Graduate Student News

2024 Master’s Merit Scholarship Recipient

Ritika Sibal of the Knott Lab is this year’s recipient of the Master’s Merit Scholarship for continuing MS students. This scholarship is awarded to a current MS student who stands out in their studies.

Ritika is a second-year master’s student in the Knott Primate Ecology and Conservation Lab. During her undergraduate career at the University of Michigan, Ritika used machine learning to analyze and interpret bottlenose dolphin swimming patterns. For her Master’s research, she continues to study movement by using computer vision and thermal imaging to quantitatively characterize orangutan locomotion. This summer, she will be traveling to Indonesia to conduct her fieldwork. In her free time, Ritika enjoys taking long walks with her dog while sipping on Boba tea.

Congratulations, Ritika!

2024 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Recipients and Honorable Mentions

The awardees and honorable mentions for the 2024 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) competition were recently posted and several Biology students were recognized. MCBB PhD student Kristen Harder of the McCall Lab, Biology PhD student Dylan Mankel of the Marlow Lab, and Biology PhD student Elif Ozsen of the Chantranupong Lab were awarded with 3-year graduate research fellowships. Biology PhD students Catherine Gill of the Gilmore Lab and Victoria Guarino and Yu (Emily) Yang of the Wunderlich Lab received honorable mentions.

Kristen’s research focuses on regulated cell death, a necessary process involved in development and disease. Using Drosophilaas a model organism, they will investigate phagocytic cell death in the brain. Phagocytosis involves a variety of “find me” and “eat-me” signals, proteins, and receptors, and Kristen aims to understand the mechanism of these various molecules and genes. In the brain, phagocytosis occurs when glial cells engulf dendritic spines and synapses during synaptic pruning. Understanding this mechanism will uncover more about neurological disease.

Dylan specializes in understanding microbial life within its physical, geochemical, and mineralogical context. His work focuses on extreme environments, places that are analogous to conditions on Mars and ocean worlds and resemble some of the earliest habitats here on Earth. By extension, the microorganisms living there provide a unique window into the physical and metabolic limits of life, and how life may have evolved and what it might look like today in these far-off places. Now supported by the NSF GRFP, he will continue his work on chimneys collected from some of the deepest and hottest hydrothermal systems currently known. He will be utilizing modern sequencing and microscopy approaches in order to derive the fundamental rules governing microbial community structure, activity, and biogeochemical impacts within these unique rock substrates.

Elif drew inspiration from her previous work at Rutgers University on neuronal microtubules. She proposed to elucidate the mechanisms by which microglia—the immune cells of the brain—alter their shape upon activation. To define this process, she focused on Golgi outposts—satellite organelles that are critical for microtubule organization and driving changes in cellular morphology, but whose function in microglia remains unknown. As a graduate student, Elif will build upon her interest in neuronal cell biology to study how signaling pathways and organelles are remodeled across the unique cellular architecture of neurons. She will focus on nutrient sensing, an evolutionarily conserved and lysosomal-dependent process that is poorly understood in the brain. She will develop high-resolution imaging methods to reveal the spatiotemporal dynamics of nutrient sensing and define how these dynamics are coupled to lysosomal state at a subcellular scale. Her work will advance our understanding of how neurons sense nutrients to maintain health and how this process goes awry in diseases such as neurodegeneration and epilepsy.

Catherine is a first-year Cell & Molecular Biology PhD student in the Gilmore lab, which applies molecular, genetic, cellular and biochemical techniques to study a family of transcription factors called the Rel/NF-kB family.

Victoria recently joined the Wunderlich Lab which investigates the tasks, architecture, robustness, and adaptability of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) using the Drosophila early embryonic patterning system. Victoria's research project aims to further understand how shadow enhancers function by developing both synthetic transcription factors and enhancers to measure mRNA dynamics in transgenic flies. Her work will hopefully impact the fields of gene regulation, developmental biology, and human disease.

Emily is studying non-genetic factors of immune activation using fruit flies. Immune activation is a tightly controlled process, as over-activation leads to autoimmunity, while under-activation lets bacteria proliferate unchecked. However, even genetically identical organisms react differently to an infection leading to survival or death. Using bioluminescent bacteria she can track infection progress within the fly. In addition, fluorescently tagging the host immune response will report back on the exact time of immune activation. These results generate a new visual tracking method for studying immunity.

2024 Marion R. Kramer Scholarship Recipients

Jillian Ness, an MCBB PhD student in the Wunderlich Lab, and Kathryn Atherton, a PhD candidate in the Bioinformatics program and a BU URBAN program trainee working in the Bhatnagar Lab, received the 2024 Marion R. Kramer Scholarship.

In Jillian's research, she and her team studied how enhancers work in development, focusing on redundant enhancers, or "shadow enhancers," linked to developmental genes. These enhancers are remarkably abundant in animals and can compensate under conditions of stress to drive normal development.

She is exploring how these enhancers function, as well as how they are created and maintained in animal genomes. Her work involves creating simplified enhancer models in Drosophila and analyzing how they work. In parallel, she performs evolutionary studies on shadow enhancer sequences to understand genomic events from which the sequences originate. Ultimately, she aims to understand enhancer sequences to improve predictions of perturbations that lead to developmental disease in embryos.

Kathryn's research focuses on how urbanization impacts tree health via the microbes that live on tree leaves and roots and in soil. She aims to understand how these microbes interact with each other and trees by predicting their genetic functions and building networks of their interactions. This summer, she is working with Speak for the Trees Boston to identify places where their tree planting and giveaway initiatives on private land can intersect with the City of Boston’s aims to expand Boston’s tree canopy.

Congratulations Jillian and Kathryn!

Morgan Bennett-Smith Receives Dana Wright Fellowship

Morgan Bennett-Smith, a second year PhD student in the Buston Lab, received the Dana Wright Fellowship.

Morgan's research explores the ways that the clownfish - sea anemone mutualism changes during different conditions, in particular, climatic stress events. He works on two model systems: the Red Sea clownfish (Amphiprion bicinctus) at sites in Saudi Arabia, and the orange clownfish (Amphiprion percula) at sites in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. Specifically, Morgan is interested in the impacts of coral reef bleaching events on both mutualistic partners.

This fellowship was established in memory of Dana Wright (CAS ’00), an alum of the BU Marine Program. After completing her studies, Wright went on to work in research in right whale acoustics at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod.

Congratulations, Morgan!

Abigail Robinson Receives 2023 Thomas H. Kunz Award

Abigail Robinson, a Biology PhD student in the Mullen Lab, received the 2024 Thomas H. Kunz Award. The Kunz Award recognizes and celebrates exemplary contributions by an early or mid-career scientist to the study of bats, including measurable impacts on bat research and/or conservation, student mentoring, public education, and collaborations.

In her research, Abby studies how predator avoidance strategies, like mimicry, shape communities. Batesian mimicry occurs when palatable mimics gain protection from predators by evolving phenotypic resemblance to a chemically defended model species. 

Using a tri-trophic community ecology approach, her work aims to understand factors that maintain Batesian mimicry in native North American butterfly populations. Understanding how mimicry impacts community dynamics will give valuable insight into how mimetic species may respond to changing environments.

This award provides support for Ecology, Behavior & Evolution (EBE) PhD candidates who have completed the qualifying exam, with a preference for those conducting field research in the award year. The award was established in 2015 in recognition and appreciation of Professor Thomas H. Kunz’s mentorship. His current and former graduate students established this award to serve as a lasting legacy of Tom’s contributions at BU and beyond. Learn more about Dr. Kunz and how you can support this award.

Congratulations, Abby!

Alejandro Rondon Ortiz Receives Brenton R. Lutz Award

Alejandro Rondon Ortiz, a Biology PhD student in the Wolozin Lab, received the 2024 Brenton R. Lutz Award. 

In his study, Alejandro investigated the protein interaction networks (PINs) from the autophagy receptor SQSTM1/p62. SQSTM1/p62 regulates proteostasis by degrading cellular cargo, including protein aggregates. He employed proximity labeling and proteomics to dissect SQSTM1/p62 PINs under various conditions and revealed novel interacting proteins.

Using these approaches, he demonstrated that dysregulation of proteostasis, induced by small molecules or tau aggregates, shifts SQSTM1/p62 interactors towards stress-associated PINs. This shift is also observed in proteostasis-related diseases like neurodegeneration. These findings highlight the adaptive nature of SQSTM1 PINs and also offer PINs datasets, which can be potentially exploited to explore novel therapeutic targets.

This award provides support for PhD candidates conducting research in neurobiology or neuroscience and have made significant contributions to their field. Brenton R. Lutz was the first person to receive an MD/PhD at Boston University, receiving his PhD in 1916. He later became a Professor and Chairman of BU’s Department of Biology. Dr. Lutz also gave the first University Lecture at BU on December 11, 1950 “The Living Blood Vessels.”

Congratulations, Alejandro!

Caroline Fleming Receives McLeod Annual Award

Caroline Fleming, a 4th year Ph.D. candidate in the Rotjan Lab, received the 2024 McLeod Annual Award. She is an eco-physiologist who studies the energetic trade-offs marine organisms make under local and global change.

Her research focuses on the temperate coral, Astrangia poculata, which lives in highly-urbanized, rapidly changing coastal ecosystems up and down the east coast of the United States where it is exposed to nutrient pollution, rising sea surface temperatures, and other stressors. In contrast to tropical corals that require their endosymbiotic algae to survive, Astrangia lives in a facultative symbiosis: existing with and relatively without its symbiont at the same environmental conditions.

This system provides an interesting opportunity to probe the relative contributions of auto and heterotrophy to its energetic budget without stressing the coral into a “bleached” state, and understand the cost and benefits of coral-algal symbioses.

This science will provide critical insight into the mechanisms of coral resilience, which is increasingly important in an era of global change. Caroline uses empirical, theoretical, and quantitative approaches to investigate coral energetic dynamics, and is profoundly grateful to have McLeod support for this work.

The Warren-McLeod Graduate Fellowship in Marine Science was established by Patricia Warren (the granddaughter of BU’s 1st President, William Fairfield Warren) in 1990 to support graduate students in the BU Marine Program (BUMP). Guy McLeod was Patricia’s brother-in-law and the long-time director of research at the New England Aquarium. He was a marine biologist, whose scholarship focused on the role of iron, vanadium, and other metal ions on the physiological ecology of marine animals. 

Congratulations, Caroline!

2024 McLeod Summer Award Recipients

Maria Ingersoll, Biology PhD candidate in the Davies and Gilmore Labs, and Mu-Han Chen, a Biology PhD student in the Davies Lab, received the 2023 McLeod Summer Award.

Maria studies the immune system of cnidarians, including coral and sea anemones, specifically in reference to their symbiosis with a photosynthetic algae that lives inside of their gastrodermal cells. Her research leverages a combination of next-generation sequencing, molecular biology, and environmentally relevant susceptibility analyses to perform the following: 1) characterize the influence of symbiosis and starvation on gene expression and stress response programming in the sea anemone E. pallida (Valadez-Ingersoll et al., ProcB 2024), 2) use single-cell RNA sequencing and proteomics to develop an atlas of cell-type composition and gene expression across symbiotic states in the coral O. arbuscula, and 3) use Split Pool Ligation-based Transcriptome sequencing and targeted molecular assays to uncover the molecular specificity of the host immune system for specific symbiont strains in E. pallida.

Her research provides a substantive contribution to the fields of evolution (characterizing immune systems in basal Metazoa), cell biology (describing the transcriptomic profiles of cell types in previously unexplored taxa), and conservation biology (informing how cnidarian holobionts respond to environmental stress).

Mu-Han’s proposed research aims to identify functional interactions between Symbiodiniaceae and bacteria, further exploring their collective impacts on the coral host response to environmental change. She will leverage recent advancements in transcriptomics, metabolomics, and NanoSIP imaging techniques to gain a comprehensive understanding of Symbiodiniaceae-bacteria interactions within coral holobionts.

To address this overarching objective, she will use the sea anemone Aiptasia (Exaiptasia pallida) and its endosymbiotic Symbiodiniaceae as a model system for cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis. Building upon this Aiptasia-Symbiodiniaceae framework, she aim to integrate bacteria to create a more complex system encompassing cnidarian-symbiont- bacteria interactions. In the upcoming summer of 2024, her primary focus will be on characterizing ex hospite interactions between free-living Symbiodiniaceae and their associated bacteria. She will examine variation in symbiont physiology, microbial composition, and gene expression profiles between axenic Symbiodiniaceae strains and their xenic counterparts.

Results of her proposed research will elucidate the intricate interplay among microscopic symbiotic partners within the cnidarian holobiont. These endeavors hold the potential for invaluable insights, reshaping our understanding of symbiosis with potential future applications for bioengineering in corals, particularly in light of challenges posed by climate change.

The Warren-McLeod Graduate Fellowship in Marine Science was established by Patricia Warren (the granddaughter of BU’s 1st President, William Fairfield Warren) in 1990 to support graduate students in the BU Marine Program (BUMP). Guy McLeod was Patricia’s brother-in-law and the long-time director of research at the New England Aquarium. He was a marine biologist, whose scholarship focused on the role of iron, vanadium, and other metal ions on the physiological ecology of marine animals. 

Congratulations Maria and Mu-Han!