PhD Spring 2021
Shishir Biswas (Seifert Lab)
Sandeep Saxena (Seifert Lab)
Chelsea Weaver (Osborn Lab)
John Terbot III (Linnen Lab)

MS Spring 2021
Brad Osborne, MSB

PhD Fall 2020
Clifford Harpole (Cassone Lab)
Warlen Piedade (Famulski Lab)
Sruthi Purushothaman (Seifert Lab)

PhDSummer 2020
Cagney Coomer (Morris Lab)
Kim Vertacnik (Linnen Lab)

MSA Summer 2020
Jeff Chalfant, MSA (Pendergast Lab)
Bradford Hull, MSA (Harrison Lab)
Catherine Stanley, MSA (Cooper Lab)

PhD Spring 2020
Emily Bendall (Linnen Lab)
Luc Dunoyer (Seifert/Van Cleve Lab)
Tom Maigret (Weisrock Lab)

MSB Spring 2020
Kimberly Phelps (Biology Department)

PhD Fall 2018
Megan Rhodes (Osborn Lab)
Brittany Slabach (Crowley Lab)

Masters Fall 2018
Nick Carrara, MSA (Famulski Lab)
James Giordano, MSB
Yuxuan Xie, MSB

Congrats to our recent Fellowship and Award recipients!

Morgan & Merit Fellowships

Biology Merit Fellowship

Jeffrey Chalfant (Pendergast Lab) spring 2019

Kayla Titialii  (Morris Lab) spring 2019

Sandeep Saxena (Seifert Lab) spring 2019

Morgan Graduate Fellowship

Kara Jones (Weisrock Lab) spring 2019

Sruthi Purushothaman (Seifert Lab) fall 2018

Laura Krueger (Morris Lab) was awarded a  two-year CCTS TL1 Predoctoral Training Fellowship.

Chelsea Weaver (Osborn Lab) received the 2019 Woman's Club Endowed Fellowship 

Spring 2018

Cagney Coomer (Morris Lab) received 2018 MOSAIIC Award (Multicultural Opportunities, Strategies, and Institutional Inclusiveness Conference hosted by BCTC) for her work with NERD Squad.

Awards

A&S Outstanding TA Award Recipients 2018

Kat Sasser

Jim Shaffer

Biology’s Outstanding TAs for 2017-2018

Jeff Chalfant

*Luc Dunoyer

Allison McLaughlin

Tim Salzman

*Kat Sasser

*Jim Shaffer

* nominated for College Competition

Scherr Special Opportunity Award

Sruthi Purushothaman (Seifert Lab): The Scherr Opportunity Award gave Sruthi the opportunity to visit Dr. James Monaghan’s lab at the Northeastern University and learn the gene-editing protocol for axolotls. She says: My thesis work has reached a crucial point where I need to use gene-editing techniques to functionally test the mechanism of genes involved in axolotl limb development and regeneration. With the recent
publication of the axolotl genome, it is now possible to target genes and leverage CRISPR/Cas9 technology. I was taken through the elaborate protocol during my 5-day visit and we used standardized protocols from Tanaka lab (IMP, Austria) and Monaghan lab (Northeastern University).  I was able to get an evident phenotype with the CRISPR injections I performed during my visit and I am now ready to set up the CRISPR pipeline in our lab at UK. 

Cody Saraceno (Smith lab): In May of 2018, I was fortunate enough to receive funding from the Scherr Special Opportunity Award to travel to the lab of Dr. Robb Krumlauf, located at the Stowers Institute for Medical
Research. While there, I learned how perform in situ hybridization (ISH) on lamprey embryos. ISH is a technique that allows one to visualize the spatial and temporal expression patterns of genes in fixed tissues as a means to study their regulation, function or interactions with other gene products. In particular, the gene I was
primarily interested in studying was the lamprey Vasa gene. Vasa is recognized as a universal marker in all
developing metazoan embryos for the primordial germ cells (PGCs), which eventually give rise to the mature gametes in the adult organism. Because of this opportunity provided to me by the Scherr Special Opportunity Award, I am now able to utilize this technique in Jeramiah Smith's lab at the University of Kentucky in the
service of studying germline development in sea lamprey, which will form a significant contribution to my
thesis work. 

Fellowships

Biology Merit Fellowship - The Biology Merit Fellowship is awarded to a PhD student in their 1st or 2nd year who has demonstrated exceptional promise. The fellowship provides a stipend commensurate with a TA salary for a pre-quals student and tuition. This year we awarded a fellowship to:

Jeffrey Chalfant (Pendergast Lab) spring 2019

Laura Krueger (Morris Lab) spring 2019

Sandeep Saxena (Seifert Lab) spring 2019

Morgan Graduate Fellowship - The Morgan Graduate Fellowship is awarded to a PhD student who has passed their qualifying exam, has demonstrated meritorious progress toward their degree, and has clear plans for enhancing their dissertation. The fellowship provides a stipend commensurate with a TA salary and tuition for either 1 or 2 terms. This year we awarded a fellowship to:

Kara Jones (Weisrock Lab) spring 2019

Sruthi Purushothaman (Seifert Lab) fall 2018

Lyman T. Johnson Diversity Fellowship - Awarded to Graduate Students who contribute to the University of
Kentucky’s student diversity.

Oluwabukola “Bookie” Omotola (Pendergast Lab) fall 2018

Kayla Titialii (Morris Lab) fall 2018

Honors

Charles Cassone (Cassone Lab) was awarded the Condor Instruments Excellence Award by the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms for his abstract “Temperature Entrainment of the Circadian Clock of the Enteric Bacterium
Enterobacter aerogenes".

Kaylynne Glover (Crowley Lab) was elected to the positions of Director of Legislative Affairs and the Social Justice Advocate of the Midwest Region of the National Association of Graduate Professional Students (NAGPS). She was also elected as the External Affairs Officer for the University of Kentucky Graduate Student Congress.

 Warlen Piedade (Famulski Lab) received Outstanding Poster Presentation Honors at the 2018 Annual Neuroscience Meeting, Louisville, Kentucky.

Kayla Titialii (Morris Lab) received 1^st place honors for her poster “” she presented at the Barnstable Brown
Diabetes and Obesity Research Day at the University of Kentucky. She also received a Travel Scholarship from the
Society for the Advancement of Chicano/Latinos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and a Professional Development Fund Scholarship from the Center for Graduate Diversity at the University of Kentucky.

Kristyn Van Der Meulen (Famulski Lab) received Outstanding Poster Presentation Honors at the 2018 Annual
Neuroscience Meeting, Louisville, Kentucky.

fall 2018

Awards

Cagney Coomer (Morris Lab) received the Community Service Award at the 2017 Women of Color STEM Conference in Detroit, MI and received the 2018 MLK Leadership Award from the Kentucky MLK Commission.

Megan Rhoads (Osborn Lab) Competed and was selected as one of the onsite trainee poster competition winners for her poster titled "Prevalence of Spontaneous Hypertension in African Green Monkeys is Age-related" at the American Heart Association Council on Hypertension September 2017 meeting in San Francisco, CA.

Chelsea Weaver (Osborn Lab) was awarded a $700 Ribble mini-grant that allowed her to travel to St. Kitts for 10 days this summer and learn various techniques for working with the African Green Monkeys within the colony.

Fellowships

Brittany Slabach (Crowley Lab) Dean's Competitive Graduate Fellowship, College of Arts and Sciences, UK - Spring 2018.

Honors

Kayla Titialii (Morris Lab) attended the 2017 Women of Color STEM Conference as graduate student mentor.

Ren Guerriero (O’Hara Lab) Quantitative EEG and Neurofeedback Certificate Program Stens Corporation, July 25-28^th, 2017. This four-day course included lecture and large amount of hands-on work with quantitative EEG (electroencephalography) and neurofeedback.  Topics covered included basic neurophysiology and neuroanatomy, instrumentation, electrode placement, and neurofeedback.