The Genomics Scholars Program
2025-2026 Genomics Scholars Award Recipients
The Center for Vertebrate Genomics is pleased to announce the recipients of the Fall 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 1 post-doc and 9 graduate students, there are 2 colleges and 6 different departments represented. Congratulations to this year's recipients!
CVG Scholar Awards
- Hongjiang Liu, graduate student, Kim laboratory, for “Dam-SHIELD: A Universal System for Cell Type-Specific Chromatin Profiling In Vivo.”
- Meridia Jane Bryant, graduate student, Sandkam laboratory, for “Burning bright or fading away: Y chromosome’s relation to genetic diversity.”
- Brian Feng, graduate student, Dongre laboratory, for “Understanding the mechanisms underlying differential response of CD73-deficient tumors to anti-CTLA4 and anti-PD1 therapy.”
- Siyun Liu, graduate student, Rudd and Grimson laboratories, for “Determining age-linked DNA methylation changes in HSCs that drive neonatal–adult CD8+ T cell differences.”
- Anna McKane, graduate student, Das laboratory, for “Centromere variation as a genomic mediator of aneuploidy: leveraging the equine model of early pregnancy loss.”
- Ziqing Pan, graduate student, Wei laboratory, for “Advancing Cross-Population Genetic Discoveries with Novel Graph-Based Algorithms.”
Honorable Mentions
- Ananya Kohli, graduate student, Grimson and Subramanian laboratories, for “Epigenomic dysregulation leading to maladaptive training in ME/CFS Monocytes.”
- Yu-Ching Liao, graduate student, Tumbar and Feschotte laboratories, for “Determining the role of H3K9me3 on transposable elements across skin developmental stages.”
- Xingtan (Vera)Yu, graduate student, Duan laboratory for “Investigating H4K16ac-Mediated Epigenetic Regulation of Pluripotency Under Heat Stress in Bovine Embryonic Stem Cells in Bovine Embryonic Stem.”
- Dr. Peiwei Chen, post-doctoral fellow, Clark and Feschotte laboratories, for “Duplication of PIWI genes resolves lineage-specific intragenomic conflicts.”