Student Awards & Honors

Graduate Jacqueline Giovanniello won the UCLA Brain Research Institute Scheibel distinguished postdoc award. She was also named a 2023 Early Career Policy Ambassador by the Society for Neuroscience.

Graduate Elvin Wagenblast received a 2023 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award for early-career scientists.

Student Patrick Cunniff was awarded an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Fellowship.

Student Nicole Sivetz was awarded an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Fellowship.

Graduate Justus Kebschull received a Pershing Square Foundation’s Maximizing Innovation in Neuroscience Discovery (MIND) Prize.

Student Lucía Téllez Pérez was awarded a fellowship from the la Caixa Foundation.

Graduate Alberto Corona was named a 2023 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Postdoctoral Diversity Enrichment Program Recipient.

Graduate Arkarup Banerjee received a Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship for Neuroscience.

Graduate Monica Dus was selected for the Guggenheim Fellowship and won the Ajinomoto Award for Gustation.

Graduate Kristen Delevich was awarded the Dean’s outstanding junior faculty research award by the College of Veterinary Medicine, Washington State University.

Graduate Niraj Tolia was named a Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (FASTMH).

Graduate Jacqueline Giovanniello was awarded a Ruth Kirschstein NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Student Emily Isko was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Graduate Joaqunia Delas Vives was named a 2022 Leading Edge Fellow.

Graduate Arkrup Banerjee was named a 2022 Searle Scholar.

Student Alexa Pagliaro was awarded an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Fellowship.

Student Bruno Gegenhuber’s Birnsteil Award nomination was highlighted honourable mention by the Max Birnstiel Foundation and the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology.

Graduate Justus Kebschull received a Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship for Neuroscience and was named a 2022 Packard Foundation Fellow.

Claudio Scuoppo (‘11) was awarded a Research Restart Award by The American Society of Hematology.

Sessen Daniel Iohannes was awarded a P.E.O. International Peace Scholarship.

Lucía Telléz Peréz was awarded a Fullbright Fellowship.

Bruno Gegenhuber was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Fellowship (F31) from the NIH/National Institute of Mental Health.

Danielle Ciren was awarded a Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Lyndsey Aguirre was awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Diogo Maia e Silva was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds.

Kristen Delevich received an NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Foundation.

Nilgun Tasdemir received an NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award.

Melanie Eckersley-Maslin was awarded a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Discovery Research Fellowship.

Jutus Kebschull was named the 2018 Larry Katz Memorial Lecturer, Neuronal Circuits meeting, CSHL.

Kathryn O’Neill and Jonathan Werner were awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships.

Laura Maiorino was awarded a JSMF Postdoctoral Fellowship Award in Understanding Dynamic and Multi-scale Systems.

Michelle Cilia was among the 102 scientists and researchers who received the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

Benjamin Berube and David Johnson were awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships.

Arkarup Bandyopadhyay was named a 2017 Simons Society of Fellows, Junior Fellow.

Monica Dus received a 2017 Sloan Research Fellowship in Neuroscience.

Elvin Wagenblast (’15) received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program. The award supports his research, “A cellular and molecular framework to understand human pre-leukemic mutations in AML”, in the lab of John Dick in Toronto.

Giorgia Battistoni was selected as a finalist for the 2016 Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation in a Graduate Student.

Oliver Fregoso(’10) became Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics at UCLA’s College of Life Sciences and the David Geffen School of Medicine.

Ian Peikon(’15) was named one of Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30” in science for his graduate work on the connectome.

Hiroki Asar i(’08) was appointed a Research Group Leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) at Monterotondo, Italy.

Jue Xiang Wang was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds.

Monica Dus received a Rita Allen Foundation Award and the Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship for Neuroscience. She was also nominated for the Golden Apple teaching award at the University of Michigan. Monica was also awarded the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.

Kaja Wasik was selected as a program participant at Entrepreneurship Lab (ELabNYC) Bio & Health Tech.

Annabel Romero Hernandez had one of her drawings selected by The Scientist magazine as their “Image of the Day”.

Nilgun Tasdemir received a Breakthrough Fellowship Award from the Department of Defense.

Katie McJunkin (’10) received an NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence award. She is currently working with Victor Ambros at the UMass Medical Center.

Elizabeth Bartom (née Thomas, ’04) was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at Northwestern University.

Giorgia Battistoni, Laura Maiorino and Georgi Yordanov were awarded Ph.D. fellowships from Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds to support their thesis research.

Dan Chitwood (’09) received the prestigious 2015 Early Career Award from the American Society for Plant Biologists. Dan was recognized for his outstanding, creative contributions to understanding plant development.

Chris Harvey (’08) was awarded an R01 Research Project Award from the NIH to support the research in his lab at Harvard. His group studies sensorimotor processing during spatial navigation.

François Bolduc(’08) was promoted to Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Adjunct Associate Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Niraj Tolia (’04) was promoted to Associate Professor in the Departments of Molecular Microbiology & Microbial Pathogenesis and Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis.

Zinaida Perova (’14) received a Marie Curie Fellowship to support her postdoctoral research at the LMB in Cambridge.

Amy Leung (’10) was awarded an K01Research Scientist Development Award from the NIH to support her work at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope. She is studying the role of long non-coding RNAs in diabetes.

Ian Peikon(’15) was honored with the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award for 2015 for his thesis work on the “connectome”. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in the biosciences.

Ray Ho received a Cutting-Edge Talent and Training Scholarship from the Ministry of Education of Taiwan.

Robert Aboukhalil was accepted into the Insight Data Science Fellows Program.

Jeremy Wilusz received a Rita Allen Foundation Award.

Monica Dus received the NARSAD Brain & Behavior Foundation award.

Devinn Lambert was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Elizabeth Murchison(’07) was honored with a 2014 Philip Leverhulme Prize in the field of Biological Sciences to recognize her work on transmissible cancers in Tazmanian devils and dogs.

Onyekachi Odoemene was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Fellowship from the NIH/National Eye Institute.

Niraj Tolia (’04) became an Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease as part of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The award recognizes Niraj‘s work on themolecular basis for and inhibition of red blood cell invasion by Plasmodium parasites.

Michelle Cilia (’04) received the Herbert L. Rothbart ARS Early Career Scientist of the Year Award from the USDA. Michelle was also a recipient of the 2014 Schroth Faces of the Future Award for her virology research.

Shraddha Pai(’10) was awarded the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Monica Dus(’08) was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Molcular, Cellular & Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan.

Ira Hall(’04) was promoted to Associate Professor at the University of Virginia. Ira was also appointed Associate Professor at Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis) and Associate Director of The Genome Institute.

Yaniv Erlich(’10) was appointed to the faculty of the New York Genome Center and Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University.

Brittany Cazakoff was awarded the 2012 Golden Key Graduate Scholar Award and a Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Yaniv Erlich(’10) was awarded a Career Awards at the Scientific Interface grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

Wei Wei(’08) received a prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship to support her neuroscience research.

Joaquina Delas Vives, Anja HohmannandJustus Kebschull were awarded Ph.D. fellowships from Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds.

Ji-Joon Song(’05) was promoted to Associate Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Zachary Lippman(’05) was promoted to Associate Professor at CSHL.

Melanie Eckersley-Maslin was awarded the poster prize at the EMBL meeting on Chromatin and Epigenetics, EMBO, Heidelberg.

Monica Dus(’08) received an NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award.

Colleen Carlston was selected into the National Science Foundation’s 2012 East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for U.S. Program.

Elizabeth Murchison(’07) was the recipient of the Eppendorf award for Young European Investigators and the MRC Jewellery Heirloom Award.

John Sheppard was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and received a Science & Engineering Graduate Fellowship from the Department of Defense.

Melanie Eckersley-Maslin was awarded a Keystone Symposium Traveling Fellowship. She was also awarded an American Society for Cell Biology travel fellowship to attend the annual conference.

Hiroshi Makino(’10) was awarded fellowships from the Uehara Memorial Foundation (Japan) and from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Jeremy Wilusz received an NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award.

Christopher Harvey (’08) received a Burroughs-Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface.

Oliver Tam(’10) was awarded a Long-Term Fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program.

Elizabeth Nakasone was selected to attend the AACR’s Translational Cancer Research for Basic Scientists Workshop.

Maria Joaquina Delas Vives was awarded a graduate fellowship from the la Caixa Foundation.

Elizabeth Murchison(’08) was one of Genome Technology Magazine’s Young Investigators of the Year for 2011 for her research on “Cancer in the Wilderness”. Liz also gave a lecture at the TED Global conference in Edinburgh.

Christopher Harvey(’08) was named the 2010 Larry Katz Memorial Lecturer for the Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Neuronal Circuits.

Yaniv Erlich was awarded the prestigious Harold M. Weintraub International Award for Graduate Studies. He was also named a 2010 Genome Technology Young Investigator.

Katie Liberatore was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Jeremy Wilusz(’09) received a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Amy Rappaport was selected to present at the 5th annual “Cracking the Code with the Bear” Research Symposium.

Elvin Wagenblast was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds.

Elizabeth Nakasone was awarded a US Army Medical Researchand Materiel Command Breast Cancer Research Program Predoctoral Fellowship.

Colin Malone(’10) received a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Joseph Calarco was awarded a research grant from the Fred C. Gloeckner Foundation.

Katie Liberatore was selected to attend the PepsiCo Company Day at the New York Academy of Sciences.

Elena Ezhkova received an NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award.