URECA Biology Alumni Awards Recipients
Undergraduate Biology, with generous alumni support, is partnered with the office
of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (URECA) to support full-time, faculty
mentored research experiences in the biological sciences to Stony Brook undergraduates
URECA provides funding to students doing faculty-mentored research and/or creative activities, through the URECA Summer Program. This provides students with a $5,000 stipend for a ten-week period of work.
As some students may not know, URECA also provides money for students to attend conferences
or purchase materials or supplies for research during the academic year through their
URECA Small/Travel Grants program.
Please see the URECA site for more information.
URECA Biology and Biochemistry Awards Recipients Archive (2012-2023)
Summer 2024 Research Award Recipients
URECA Biology Alumni Research Award Recipients
Sohini Alim, Biology Investigating the Role of GluN2B in Neurogenesis using Zebrafish Mutants(Dr. Howard Sirotkin, Neurobiology and Behavior)
Kai Bou, Biochemistry FABP5 Inhibition in Animal Pain Models Using Novel Drugs for Implications in Postsurgical Analgesia (Dr. Martin Kaczocha, Anesthesiology)
Athena Choi, Biochemistry Nir2 localization at ER-PM contact sites regulates dendrite development via BDNF-mediated PIP2 signaling (Dr. Maya Shelley, Neurobiology and Behavior)
Maryam Elfeky, Communication & Political Science (Denise Loring Undergraduate Research Award) MICRONAUT: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Mariam Hassan, Biochemistry (Mitchell Wortzman Undergraduate Research Award) Mechanism of 5-LOX Metabolite in Postoperative Pain (Dr. Martin Kaczocha, Anesthesiology)
Stella Ku, Biology Elucidating Defects in Oligodendrocyte Lineage Development due to Necrotizing Enterocolitis (Dr. Helen Hsieh, Surgery)
Manuel Marques Vilar, Information Systems (Steven K. Galson Undergraduate Research Award) Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Lucille McKenzie, Biology Mapping crab burrow density with drone imaging (Dr. Elizabeth Watson, Ecology and Evolution)
Mohammad Rahim, Biochemistry Enhanced Neuronal Activity in Grin2A Knockout Fish (Dr. Lonnie Wollmuth, Neurobiology and Behavior)
Asha Rath, Biology & Political Science Effects of Downregulated Branched-Chain Amino Acid Catabolism (Dr Sian Piret, Medicine, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension)
Aryan Sharma, Biology & Psychology The Role of Neuropillins in Promoting Tumorigenesis and Modulating the Glioblastoma Tumor Microenvironment (Dr. Styliani-Anna Tsirka, Pharmacological Science)
Darren Wang, Biochemistry Investigating the role of Wnt gradient size in the cell fate decisions made by zebrafish neuromesodermal progenitors via in-vivo morphogen gradient manipulation (Dr. Benjamin Martin, Biochemistry and Cell Biology)
Amanda Zhong, BiologyMechanisms of Acute Intermittent Hypoxia Induced Plasticity Contributing to Improvements in Bladder Function Following Spinal Cord Injury in Rats (Dr. Irene Solomon, Physiology and Biophysics)
Chhabra URECA Award
Loy Hashimoto, Biology Investigation of the Role of Myo-inositol in the Suppression of Eye Crystallin Aggregation (Dr. Eugene Serebryany, Physiology and Biophysics)
Tetiana Nika, Biology Understanding pattern formation and tissue structure relation in vertebrates using regeneration in African killifish as reenactment of development process (Dr. Chi-Kuo Hu, Biochemistry and Cell Biology)
URECA Summer Research Awards
Isabella Berger, Biology & Psychology Elucidating the spatiotemporal regulation of pancreatic triglyceride lipase (Dr. Kathryn Gunn, Biochemistry and Cell Biology)
Jerome Cai, Biochemistry Analyzing the Impact of TetO Distance on Gene Expression in PF circuits(Dr. Gabor Balazsi, Biomedical Engineering)
Marie Collison, Biology & Psychology The Role of TAp73 in Multiciliogenesis (Dr. Alice Nemajerova, Pathology)
Michael Cupit, Biochemistry Understanding the correlation between genetic regulation and complex phenotype of color patterning in the in African killifish Nothobranchius (Dr. Chi-Kuo Hu, Biochemistry and Cell Biology)
Fritz Ebner, Biology Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Varun Gambhir, Biology Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Max Gazes, Chemistry Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Hua Huang, Biology Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Stacey Jiang, Biochemistry KLF4-STAT3-FN1-αVβ6 axis Regulation in Attenuating PEC activation for
Potential Therapeutic Treatment of Proliferative Glomerulopathies (Dr. Sandeep Mallipattu, Medicine, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension)
Sarah Khan, Biology & Psychology Neural Indicators of Frustative Non-Reward and the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (Dr. Brady Nelson, Psychology)
Ethan Kim, Biochemistry Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Ian Kim, Physics Role of Alkaline Ceramidase 2 (ACER2) in Liver Cancer Promotion in Mice on High Fat Diet (Dr. Cungui Mao, Medicine)
Nadia Mathew, Biomedical Engineering Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Radha Panchal, Biology Examination of TREM2 protein levels in postmortem Alzheimer’s parietal cortex samples based on sex (Dr. Maricedes Acosta Martinez, Physiology and Biophysics)
Dev Sharma, Biology The role of the microbiome as a mechanism of mediating signaling (Dr. Olga Aroniadis, Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology)
Anshumaan Singh, Computer Science Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Divleen Singh, Biology Analyzing and Understanding Angiogenesis in Three-Dimensional Bioprinted Skin Constructs Using All-Trans Retinoic Acid and Tazarotene (Dr. Miriam, Rafailovich, Materials Science and Chemical Engineering)
Mayur Talele, Biochemistry The Molecular Mechanism of the Interaction Between STAT3 and the Vacuolar (H+)-ATPase (Dr. Stuti Sharma, Biochemistry and Cell Biology)
Amanda Wang, Psychology & Spanish Understanding White Matter Lesions in a Murine Model of Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC) (Dr. Helen Hsieh, Surgery)
Biology Explorations in STEM Award
Genesis Ceron, Biology (Ellen Geis Undergraduate Research Award) Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Career Center Explorations in STEM Awards
Qiongran Dong, Biology Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Dan Jian, Biochemistry Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Zoe Jiang, Biology Cytoskeletal Regulation of Amoeboid Cell Migration (Dr. Benjamin Lin, Biochemistry and Cell Biology)
Yuxuan Lin, Biology Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Michelle Yang, Biology Investigating cleavage site specificity in mitochondrial ATP-dependent proteases (Dr. Steven Glynn, Biochemistry and Cell Biology)
Wendy Zeng, Biology Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
PSEG Explorations in STEM Awards
Sophia Cadolino, Biology Pigmentation and Neural Crest (Dr. Lonnie Wollmuth, Neurobiology and Behavior)
Ammar Gondal, Biology Construction of a Novel Solid-State Electrolyte Database via a Computational Data-Driven Approach (Dr. Nav Nidhi Rajput, Materials Science and Chemical Engineering)
Isabelle Irizarry-McAdam, Biochemistry Effects of Acute Intermittent Hypoxia on neuroplasticity and spinal cord injury (Dr. Marvin O’Neal, Biology)
Gabriel O’Donnell, Geology The Geochronology of Glacial Deposits on Long Island (Dr. Marine Frouin, Geosciences)
Bryant Peña, Chemistry Analyzing the Effects of Temperature on Micelle Formation of Soluplus® using Dynamic Light Scattering (Dr. Surita Bhatia, Chemistry)
Simons STEM Scholars Explorations in STEM Awards
Aviya Boyce, Biology & Psychology Assessing Mitotic Heritability of Epigenetic Lesions in IDH-mutant Gliomas(Dr. Gilbert Rahme, Pharmacological Sciences)
Samara Hayes, Biology Climate Change Effect Over Time in the Atlantic Dr. Robert Thacker, Ecology and Evolution)
Kaylen James, Biology Dietary Protein-Induced Fecal Bile Acid Alterations are Colon Specific (Dr. David Montrose, Pathology)
Ailyn Vasquez Taveras, Biochemistry Analysis of Open Field Behavior Effects of Biological Sex and Genotype in a Rat Model of Parkinson's Disease(Dr. Mary Kritzer, Neurobiology and Behavior)
Amber Wilson, BiologySex Differences In Emotional Discrimination Of Conditional Heterozygous TSC2 Mice (Dr. Prerana Shrestha, Neurobiology and Behavior)
URECA Explorations in STEM Awards
Shaheryar Ahmad, Biochemistry Unsymmetric Urea Synthesis for Selective 1,n-Olefin Difunctionalization (Dr. Quinton Bruch, Chemistry)
Robert Chen, Biology Identification of Functional Domains on C1Q, a Classical Pathway Recognition Protein, Using Monoclonal Antibodies (Dr. Berhane Ghebrehewit, Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology)
Shivani Shah, Biology & Psychology Analyzing the Contribution of the GRX1 Gene in Oxidative Stress Resistance (Dr. James Konopka, Microbiology and Immunology)
INDUCER: Increasing Diversity in Undergraduate Cancer Biology Education and Research
Anahje Hector, Biology The development of miRNA-based therapy on ovarian cancer(Dr. Jingfang Ju, Pathology)
Jennifer Hernandez-Torres, Biology Analyzing the effects of Annonacin on MDA-MB-468 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines as a potential therapeutic drug for TNBC (Dr. Jennie Williams, Family, Population and Preventive Medicine)
SUNY Summer Opportunity for Academic Research (SOAR)
Jianna Carter, Biology Effect of PVA on Soil, Earthworm, and Plant Health (Dr. Sharon Pochron, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Division of Sustainability Studies)
Mingrui Cui, Biochemistry Micronaut: An E. coli-based microRNA detector (Dr. J. Peter Gergen, 2024 iGEM Team)
Taisha Elizaire, Psychology Structure and Function of Phosphatidic Acid Phosphatases(Dr. Michael Airola, Biochemistry and Cell Biology)
Ja’eve Fox, Biology How Hypoxia induced MCF-7 Cancer Cells affects APOBEC3A Expression (Dr. Mehdi Damaghi, Pathology)
Andrew Fu, Biology Disentangling the effect of Black/African Ancestry from confounding variables on colorectal cancer gene expression (Dr. Alexandra Guillaume, Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology)
Karissa Lopez, Biochemistry Defining the role of Sphingosine kinase 1 as a target for cancer therapy (Dr. Yusuf Hannun, Biochemistry and Cell Biology)
Adan Piracha, Biochemistry & Applied Mathematics and Statistics IL-13Ra1 as a potential target of m6A methylation in macrophages (Dr. Zhishan Wang, Pathology)
Christian Reilly, Biology & Psychology The Role of mRNA Splicing in Kidney Disease (Dr. Shipra Agarwal, Medicine, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension)
Santiago Sanabria, Biology P53 inducible systems for lung cancer therapies (Dr. Luis A. Martinez, Pathology)
Saged Shaaban, Biochemistry Synthesis of a Model Monosaccharide Compound to Understand the Mechanisms of Nitro-oxidation and Related Reaction on Cellulose(Dr. Dale Drueckhammer, Chemistry)
Frances Velay Women and Science Research Fellowship Awards
Katie Hsu, Biology & Psychology C1q and C1q receptors (gC1qR and cC1qR) as potential targets against cervical cancer among African Americans and East Asians (Dr. Berhane Ghebrehiwet, Medicine, Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology)
Isabell Janowicz, Biochemistry Poglut2/3 Is Required for Digit Separation (Dr. Bernadette Holdener, Biochemistry and Cell Biology)
Manahil Kashif, Biochemistry Subcellular Localization and Association of Rac1 GEFs with Scribble to Mediate AMPAR Endocytosis (Dr. Maya Shelley, Neurobiology and Behavior)
Katherine Otovalo, Biology Role of grin2D gene in seizure susceptibility for zebrafish (Dr. Howard Sirotkin, Neurobiology and Behavior)