The Genomics Scholars Program

Fall 2024

2024-2025 Genomics Scholars Award Recipients

The Center for Vertebrate Genomics is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024-2025 Genomics Scholars Awards. The review was exceptionally competitive this year and we thank all of the applicants for the opportunity to consider their excellent proposals. We also want to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude for the scholar award review committee members, who put great care and thought into the reviews. We are very proud to support the research and training of our truly outstanding awardees. Among this diverse group of 4 post-docs and 7 graduate students, there are 5 different colleges and 9 different departments represented. Congratulations to this year's recipients!

Distinguished Scholar Awards

  • Dr. Jolie Carlisle, postdoctoral fellow, Wolfner and Clark laboratories, for "Patterns of evolution of seminal fluid proteins and their networks in Drosophila and mammals."
  • Yi-Yuan (Ian) Lee, graduate student, Brito laboratory, for "Data-Driven Support of Widespread Human-Commensal Protein-Protein Interactions."

CVG Scholar Awards

  • Azwad Iqbal, graduate student, Therkildsen laboratory, for "Leveraging museum collections to investigate the rapid evolution of invasive American shad."
  • Dr. Christopher Mellor, postdoctoral fellow, M. Wang laboratory, for "Characterizing the interplay between folate deficiency, formaldehyde production and hematopoiesis."
  • Dianne Gomez, graduate student, Lau laboratory, for "Understanding the Role of JunB in Innate and Adaptive Memory Formation During Infection."
  • Dr. Jonathan Perelmuter, postdoctoral fellow, Bass laboratory, for "Consequences and mechanisms of brain miniaturization in one of the smallest vertebrates."
  • Kimaya Bakhle, graduate student, Dongre laboratory, for "Understanding the role of epithelial-mesenchymal transition-mediated immune-suppression in canine mammary tumors."
  • Nicole Mejia, graduate student, Vitousek laboratory, for "Characterizing avian thermogenic capacity with targeted-enriched enzymatic methyl sequencing"
  • Dr. Shebl Salem, postdoctoral fellow, de Mestre laboratory, for "Identifying risk variants of early pregnancy loss in horses."

Honorable Mentions

  • Anne Gardella, graduate student, De Vlaminck laboratory, for "Circulating Cell-Free RNA Signatures of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome."
  • Xiaoqing (Ellie) Tan, graduate student, E. Johnson laboratory, for "Elucidating interactions between dietary saturated fatty acids and gut microbiome relevant to host metabolism."

Past Genomics Scholarship Recipients