Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

Stephanie Wappel credits everyone in the Casey lab with encouraging her to do her best work. (Courtesy Elena Casey)

By Katherine Morrissey

Just entering the Georgetown School of Medicine, Stephanie Wappel is taking her first steps toward life as a doctor. Passionate about medicine and excited for the challenges ahead, Wappel is finding more connections than she expected between her undergraduate work with Dr. Elena Casey and her graduate studies.

“My undergraduate work with Dr. Casey actually prepared me more than I thought for medical school,” says Wappel. “First, the Casey lab was a very stimulating learning environment, where everyone is encouraged to work hard and do their best work. Also, one of our first classes at the School of Medicine is Embryology. After my research in early neural development at the Casey lab, I am much more familiar with stages of development and the complex pathways involved.”

Looking back, Wappel credits the community and sheer variety of lab members (post-doctorate researchers, undergraduate and graduate students) with playing a major role in creating a stimulating and supportive research environment.

“Dr. Casey fostered a wonderful working environment in her lab,” Wappel explains. “Every person in the lab helped each other, participating in each person’s particular research project and their discoveries and/or frustrations.”

Just how connected the Casey lab members are can be seen at the annual undergraduate senior thesis symposium. “Most of the graduate students and two of the post-doctoral fellows in the lab attended our thesis symposium,” says Wappel. “It really meant a lot to me that the people in my lab were so supportive of my work, even though they were also busy with their own research.”

Wappel’s thesis project was an investigation of two genes, Sox2 and Sox3, and their role in the eye development of Xenopus laevis, the African claw-toed frog. The work came with significant challenges, but Dr. Casey’s willingness to always sit down and talk through problems helped Wappel immensely.

“I really learned that it’s important to speak up and be able to address issues or concerns,” Wappel explains. “I was very grateful that Dr. Casey is such an approachable person who was willing to work with me or other students when a certain step of the project was not progressing.”

Wappel was accepted to Georgetown School of Medicine through the Early Assurance Program and was a recipient of the Taylor-Weber Memorial Scholarship for 2006-2007. An active participant in the Georgetown community, she is a member of the Georgetown University Chapter of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, and the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. She was very active in the Georgetown Breast Cancer Outreach Club as an undergrad and hopes to continue fundraising and promoting awareness about breast cancer while in medical school and afterward.

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