2025-2026 Research Scholars
Autumn Quad Research Scholars
Supported by the Global Health Research Fund
- Emmanuel Barajas, Fourth-Year, Psychology, Comparative Human Development
- Project Title: Reframing Help-Seeking: The Promise of Public Recognition in Motivating Boys to Seek Help
- Mentor: Lin Bian
- Hunter Bershtein, Fourth-Year, Biological Sciences, Economics
- Project Title: The Therapeutic Potential of CD16hi Macrophages in Atherosclerosis Resolution
- Mentor: Ada Weinstock
- Sabrina Chang, Second-Year, Biology, Data Science
- Project Title: Characterizing the effects of smoking on age-associated DNA methylation
- Mentor: Brandon Pierce
- Vivian Chang, Third-Year, Neuroscience, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Longitudinal Structural MRI Signatures of Resistance and Resilience in SuperAging
- Mentor: Adam Martersteck
- Ephraim Craddock, Third-Year, Molecular Engineering
- Project Title: An IL-2-TGF-β Fusion Protein Expands Tregs and Induces Tolerance of Transplants
- Mentor: Maria-Luisa Alegre
- Emilio Del Angel, Third-Year, Neuroscience
- Project Title: Assessing the Effect of Weight Cycling on Neutrophil Recruitment and Development
- Mentor: Ada Weinstock
- Ahtziri Fernandez, Third-Year, Neuroscience, Spanish
- Project Title: Identifying the sex-specific roles of the gut microbiome-brain axis in aged Alzheimer’s Disease APPPS1-21 and NLF/PS1 (M146V) knock-in Mouse Models
- Mentor: Piyali Saha
- Bella Hobaugh, Fourth-Year, Neuroscience, Philosophy
- Project Title: Empathy and the Doctor-Patient Relationship
- Mentor: Peggy Mason
- Jeffrey Ke, Fourth-Year, Psychology
- Project Title: Long term effects of IFN-β therapy in Multiple Sclerosis
- Mentor: Anthony Reder
- Layne Kohler, Fourth-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Weight Cycling Effect on Female Reproductive Function
- Mentor: Ada Weinstock
- Alison Lafayette, Third-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Extracellular Vesicle RNA as Biomarkers of Glycocalyx Injury and Graft Dysfunction in Liver Transplantation
- Mentor: Kentaro Noda
- Diya Mishra, Fourth-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Designing Case-Control Studies to Assess Road Traffic Injury Risks in India
- Mentor: Kavi Bhalla
- Rishi Purayil, Third-Year, Statistics
- Project Title: Analysing Transparency of Conflict-of-Interest Disclosures by Trauma Surgery Researchers
- Mentor: Timothy Plackett
- Nicole Reed, Fourth-Year, Biology, CEGU
- Project Title: Tractor Rollovers and Road Safety in India
- Mentor: Kavi Bhalla
- Sophia Sasaki, Fourth-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Spontaneous breathing and diaphragm protection in mechanically ventilated patients
- Mentor: Bhakti Patel
- Hannah Thier, Fourth-Year, Biology, HIPS
- Project Title: Impact of Physician Anti-Bias Intervention on Care Satisfaction for Patients with Sickle Cell Disease
- Mentor: Austin Wesevich
- Akanksha Varanasi, Third-Year, Molecular Engineering
- Project Title: Gene Expression and Immune Mechanism Profiles of Interferon-Treated Multiple Sclerosis Patients Across Subtypes
- Mentor: Anthony Reder
- Jazmine Vitela, Second-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Impact of color tint maps on regions of interest for radiomic feature extraction in ultrasound images
- Mentor: Heather Whitney
- Luna Wang, Second-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Impact of Alteration of the Microbiome During Critical Illness on Long-term Clinical Outcomes
- Mentor: Krysta Wolfe
- Alexandra Zhou, Third-Year, Economics, Applied Mathematics
- Project Title: Proximate Causes of the Global Fertility Decline
- Mentor: Anup Malani
Supported by the Hoeft Family Research Fund
- Sammy Alderden, Second-Year, Molecular Engineering, Chemistry
- Project Title: Testing the Permeability and Conductivity of Cationic Mesoporous Membranes
- Mentor: Shrayesh Patel
- Maya Atassi, Third-Year, Astrophysics, Physics
- Project Title: Calibrating the Cosmos: Precision Polarization for the Simons Observatory
- Mentor: Jeff McMahon
- Jeff Baek, Third-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: The investigation of the expression pattern of BMP9, Smad 1/5/8, and Runx2 in mouse cranial suture development via hybridization chain reaction
- Mentor: Russell Reid
- Mia Bocian, Third-Year, Psychology, Economics
- Project Title: The Autonomic Ear: Auditory feedback controls autonomic regulation
- Mentor: Howard Nusbaum
- Carmen Cox, Third-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Assessing the Anatomy and Function of Fish Pectoral Fins
- Mentor: Mark Westneat
- Clarissa Ding, Third-Year, Neuroscience
- Project Title: Effects of SNF2H Residue Character on RNA Binding Interactions
- Mentor: Alexander J. Ruthenburg
- Shelley Fernando, Third-Year, Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry
- Project Title: Dissecting the Role of the JK3 Locus in Immunity
- Mentor: Marcus Clark
- Rafael Gutierrez, Fourth-Year, Neuroscience
- Project Title: Examining the role of ventral muscles in larval fly movement
- Mentor: Elizabeth Heckscher
- Luis Hernandez, Third-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Mitochondrial Transfer between Cancer Cells and Neutrophils
- Mentor: Yuxuan (Phoenix) Miao
- Alex Hu, Third-Year, Fundamentals, Germanic Studies
- Project Title: The Political Novel Today: Problems and Possibilities
- Mentor: Sophie Salvo
- Sayana Isaac, Third-Year, Economics, South Asian Civilizations
- Project Title: The Role of IL6-ST on Cancer-Associated Fibroblast Inflammation and Cell State Transitions
- Mentor: Simon Schwörer
- Badis Labbedi, Second-Year, Physics, Mathematics
- Project Title: Axion Dark Matter Field Correlations via Entangled Photon Cavities
- Mentor: LianTao Wang
- Elena Lill, Second-Year, Biological Chemistry, Business Economics
- Project Title: Recombination Mechanism for SCCmec
- Mentor: Phoebe Rice
- Desanka Malinovic, Second-Year, Political Science
- Project Title: ‘Po naški’ Through Fiction: A Structured Reader of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian Prose
- Mentor: Nada Petkovic
- Julia Mastracci, Fourth-Year, Biological Chemistry, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Investigating the Function of Individual and Combined TetraThymosinβ Domains
- Mentor: David Kovar
- Nicole Millan Ortiz, Fourth-Year, English Language and Literature, Romance Languages and Literature / Gender and Sexuality Studies
- Project Title: Postwar Artists' Books: An Investigation into the Curiosities of the Book Form
- Mentor: Christine Mehring
- Gaby Morin, Third-Year, Molecular Engineering
- Project Title: High-Throughput Development of Redox-Active Polymers as Electrodes for Organic Batteries
- Mentor: Stuart Rowan
- Gabe Nelson, Third-Year, Biology, Chemistry
- Project Title: Biomechanical Modeling of Feeding Mechanisms in the Marine Butterflyfishes, Family Chaetodontidae
- Mentor: Mark Westneat
- Michael Qiu, Third-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Elucidating the Roles of U4 sRNA structures in 5’ Splice Site Selection of pre-mRNA Splicing and Neurodevelopmental Disorder
- Mentor: Jonathan Prescott Staley
- Ismael Robles-Razzaq, Third-Year, Statistics, Computer Science
- Project Title: The Geometry of Representations in Mouse Latent-Context Decision-Making
- Mentor: Ramon Nogueira Manas
- Eva Schultz, Third-Year, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Visual Arts
- Project Title: Development of an Integrating Sphere as a Thermal Calibration Source for Cosmic Microwave Background Observations
- Mentor: Jeffrey McMahon
- Rebecca Sias, Third-Year, Biological Chemistry, Chemistry
- Project Title: Investigating Cytokine-Specific eQTMs in Airway Smooth Muscle Cells
- Mentor: Carole Ober
- Victoria Sullivan, Fourth-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Investigating the Spatial Regulation of Kibra by Apical Polarity Protein Interactions in Epithelial Cells
- Mentor: Richard Fehon
Supported by the Kemper Foundation
- Yorik Chuang, Second-Year, Economics, Public Policy Studies
- Project Title: A Century of Accounting Ideas: Quantifying Impacts of Standard-Setters on Innovation in Accounting Practices
- Mentor: Anthony Le
- Paolo Diaz Andrade, Third-Year, Sociology, Cinema and Media Studies
- Project Title: Latin-American Elites’ Perspectives on Poverty and Inequality: A Mixed-Methods Approach
- Mentor: Pilar Manzi
- Nathaniel Kim, Third-Year, Computer Science, Media Arts and Design
- Project Title: Using LLMs to Model the Strength of Non-English Passwords
- Mentor: Blase Ur
- Spencer May, Fourth-Year, Mathematics, Physics
- Project Title: Regression Discontinuity Design Methodology Improvement
- Mentor: Nikolaos Ignatiadis
- Jacob Neplokh, Fourth-Year, Fundamentals: Issues and Texts
- Project Title: Leadership and Democracy
- Mentor: John P. McCormick
- Antonio Persi, Second-Year, Anthropology, Political Science
- Project Title: Violence, Authority, and Aid: Rethinking State-Building in Contemporary Haiti
- Mentor: Martin Castillo-Quintanna
- Allison Row, Third-Year, Statistics, Economics
- Project Title: How Artificial Intelligence Agents Interpret Subjective Human Values: An Audit of Personalization in Large Language Models
- Mentor: Blase Ur
- Noah Sher, Second-Year, Sociology
- Project Title: Entangled Oligarchies: The Hidden Deals Reshaping US-China Power Relations in Offshore Financial Centers
- Mentor: Kimberly Kay Hoang
- Isabella Summe, Fourth-Year, Data Science
- Project Title: Neural Signatures of Human and LLM-Derived Surprise in Story Listening
- Mentor: Monica Rosenberg
- Shreya Thota, Third-Year, Economics, Computer Science
- Project Title: Language Background And Infants' Attention Toward Native And Foreign Language Speakers
- Mentor: Yiyi Wang
Supported by the Liew Family Research Fund
- Henry Baldwin, Fourth-Year, Environment, Geography, & Urbanization
- Project Title: In Human Scale: The Search for Ecological Proportion in Nineteenth-Century Literature
- Mentor: Benjamin Morgan
- Rohan Buluswar, Fourth-Year, Mathematics
- Project Title: Physics in Generative Diffusion Models
- Mentor: Lorenzo Orecchia
- Onofrio De Michele, Fourth-Year, Anthropology
- Project Title: Displaying Disappearing WIldlife: The Field Museum 1896 Expedition and Taxidermy in the 21st century
- Mentor: Jessica Landau
- Sebastian Deery, Fourth-Year, Mathematics, Computer Science
- Project Title: Projected Score Matching for Generative Modeling and Inverse Problems in Chaotic Systems
- Mentor: Nisha Chandramoorthy
- Cleo Delogu, Fourth-Year, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cinema and Media Studies
- Project Title: “Kidnapped”: Capital, Migration and Childhood in Comparative Print Culture 1820-1870
- Mentor: Josephine McDonagh
- Sofya Fadeeva, Second-Year, Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Project Title: Measuring Changes in Astronomical Sources over a Timescale of a Century
- Mentor: Richard Kron
- Lydia Gafford, Third-Year, Art History, History
- Project Title: The Craft Chronicle
- Mentor: Erica Warren
- Jaehyeon Han, Third-Year, History, Germanic Studies
- Project Title: The Political Novel Today: Problems and Possibilities
- Mentor: Sophie Salvo
- Daniel Hernandez, Second-Year, Computer Science
- Project Title: Interpretable Latent Structure of an AI Emulator of Stochastic Sudden Stratospheric Warmings
- Mentor: Dorian Abbot
- Emma Kirwin, Third-Year, Creative Writing, Cinema and Media Studies
- Project Title: Environmental Futures Through Critical Game Design
- Mentor: Katherine Buse
- Larry Li, Third-Year, Physics
- Project Title: Measuring the Relative Branching Ratio of KL-> 3pi0 / KL->pi+pi-pi0
- Mentor: Yau Wah
- Elektra Makris, Fourth-Year, Chemistry, Biological Chemistry
- Project Title: High Throughput Validation of de novo Protein Binders to Probe Mechanisms of Inner-Ear Mechanotransduction
- Mentor: Marcos Sotomayor
- Giovanni Maya, Fourth-Year, Computer Science, Data Science
- Project: Voice vs. Visual Interfaces for Robot Personalization: Evaluating Control and Transparency Tradeoffs
- Mentor: Sarah Sebo
- Viresh Mittal, Third-Year, Computer Science, Economics
- Project Title: Quicksilver
- Mentor: Ben Y. Zhao
- Eliana Schiller, Third-Year, Astrophysics, Anthropology
- Project Title: Characterizing the Baryon Cycle Around Galaxies via Integral Field Spectroscopy
- Mentor: Hsiao-Wen Chen
- Junfei Sun, Fourth-Year, Mathematics, Computer Science
- Project: Asynchronous heavy-tailed Optimization
- Mentor: Tian Li
- Richmond Yeung, Fourth-Year, Physics
- Project Title: Design and Development of PSEC5b and PSEC6: A Waveform sampler for fast-timing detectors in Particle Accelerators, Medical Imaging and Astrophysics
- Mentor: Henry Frisch
- Aine Zhang, Second-Year, Statistics, Sociology
- Project Title: Degrowth as a Game Design Problem
- Mentor: Katherine Buse
Supported by the NK Cheung Chemistry Research Fellowship
- Michael Bolgov, Third-Year, Molecular Engineering
- Project Title: Multiple turnovers of RNA methylation by methyltransferase ribozymes
- Mentor: Matthew Tirrell
- John Brownridge, Third-Year, Molecular Engineering, Religious Studies
- Project Title: Mechanically-Initiated Polymerization Mediated by Piezochemistry for Bone Repairing
- Mentor: Yixiao Dong
- Felice Chan, Fourth-Year, Chemistry
- Project Title: Modeling Fluorescent Proteins as Living Qubits
- Mentor: Greg Engel
- Azeem Currah, Third-Year, Chemistry
- Project Title: A Use Case for Ni3THT2 as a Heavy-Metal Sensor
- Mentor: John Anderson
- Josh Gonzalez, Third-Year, Biological Chemistry
- Project Title: Determination of the Functional Composition of Volume-Regulated Anion Channels During CD4+ Cell-Mediated Immune Response
- Mentor: Axel Concepcion
- Phoebe Hsu, Second-Year, Chemistry
- Project Title: Regulation of RNA targets by the tRNA splicing endonuclease (TSEN) complex
- Mentor: Cassandra Hayne
- Arnav Modak, Second-Year, Chemistry, Economics
- Project Title: Spin-valley Control of Monolayer MoS2 via Molecular Functionalization
- Mentor: Sarah B. King
- Samarth Ram, Third-Year, Chemistry
- Project Title: Leveraging Machine Learning to Predict IscB-mediated Genome Editing
- Mentor: Weixin Tang
- Marco Sanchez, Third-Year, Molecular Engineering
- Project Title: Multiple Turnovers in Non-Enzymatic RNA Replication at the Origin of Life
- Mentor: Jack Szostak
- Juliette Shapiro, Third-Year, Chemistry
- Project Title: Efforts Towards the Synthesis of Dhilirolide A
- Mentor: Scott Snyder
- Richard Song, Third-Year, Biological Sciences, Biological Chemistry
- Project Title: Characterization of Actin Cytoskeleton Changes by Pharmacological Inhibitors of Volume-Regulated Anion Channels
- Mentor: Axel Concepcion
- Ashok Tate, Third-Year, Chemistry
- Project Title: Self-Tethering Viologens for Facile and Durable H2O2 Electrosynthesis
- Mentor: Anna Wuttig
- Della Waldman, Third-Year, Biological Chemistry
- Project Title: Reconstituting Actin Stress Fiber Repair Through Protein Phase Separation
- Mentor: Margaret Gardel
- Jeffery Zhang, Third-Year, Biological Chemistry
- Project Title: Characterizing environmentally responsive condensing proteins in Synechococcus elongatus in vitro
- Mentor: D. Allan Drummond
Supported by Collegiate Research Funds and other generous gifts from donors
- Jacques Attinger, Second-Year, Physics, Mathematics
- Project Title: Printing Superconducting Quantum Circuits using a Miniaturized Molecular Beam Epitaxy
- Mentor: Shuolong Yang
- Naomi Gelfer, Second-Year, Molecular Engineering
- Project Title: Investigating the pH Dependence of Fluorescent Protein Qubits for Cellular Biosensing
- Mentor: Peter Maurer
- Colleen Kim, Third-Year, Molecular Engineering
- Project Title: Nb Thin Film Growth Optimization
- Mentor: Supratik Guha
- Siqi Liu, Fourth-Year, Physics, Applied Mathematics
- Project Title: 2D Au
- Mentor: Chong Liu
- Ramon Rivas Varela, Fourth-Year, Physics, Mathematics
- Project Title: Enhancing Quantum Thermometry in Living Cells Using Robust ZFS Extraction Methods
- Mentor: Peter Maurer
- Ha Do, Fourth-Year, Astrophysics, Race, Diaspora, & Indigeneity
- Project Title: A chemical investigation of Milky Way stellar streams
- Mentor: Alexander Ji
- Zvi Gomez Fisher, Second-Year, Linguistics, Public Policy
- Project Title: A Descriptive Phonology of Anabar Dolgan
- Mentor: Lenore Grenoble
- Avivit Ashman, Third-Year, Art History
- Project Title: Art of the Munich Olympics
- Mentor: Christine Mehring
- Iris Badezet-Delory, Third-Year, Physics, Classical Studies
- Project Title: Weather Gridlock: The Dynamics of Back-to-Back Heatwaves in Climate Hot-Spots
- Mentor: Noboru Nakamura
- Aubrey Barb, Third-Year, Biochemistry, Chemistry
- Project Title: Hybrid Proline-Rich Proteins in Systems of Plant Immunity
- Mentor: Jean Greenberg
- Jace Chen, Second-Year, Molecular Engineering, Economics
- Project Title: Identifying targetable vulnerabilities in extrachromosomal DNA–positive cancers.
- Mentor: Lixing Yang
- Charlie Davis, Fourth-Year, Neuroscience
- Project Title: In-silico Deployment of Thoracic Aortic Stents to Model Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm Disease Progression
- Mentor: Luka Pocivavsek
- Nurai El Ashry, Third-Year, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
- Project Title: Optimization of FISH and IF Protocols in FFPE Tissue
- Mentor: Jingyi Fei
- Alex Garcia, Fourth-Year, Molecular Engineering
- Project Title: Investigation of the effect of separator on the performance of low temperature molten salt electrolytes in lithium metal batteries
- Mentor: Chibueze Amanchukwu
- Geordan Haynes, Fourth-Year, Psychology
- Project Title: Caregiver Responsiveness Project
- Mentor: Susan Goldin-Meadow
- Kalea Hidalgo, Third-Year, Neuroscience, Psychology
- Project Title: PIE-Sequencing ATXN2, the RNA-Binding Protein
- Mentor: Paschalis Kratsios
- Nathan Hu, Third-Year, Chemistry, Statistics
- Project Title: Fabrication of Electrically Tuneable Pressure-Sensitive LCE Adhesive Materials System
- Mentor: Stuart Rowan
- Mia Karathanasis, Third-Year, Linguistics, Middle Eastern Studies
- Project Title: Individual Variability in Perceptual Assimilation: The Relationship Between Spanish Perception and English Production
- Mentor: Melissa Baese-Berk
- Ernest Leong, Fourth-Year, Romance Languages & Literatures: French
- Project Title: Translating Charles Perrault's "Le Parralèle des Anciens et des Modernes"
- Mentor: Larry F. Norman
- Isaac Loh, Third-Year, Biology, Economics
- Project Title: Catfish Staging for Odontode Research
- Mentor: Neil H. Shubin
- Matheus Martino-Wojciechowski, Third-Year, Neuroscience, History
- Project Title: Thoracic Aortic Disease Modeling
- Mentor: Luka Pocivavsek
- Marina Mendes Ferreira, Second-Year, Biological Sciences, History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine (HIPS)
- Project Title: Disarming plant defenses: spatial expression of detoxification genes in Pieris rapae
- Mentor: Marcus Kronforst
- Gabby Moon, Third-Year, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: How Does BNIP3 Deletion Impact Skeletal Muscle?
- Mentor: Kay Macleod
- Deqa Muse, Fourth-Year, Chemistry, History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine
- Project Title: Modeling Conical Structures and Surgical Geometries
- Mentor: Nhung Nguyen
- Kyle Obermeyer, Third-Year, Neuroscience
- Project Title: Inflammation and Disease Progression in a Genetic Mouse Model of Prion Disease
- Mentor: James Mastrianni
- Nic Restivo, Third-Year, Geophysical Sciences, Environmental Sciences & Chemistry
- Project Title: Calibrating Biomarker Proxies for Fires in Savannas
- Mentor: Tyler Karp
- Hanna Ruiz, Third-Year, Biological Chemistry, Economics
- Project Title: The Dosage-Dependent Effect of Interferons on CD28 and 4-1BB CAR T-cells
- Mentor: Jun Huang
- Sara Selig, Second-Year, Computer Science, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Sensorimotor cortical activity and perceptual detection of intracortical microstimulation in somatosensory cortex
- Mentor: Nicholas Hatsopoulos
- Noah Sodickson, Second-Year, Physics, Mathematics
- Project Title: An Information-Theoretic Approach to Spatial Transcriptomics Analysis
- Mentor: Vincenzo Vitelli
- Evalds Viguls, Second-Year, Biochemistry, Biological Sciences
- Project Title: Epigenetic Regulation of DNA Double-Strand Break Repair
- Mentor: Stephen J. Kron
- Elijah Wakefield, Third-Year, Mathematics, Chemistry
- Project Title: Scent Mixture Discrimination
- Mentor: Leslie Kay
- Stacey Zhao, Third-Year, Biological Sciences, Molecular Engineering
- Project Title: Dissecting the Immune Crosstalk Driving tSC-Dependent Tumor Relapse
- Mentor: Yuxuan (Phoenix) Miao
- Ahan Datta, Third-Year, Physics, Mathematics
- Project Title: Design of PSEC6: An Application Specific Integrated Circuit for Picosecond Timing
- Mentor: Henry Frisch
- Benedikt Nagele, Fourth-Year, Molecular Engineering, Chemistry
- Project Title: Exploring Mechanisms of Resistance to Trastuzumab Deruxtecan in Endometrial cancers
- Mentor: Sridevi Challa
- Andrew Arzac, Third-Year, Molecular Engineering, Phyiscs, Mathematics
- Project Title: PSEC6
- Mentor: Henry Frisch
- Graydon Schulze-Kalt, Fourth-Year, Physics
- Project Title: PULSE-A Electronics Design, Integration, and Test
- Mentor: Tian Zhong