FORMER STUDENTS: Graduate and Undergraduate

Undergraduate Independent Research Students: Where Did They Go Post-Graduation?

Katherine Fisher (’06): Ph.D. program, California Institute of Technology

Ryann Fame (’06): Ph.D. program in Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University

Kristen Malkus (’06): Ph.D. program in Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania

Matt Wester (’06): Technical position

Sarah Hirsh (’05): Ph.D. program, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Jessica Evans (‘05):  Nursing MS program, VCU-MCV

Vijay Dondeti  (‘04):  MD/Ph.D. program (MSTP), University of Pennsylvania

Cristin Welle (‘04):  Ph.D. program in Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania.

Jason Molitoris  (‘04):  MD/Ph.D. program (MSTP) Case Western Reserve University

 Rebecca McAteer (‘04):  MD program, New York Medical College.

Briana Riemer (‘04):  MD program NYU

Beth Cox  (‘04):  MD program, Duke University School of Medicine

Katie Southwell  (‘04):  Dental School, VCU, MCV

Melissa Wright  (‘03):   MD/Ph.D. program (MSTP) at the University of Colorado

John Hsia  (‘03):  MD program, University of Virginia.

Melissa Game (‘02): MD program, Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Kara Friend (‘02):  technical position

Sarah Kandrac (‘02):  science sales rep.; dental school

Ricky Anderson  (‘02):  JD degree program

Kim Briggs (‘02):  Ph.D. program, Molecular Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Dave Solomon  (‘02):   Research Associate at the Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati; MD/Ph.D. program at Georgetown University

Erika Gruber  (‘01):  Cornell University Veterinary school

Anthoney Lim (‘01):   MD program, Cornell University School of Medicine

Emily Dryden (‘00):  MD program, Vanderbilt University Medical School

Allison Jenkins  (‘00):  Ph.D. program, Johns Hopkins University

Laura Grattan (‘00):   Ph.D. program at Duke University in interdisciplinary studies and political thought.

Kristina Hoke  (‘00):  MD/Ph.D. program (MSTP), Cornell University School of Medicine

Alix Purdy  ‘00):   Ph.D. program, University of California at San Diego (HHMI Predoctoral fellowship)

Cecily Vanderspurt   (‘00):  Ph.D.program in Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University (NSF Fellowship)

Banu Kuppusami (‘99):  Ph.D. program in Cell and Molecular Biology, Harvard University

Mike DeWitt (’99): MD program, Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia.

Candice Brown (‘98):  Ph.D. program in Neuroscience, Duke University (NSF Fellowship)

Alice Kraemer (‘98):  Ph.D. program, Duke University

Kenna Mills  (‘98):  Fulbright Award (Argentina), PhD program in Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University (NSF Fellowship)

Laura Park  (’98):  MD program, Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia.

Greg Politzer (‘98):  MD program, Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia.

Ben Schwartz  (‘98): MD program, Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia.

Christina Tennyson (‘97): MD program, Vanderbilt School of Medicine

Laura Green (‘97):   MD program, Vanderbilt School of Medicine

Jennifer Daigle (’97):   MD/Ph.D. program at Louisiana State University School of Medicine.

Debbie Kruep (’97): MD program, Virginia Medical School of Medicine

John Cowden (‘97):  Ph.D. program in Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California at Berkeley

Nancy Huang (‘97):  Ph.D. program, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University (with NSF Graduate Fellowship)

Amy Gooch   (‘96):  Ph.D. program in Molecular and Cellular Biology, Duke University

Kristin Whitford  (‘96):  MD/Ph.D. program (MSTP), Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Katherine Kottas (‘96):   Dental School, University of Minnesota

Tina Tenenhaus  (’96):  Ph.D. program, Molecular and Cellular Biology,Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Carolyn Feltes (‘95):   MD/Ph.D. (MSTP) program, Georgetown University

Dan Greenwald  (‘95):   MD program, Stanford University Medical School

Wayne Outten (‘95):   Ph.D. program in Molecular and Cellular Biology, Northwestern University.

Dara Lehigh  (‘95):   MD program, University of Virginia Medical School

Allison Abbott   (‘95):   Ph.D., program, Tufts University

Katherine Joubin  (‘94):   Ph.D. program, Columbia University

Not known: Elizabeth Cochran (‘04):  Jessica Bonzo; Norie Sadjadi (‘00); Paul Saladino; Shannan Harding; Thomas Buss (‘97): 

Graduate Students

Mei Li (MA, ‘04)
Mei’s project was to perform an analysis of the specification of GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons during early Xenopus development using a primary cell culture approach in which she dissociated cells from the presumptive nervous system early in development, allowed them to grow in culture, and then performed assays with molecular markers to assess the state of determination and differentiation of these two neuronal phenotypes.  She also used fate mapping of individual blastomeres to determine if lineage plays a role in the specification of these tow neurotransmitter phenotypes. Her work was published in Journal of Comparative Nerurology. She assumed a technical position at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Kristina Gleason (MA,  ‘04)
        Kris’ project was to conduct a functional investigation of the X-msr gene, a gene expressed in the developing vascular and nervous systems.  Her work entailed a systematic analysis of the effect of X-msr morpholino “knock-downs” on vascular development and an analysis of the regulation of this gene through the use of transgenic approaches with different regions of the putative promoter driving the GFP reporter gene.  She presented her work at the national meeting for the Society of Developmental Biology (2003) and the Morphogenesis and Regenerative Medicine meeting (2003) as was first author on a Gene Expressions paper. She is the first author on a manuscript describing the cloning and characterization of xVGlut1.  She went on to pursue an MD degree at the University of Vermont.

Lisa August (MA,  ‘03)
        Lisa performed several different lines of experiments for her thesis research.   First, she confirmed the sequence of the GABA transporter cDNA.  Secondly, she sequenced and characterized a significant piece of the GABA transporter gene in an effort to obtain the promoter region, and also employed a PCR-based strategy to identify upstream sequences. Finally, she examined the expression of the Xenopus GABA transporter cDNA (xGAT1) in whole mounts and in explanted pieces of tissue at different stages of neural development.  She presented her work at the national symposium for the Society for Developmental Biology.  Always interested in applying science to public policy, Lisa simultaneously obtained a Masters degree in Public Policy and currently holds a position with the federal government working on policy issues. Lisa is a co-author on a Journal of Comparative Neurology paper.

Conor Sipe   (MA,  ‘03)
Conor performed an investigation of the transcriptional regulation of the Xenopus Hypoxia Inducible Factor 1 gene in Xenopus by  ligating various lengths of upstream promoter regions into a vector containing the GFP reporter gene and then employing these constructs both in transient transfection cell line assays as well as in Xenopus transgenic experiments.  He also isolated five variants of the promoter to analyze the degree of naturally occurring polymorphisms in the promoter and used this as a way to assess important regulatory regions.  He presented his work at the Southeastern regional Developmental Biology meeting, the national meeting for the Society of Developmental Biology (2003) and the Morphogenesis and Regenerative Medicine meeting (2003). He is the first author on a Developmental Dynamics paper describing this work. After a technical position, he went on to pursue doctoral work at the University of Virginia.

Krista Stimson (MA, ‘98)
        Krista investigated the tissue interactions which lead to the determination and patterning of vascular cell types; she used cell dissociation and re-aggregation techniques and assaying her results with a wide array of marker genes.  She was a co-author on a Developmental Biology abstract (1997) and pursued Ph.D. work at Emory University.

Drew Weisenberger (Ph.D. in Applied Science, 1998)
        Through an opportunity offered by the Applied Science Department (e.g. a Courtesy Appointment), I was able to serve as a co-advisor for Drew’s Ph.D. thesis research on an interdisciplinary project involving detector physics and molecular biology.  The goal of his project was to establish the feasibility of in vivo gene imaging using small mammal models.  Drew has presented his work at numerous conferences, and has published several papers on his thesis work. It also led to a collaborative grant (with E. Bradley, S. Majewski and S. Cherry) from the National Science Foundation.  He is currently employed as a scientist by the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. And a co-author on many papers describing his imaging work.

Laura Rochmis (MA,’95)
          Laura defended her thesis, "A Correlative LM/SEM Approach to the Morphological  Characterization of Gene Expression in Xenopus laevis" in July, 1995.  She presented a poster at the regional Developmental Biology Society meeting (1995) and graduated from Eastern Virginia Medical School.  She went on to an OB-GYN residency.

Rebecca Miles (MA, ‘94)
         Rebecca completed her work and defended her thesis "The Isolation and characterization of a Novel G-Protein-Coupled Receptor Involved in Angiogenesis” in June, 1994.  Her work appeared on several posters (International Xenopus Meeting, 1994; regional Developmental Biology meeting, 1995) and following graduation she was able to obtain a molecular biology technical position at Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical company.  Rebecca is co- author on a paper published in Developmental Biology (1997).

Cleve Sinor (MA, ‘94)
         Cleve completed and defended his thesis "Xenopus laevis Ribosomal Protein S1:  Evidence for Regulation at the Transcriptional Level" in July 1994.  He completed an MD from the Medical College of Virginia.  Cleve contributed to a poster (International Xenopus Meeting,  1994) and is co-author on a paper in Biophysica and Biochimica Acta (1997).