical oncology fellow with the Rutter lab, was awarded the Quagliana Endowed Fellowship from the Department of Internal Medicine.
- Luis Cedeno-Rosario, a postdoctoral fellow with the Rutter lab, was selected as a University of Utah U-HELM scholar.
- Ashish Toshniwal, a postdoctoral fellow with the Rutter lab, won the first-place poster prize at the 2023 DMRC retreat.
- Kevin Hicks, a research instructor in the Rutter lab, won the Inaugural University of Utah Innovation Award in the “Innovation Impact” category for the development of MIDAS, which was the founding technology of Atavistik Bio.
- Luis Cedeno-Rosario, a postdoctoral fellow with the Rutter lab, was selected to be part of the 2023 National SACNAS leadership institute.
- Rachel Skabelund, a graduate student in the Rutter lab, was awarded an F31 fellowship.
- Aaron Ferrell, a graduate student in the Shen lab, received an excellent fundable score for his NIH F31 graduate fellowship application.
- Sangeetha Balasubramaniam, a graduate student with the Hughes lab, was awarded a Travel Scholarship to attend the upcoming Keystone Symposia on Mitochondrial Signaling and Disease.
Presentations
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Anna Gilstrap, an undergraduate researcher in the Shen lab, was selected to present her research as part of the Research on Capitol Hill (ROCH) on Thursday, January 18th at the Utah State Capitol Building. This annual tradition features some of the best research by undergraduate students at the University of Utah and Utah State University.
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Julio Fierro, a graduate student with the Roh-Johnson lab was selected to give a keynote address at a symposium sponsored by the Salt Lake Community College.
2022
Awards and Presentations
Awards
Alina Guo, graduate student in the Brasch lab, won a travel award: John H. Weis Memorial Graduate Student Travel Award
Sangeetha Balasubramaniam, a graduate student in the lab, was accepted into the Scientific Communication Fellowship Program at the Utah Natural History Museum.
A graduate student in the Bass Lab, Adedeji Aderounmu, or Deji as we know him, has been selected to receive a Graduate Fellowship from the Immunology, Inflammation and Infectious Disease Initiative.
Congratulations to PhD student Shai-Anne Nalder, who has been awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Predoctoral Fellowship to study iron metabolism in the Plasmodium apicoplast.
Congratulations to Shuxin Wang, who received a Sherman R. and Deborah Ann Dickman Graduate Student Travel Fellowship from the department.
Congratulations to postdoc Zach Wilson and undergraduate student Bridget Ward. Bridget received a spot in the UROP program for the fall, and Zach wrote and successfully obtained an NIH supplement to our R35 to provide funds for Bridget to participate in the SPUR program this summer.
Joey Casalini was selected for the HCI Rising Stars award - this award recognizes outstanding trainees working in the field of breast and gynecological cancers, and comes with funds for training and research.
Marcy Robins was awarded an NIH F31 fellowship.
Sam Scherer was awarded a slot on the PITCH Chemical Biology T32 training grant.
Sarah Hansen was awarded a postdoctoral position on the Microbial Pathogenesis Training Grant and a travel award from the RNA Society to attend the annual meeting that happened in June.
At the RNA Society meeting Adedeji (Deji) Aderounmu was awarded a prize for his poster "Investigating the Evolution of Dicer's Helicase Function".
Presentations
Tianyao Xiao and Zach Wilson gave oral minisymposium presentations on their work at the ACCB-EMBO Cell Biology Meeting.
Qian Xue's abstract and Trinity Waddell's abstract were each selected for a talk at the American Society for Cell Biology meeting this December. Julio Fierro's abstract was selected for a talk at the Mechanisms of Cellular Evolution Symposium this Nov.
Helen Donelick of the Bass and Shen labs gave a talk at the Microscopy and Microanalysis conference and Chaired the pre-meeting congress for students and postdocs.
Yeyun Ouyang gave a talk at the Keystone Mitochondrial Biochemistry symposium.
Joey Casalini was selected to attend and present at the 20th annual St. Jude National Graduate Student Symposium in June 2022.
Congratulations to Ian Cooney, who was selected to present his work at the St. Jude's National Graduate Student Symposium.