Former Graduate Students
Where-abouts of recently graduated students from our program
Mary Adedoyin
Mary Adedoyin graduated in 2003 from the University College London in the UK. Her BSc degree is in Pharmacology and Physiology. For her research there, Mary worked on the effects of Gabapentin on neuropathic pain following ablation of lamina 1 neurons using in vivo electrophysiology methods. After graduation she worked as an in vivo neuropharmacology research associate at Dynogen Pharmaceuticals in North Carolina where she conducted research involving cystometry experiments on animal models to investigate the effect of drugs on the bladder in an effort to identify therapies for overactive bladder syndromes. Her main interest is focused on better understanding of the mechanism of chronic pain and its modulation to help develop more efficacious therapeutic drugs with reduced side effects.
She joined Georgetown interdisciplinary program in neuroscience (IPN) program in 2005 because of the parallels of her research interests and those of the scientists in the department. In 2006 for her thesis research she joined Dr Joseph Neale’s lab in 2006 whose lab focuses on understanding the neurobiology of N-acetylaspartate glutamate (NAAG) and NAAG peptidase function in neuronal function. The focus of Mary’s thesis dissertation is to investigate the role of NAAG in the brain following inflammatory pain using in vitro electrophysiology techniques.
Mary’s other interests involves contributing to her local community by helping to raise funds towards a scholarship for minority students, teaching a group of first graders on weekends, volunteering as a pharmacy assistant at free clinic pharmacies. She also enjoys taking long walks as a personal hobby.
Mary successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation and is currently working as a post-doctoral fellow in neurobiology at University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, a top 5 biomedical research center.
Tenley Archer
Tenley returned to us from Marlboro College. She has been working with Prof. Elena Casey as a Ph.D. student since 2003. Her interests are in developmental biology.
Tenley successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation and is currently working in the laboratory of Scott Pomeroy at Children's Hospital, Boston, studying the mechanisms of medulloblastoma formation.
Doug Blackiston
Doug entered the PhD program in 2002 with a BS in Biology and a minor in Education. He is broadly interested in developmental biology, evolution and ecology. He joined the laboratories of Profs. Martha Weiss and Elena Casey and developed a project that crossed several disciplines. Doug was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student Award on October 16, 2006.
In May of 2007, Doug defended his Ph.D. thesis. He is conducting post-doctoral work in Mike Levin's lab at Tufts University.
Chris Drummond
Chris entered the PhD program in 2000 after receiving a BS in Biology from the University of Maryland in 2000 and an AB in Semiotics from Brown University in 1993. His research interests are in the ecology, evolution and genetics of plants under the direction of Prof. Matthew Hamilton. In collaboration with Prof. Martha Weiss, his work focused on the genetic architecture of floral color change in the genus Lupinus, using AFLP and microsatellite markers to construct a linkage map for QTL mapping of floral phenotypes. Chris won several awards including the University Fellow Award and an NSF pre-doctoral fellowship.
Chris successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation in January, 2006. His dissertation, "Phylogenetic relationship, mating systems and population structure in Lupinus (Leguminosae)," received the prestigious Harold N. Glassman Award for outstanding graduate dissertation, presented during the May 2007 Graduation Ceremonies.
Chris is a post-doc at the Center for Research on Invasive Species and Small Populations, University of Idaho.
Genevieve Fouda
Giny entered the PhD program in 2003. She graduated with highest honors in her medical school class from the University of Yaounde in Cameroon. She is studying malaria infections in pregnant women and has joined the Taylor laboratory.
Giny received the Young Investigator Award at the Pan-African Malaria meeting in 2005.
Giny defended her Ph.D. dissertation in June of 2006. She is a post-doctoral fellow at Duke University.
Quincy Gibson
Quincy joined the PhD program in 2001 after receiving her BS degree in both Zoology and Psychology from the University of Maryland. She joined the laboratory of Prof. Janet Mann to study the behavior of bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia. Her general research interests include social complexity, individual variability, and behavioral development. More specifically, her research focuses on the development of, and variation in, social relationships in wild bottlenose dolphin calves.
Quincy has received several awards and honors, including the Animal Behavior Society’s Grant-in-aid of Research Award (2002), the American Society of Mammalogists Grant-in-aid of Research Award (2003), the Graduate School Research Travel Grant (2003), and the award for Innovative Research from the Graduate School (2003). She is also an University Fellow (2001-2006).
Quincy successfully defended her thesis in June of 2007.
Joel Kamda
Joel entered the PhD program in 2002 after receiving his MD from the University of Yaounde, Cameroon. His interests are in immunology and parasitology. He has joined the laboratory of Prof. Steve Singer to study Giardia infection and the host's response.
Joel successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation in July of 2007. He is currently a fourth year chief resident in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital.
Haibei Luo
Haibei is from Fudan University, in the People's Republic of China. He joined the department of Biology in August 2003. Most of the time, he is in the laboratory of Dr. Heidi Elmendorf investigating the cellular and biochemistry of Giardia lamblia. He is currently focusing on investigations of cytosolic and cytoskeletal proteins necessary for attachment of Giardia lamblia to solid structures such as slides and cells.
Outside of the laboratory work, Haibei enjoys reading.
Congratulations to Haibei for the successful defense of his dissertation!
Rebecca (Becca) Mitsch Koehler
Becca entered the PhD program in 2001 after receiving her BS degree in Biology from University of Notre Dame. Her interests are in molecular genetics and in teaching. She is investigating transcriptional regulation of the ADE genes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae under the direction of Prof. Ronda Rolfes.
Becca participated in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Los Angeles for one year after graduation from Notre Dame. She served as the biology department representative to the Graduate Student Organization during the 2002-2003 academic year, and was active on the social and service committees. Becca is the President of the Graduate Student Organization for the 2003-2004 academic year. She won an award in April 2003 for Innovative Research from the Graduate School.
In addition to her academic interests, Becca played defense on the department intermural soccer team for two years and enjoys playing softball. Outside of school, she volunteers for the Hospices of the National Capital Region as well as enjoying gardening and painting.
Becca defended her Ph.D. thesis in April, 2007. She is a post-doctoral associate at the Henry Jackson Foundation.
Dan Kjar
Dan entered the PhD program in 2000 after receiving a BS degree. His interests are in ecology and conservation biology. He has been studying insect diversity and the consequence of invasions by alien species at Dyke Marsh, VA.
Dan successfully completed his MS degree in the Barrows' laboratory in October of 2002, and defended his PhD dissertation in 2005. He was the recipient of the department's Graduate Student Award in 2004.
Dan successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation. He is a tenure-track faculty member at Elmira College in New York.
Click here for a link to his personal web page.
Heather Mallory
Heather joined Dr. Martha Weiss’ lab in the summer of 2005. Her research is cross discipline, utilizing both neurobiological techniques and behavior to better understand the learning ability and foraging behaviors of insects. She examines how an animal’s experiences, practically early in life, shape the brain and behavior of the adult animal, using crickets as a model organism. She also studies the foraging behavior of praying mantids, with a focus on their use of olfaction.
Heather graduated from The University of Arizona in May 2002 with a Bachelors of Science in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. After graduation she spent several years as a research technician at the U of A. She studied, among other projects, host plant choice in pipevine swallowtail butterflies with Dr. Dan Papaj, and developmental neurobiology with Dr. Lynne Oland in Dr. Leslie Tolbert’s lab.
As an Arizona native Heather misses the desert and plans to return to the west eventually, but has come to love the seasons and beauty of the DC area. In her free time she cooks, plays with her boys (two mutts), knits, and tries to enjoy all the great things DC has to offer.
Heather successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation in August of 2011. She is now an Adjunct Professor at the George Washington University and also works on writing manuscripts and post-doctoral proposals.
Catherine Brown McCall
Catherine entered the PhD program in 2003 with a BS degree from Penn State and she investigated butterfly ecology with Prof. Edd Barrows.
Cathy successfully defended her M.S. degree in 2005.
Zhuo (June) Meng
June has joined the laboratory of Prof. Elena Casey in 2005 to study the molecular mechanisms of neural development in the frog Xenopus laevis.
June completed her Masters thesis on June 23, 2008 and is working at Systems biosciences in Mountain View, CA.
Simon Metenou
Simon entered the PhD program in 2000 after receiving MS degree in biochemistry from Yaounde, Cameroon. His interests are in immunology and he has joined the Taylor laboratory.
Simon successfully defended his dissertation in June of 2006. He is a post-doctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.
Amanda Munson
Amanda entered the PhD program in 1999 after obtaining a BS in Biology from University of Michigan. Her interests are in molecular and cellular biology. She studied the small G-protein Arl1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae under the direction of Prof. Anne Rosenwald. She received funding for two consecutive years from the ARCS foundation.
Amanda enjoys beating herself up on the soccer field while playing on the womens and co-ed intramural teams as well as enjoying other outdoor athletic activities.
Amanda successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation in 2005 and is currently Assistant Professor of Pharmacogenomics at Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA.
Hilary North
Hilary joined the Department of Biology through the IPN program (Interdisciplinary Program in Neurosciences) and worked in the laboratory of Prof. Maria Donoghue. She is interested in the development of the cortex.
Hilary successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation in September of 2010. She is currently working as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Neurology at Northwestern Medical School.
Deborah Ladner O'Donnell
Deborah Ladner O’Donnell became a student at Georgetown University in 2005. She graduated summa cum laude from Emory University with a Bachelors of Science in Environmental Studies and earned a Masters of Science in Entomology from the University of Maryland. Ever since she received her first bug bottle as a preschooler, Debbie has been fascinated by insect ecology. Her current research focuses on factors that affect the ability of mosquito populations to transmit pathogens.
She was awarded a Cosmos Grant in 2007 and a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant in 2008 in support of her research. When she’s not rearing mosquitoes, Debbie loves to travel to new places, brush up on her painting skills or get lost in a captivating novel.
Debbie successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation and is now the proud mother of a four-month-old baby boy!
Crystal Rogers
Crystal graduated from UCLA in 2001 where she learned to love all of Biology. She has a strong background in evolution and ecology but has also worked in a neuroscience research group at Cedars Sinai Medical Center.
Crystal has joined the laboratory of Prof. Elena Casey for her research work on neural development in the frog Xenopus laevis. She received the Outstanding Graduate Student in Biology award in October of 2007.
Crystal successfully defended her Ph.D dissertation in January of 2009. She is currently working in Dr. Marianne Bronner's laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, studying neural crest development.
Brooke Sargeant
Brooke entered the PhD program in 2000 with a BS. Her interests are in animal behavior, specifically she investigated social learning and development of foraging tactics in bottlenose dolphins under the direction of Prof. Janet Mann. Brooke received a prestigious NSF pre-doctoral fellowship award in 2001 to support her studies. She was voted graduate student of the year in 2005.
Brooke successfully defended her dissertation in 2005! She is post-doctoral associate at the Florida International University.
Go to Brooke's personal homepage!
Libing (Steve) Shen
Libing is from Shanghai, China. He graduated from Fudan University in 2006 and then came to United States to pursue a Ph.D. degree in biology. Now he is in Professor Chris Elsik’s lab. The research of the laboratory mainly focuses on bioinformatics and genomics.
His personal research interests are molecular evolution and evolution of development (evo-devo). Reading is his biggest hobby, especially history and culture.
Congratulations to Libing for completing his Masters degree in July 2011!
Shahram Solaymani-Mohammadi
Originally from Iran, Shahram joined the Department of Biology in January of 2008. Shahram holds a Bachelors degree in Veterinary Medicine, and a Masters in Medical Parasitology from the School of Public Health and Institute of Public Health Research, Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
Before joining the Department of Biology, he worked as a Visiting Researcher at the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville. His work there focused on signal transduction mechanisms in the human pathogen Entamoeba histolytica. He also developed enhanced molecular diagnostic modalities for the rapid diagnosis of human amebiasis. Currently, he works with Dr. Steven Singer on mechanisms of host's immune responses to infections in the murine models of giardiasis.
Visit Shahram's Website!
Shahram successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation in September of 2011 and is now working as a post-doctoral fellow in the Division of Immune Regulation at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology (LIAI) in La Jolla, CA.
David Soria
David was a graduate exchange student from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain. He entered the Biology PhD program in 2001. He is interested in evolutionary biology, and worked in the laboratory of Prof. Matthew Hamilton. His research project focused on the molecular evolution of the chloroplast genome in the Lecythidaceae tropical tree family.
David successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis in April 2007. He is a post-doctoral associate at the National Geographic Association.
Ernest Tako-Ayuk
Ernest entered the Ph.D. program in Jan. 2003 after obtaining a MD from the University of Yaounde in Cameroon. His interests are in immunology and parasitology. He has joined the laboratory of Prof. Steven Singer where his research project focuses on the changes in gene expression in mice that are infected with the parasite Giardia lamblia. He is also investigating the role of innate immune mechanisms in the elimination of this protozoan.
Congratulations to Ernest for the successful completion of his dissertation!
Smilja Teodorovic
Smilja entered the PhD program in 2001 after obtaining her BS degree in microbiology from Virginia Tech. She is interested in the molecular biology of parasites and joined the Elmendorf laboratory. Her project investigated the occurance and function of sterile transcripts in Giardia. Smilja received a Sigma Xi Grant in Aid of Research and a University Dissertation Award, 2005-2006
Smilja defended her Ph.D. dissertation with distinction in October of 2006.
Audrey Thevenon
Audrey entered the PhD program in 2003 and has joined the laboratory of Prof. Diane Taylor. Audrey is from France and enjoys playing soccer.
Audrey defended her MS in 2006 and her Ph.D. dissertation in 2009. She most recently worked as a Research Assistant and a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant in the Department of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Pharmacology at the University of Hawaii.
Divya Uma
Divya joined the department during the summer of 2004 after receiving a Masters Degree in Biochemistry from the University of Mysore, India. She is interested in examining how both predators and prey use a range of sensory cues to detect each other; and, by identifying these cues to understand how evolution shapes predator-prey interactions. Divya is pursuing her research with Prof. Martha Weiss. Her work has been supported by a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant from NSF, grants from Animal Behavioral Society, American Museum of Natural History, American Arachnological Society, Washington Biologists Field Club and Sigma Xi. In August 2009, Divya was awarded the Murray F. Buell award for the outstanding oral paper presented at the 2009 Ecological Society of America's annual meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
When not thinking about a new experiment in the lab, Divya enjoys hiking, painting, and playing the veena, an Indian string instrument.
Divya successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation and is now a post-doctoral fellow in the Psychology department at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is working in the lab of Dr. Jens Herberholtz, using neural imaging of crayfish to answer questions about behavioral decision-making.
Jennifer Urbanski
Jenn entered Dr. Peter Armbruster’s lab in 2005 after receiving a BS in Biology and a minor in Art History from Canisius College in Buffalo. Her current research focuses on the molecular, physiological, and evolutionary underpinnings of photoperiodic diapause in the mosquito Aedes albopictus. Her awards include the Cosmos Club’s Young Scholars Award and the Entomological Society of America's President's Prize for the best student oral presentation in physiology, biochemistry, toxicology or molecular biology at the 2007 annual meeting.
Jenn’s outside interests include racquetball, rockclimbing, and playing intramural football, softball and volleyball with the biology grad team Tenacious DNA.
Jennifer successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation in April of 2011 and is currently working as a staff scientist for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Colleen Walls
Colleen entered the PhD program after spending a year as a technician in Dr. Heidi Elmendorf's laboratory. Colleen received her AB from Smith College where she studied the molecular biology of parasitic worms. She studied the mechanisms of transcription in Giardia lamblia with Prof. Heidi Elmendorf.
Colleen was named as a University Fellow (2003-2008). She completed her thesis and has begun a post-doctoral fellowship at the UHSUS.
Congratulations to Colleen for the successful defense of her dissertation!
Jana Watson
Jana entered the Ph.D. program in 2000 after obtaining a BS in biology from Stanford University. Her research interests are in animal behavior especially as it relates to sexual selection and she has been studying female mating strategies and sexual coercion in Bottlenose Dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia under the leadership of Prof. Janet Mann.
Jana has received an impressive list of honors and awards including the Clare Boothe Luce Scholarship (2000-2003), the Sigma Xi Research Award (2002), the National Geographic Society Research Grant Award (2002), was named as a University Fellow (2000-2004), and was part of the Georgetown intramural co-ed soccer 2002 championship team.
When Jana is not on a boat or in front of a computer she likes to spend her time playing sports, SCUBA diving, taking pictures, reading, and refinishing old furniture.
Go to Jana's personal webpage!
Jana successfully defended her dissertation thesis on April 15, 2005 earning distinction! Her dissertation work was so wonderful that she received the prestigious Harold N. Glassman Dissertation Award!
