Doctoral Dissertation Defenses
Lingjie Liu
Ling will share her dissertation research with the public on Thursday, May 2, 2024, at 1:00 PM in the Plimpton Room of the Beckman Building at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Ling's talk is titled 'Probabilistic methods for predicting local rates of transcription elongation from nascent RNA sequencing data,’ and she has been mentored by Adam Siepel. More information about her project is in this abstract, and this flyer contains a Zoom link for virtual attendees.
Joanne Saldanha
Joanne will be discussing her dissertation research with the public on Thursday, April 18, 2024, at 11:00 AM in Basic Science Tower 8-180. Joanne was advised by Hyungjin Kim, and her talk is entitled 'The roles of TIMELESS in the suppression of single-stranded DNA gaps and mutagenesis.' This abstract contains details of her project, and this flyer includes a Zoom link for those who would like to attend virtually.
Dillon Voss
Dillon has carried out his dissertation research under the guidance of Adrian Krainer. He will be presenting his results to the public on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, at 2:00 PM. His talk is entitled 'Functional characterization of PKM splice-switching antisense oligonucleotides in hepatocellular carcinoma' and is summarized in this abstract. It will be held in the Bush Auditorium at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and also will be available via the Zoom link in this flyer.
Chuankai Chen
Chuankai will be presenting his research findings to the public on Monday, March 11, 2024, at 10:00 AM in Basic Sciences Tower 5-140. Chuankai's dissertation work has been supervised by Richard Lin and is entitled 'The role of serine/threonine kinase AKT1/2/3 in pancreatic cancer progression.' A flyer and abstract contain further details.
Philip Moresco
Phil's public lecture describing his dissertation research will be held on Friday, February 23, 2024, at 2:00 PM. His dissertation is entitled 'The Unconventional Secretion of Immune Suppressive KRT19 and its Implications on Cancer-Associated Fibroblast Populations in Pancreatic Cancer,' and Phil's mentor is Douglas Fearon. The talk will be held in the Hawkins Conference Room, Wendt Laboratory, on the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory campus. For anyone who would like to attend virtually, the Zoom link is in this flyer, and details of the research can be found in this abstract.
Cristian Cleary
The public portion of Cristian's dissertation defense will take place on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, at 12:30 PM. Cristian has been advised by Chris Vakoc, and the title of his dissertation is ‘Understanding lineage dependencies in rhabdomyosarcoma.’ Cristian’s talk will be held in Bush Auditorium at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. It also will be available via Zoom at the link in this flyer, and details of the project are in this abstract.
Shruti Iyer
Shruti will be presenting her dissertation research to the public on Thursday, May 4, 2023, at 10:00 AM in the Bush Auditorium, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Shruti has been mentored by W. Richard McCombie, and the title of her talk is ‘ACME: an Affinity-based Cas9 Mediated Enrichment method for targeted nanopore sequencing to identify genetic variation in cancer.’ A Zoom link is in this flyer for those who wish to attend remotely, and more information about Shruti's project can be found in this abstract.
John Yuen
John completed his dissertation research, titled 'Development of modified microRNAs as cancer therapeutics, under the guidance of Jingfang Ju. John will present his work to the public on Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 1:00 PM in Room 180, Basic Science Tower Level 8. For anyone who would like to attend remotely, a Zoom link can be found in this flyer, and this abstract contains details of the research.
Chad Hogan
Chad will present his dissertation research to the public via Zoom on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, at 9:00 AM. His talk is entitled 'STAT3 as a critical host determinant of murine gammaherpesvirus 68 latency,' and his advisor is Laurie Krug. Details, including a link to the presentation, are in this flyer, and his findings are summarized in this abstract.
Andrew Ziesel
Andrew will be giving a public talk summarizing his dissertation work on Friday, November 4, 2022 at 1:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. Andrew has been mentored by Nancy Hollingsworth, and the title of his dissertation is 'The meiotic recombination checkpoint coordinates the transition between interhomolog recombination and intersister double strand break repair during prophase I in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.' A flyer and abstract contain additional details.
Devon Lukow
Devon carried out his dissertation work, entitled 'Chromosomal instability accelerates the evolution of resistance to anti-cancer therapies,' under the guidance of Jason Shelzer. Devon will present this work to the public via Zoom on Wednesday, August 24, 2022 at 2:00 PM. Details, including a link to the presentation, are in this flyer, and a summary of his research can be found in this abstract.
Nuri Kim
Nuri, who has been mentored by Jessica Seeliger, will be describing her dissertation work in a talk entitled 'Gene Recoding by Synonymous Mutation Creates Promiscuous Intragenic Transcription Initiation in Mycobacteria.' Her presentation will be held on Monday, June 6, 2022 at 10:00 AM in the Laufer Center's Lecture Hall 101. Further details can be found in this flyer and abstract.
Fu Luo
Fu will present her dissertation research, entitled 'Clonal Dynamics and Luminal Intermediate Cells in Prostate Homeostasis and Cancer' at 2:30 PM on Wednesday, May 4, 2022 via Zoom. If you would like the Zoom link, please contact the Program Director at martha.furie@stonybrook.edu. Fu's work has been conducted under the guidance of Flaminia Talos. A flyer and abstract contain additional information.
Kelly Hills-Muckey
Kelly will be giving a public talk describing her dissertation research on Tuesday, May 3, 2022 at 1:30 PM. The presentation will be held on the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory campus in the Plimpton Conference Room, Beckman Building. Kelly's talk is titled 'Temporal and Spatial Regulation of the Caenorhabditis elegans lin-4 microRNA Gene', and her advisor is Chris Hammell. Details can be found in this flyer and abstract.
Taylor Medwig-Kinney
Taylor will present her dissertation work to the public on Monday, April 4, 2022, at 12:00 PM in the Laufer Center's Lecture Hall 101. Her talk is entitled 'Coordination of Proliferation and Invasive Cellular Fates: Insights from C. elegans Somatic Gonad Development'. Taylor has been mentored by Dave Matus. Additional details are in this flyer and abstract.
Xiaoli Wu
Xiaoli (Sky) conducted her dissertation research under the guidance of Christopher Vakoc. Sky will present her work in a talk entitled 'Defining the POU2F3 Transcriptional Complex in Normal and Malignant Tuft Cells'. The talk will be held in the Hawkins Conference Room, Wendt Building, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, at 2:00 PM on Friday, April 1, 2022. Please see this flyer and abstract for further information.
Gaurang Trivedi
Gaurang. who has been mentored by Lingbo Zhang, will present his dissertation research on Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 10:00 AM EST. His talk, entitled 'Therapeutic Targeting of Early Erythroid Progenitors' will be given via Zoom. If you would like the Zoom link, please contact the Program Director atmartha.furie@stonybrook.edu. Additional details are in thisflyerandabstract.
Ana Paula Delgado
Ana will present her dissertation work, entitled 'Single-cell RNA Sequencing Analysis of the Tumor Microenvironment During Breast Cancer Progression', on Friday, September 17, 2021 at 2:00 PM by Zoom. Ana's research work was mentored by Scott Powers. If you would like the Zoom link, please contact the Program Director atmartha.furie@stonybrook.edu. For further information, see thisflyerandabstract.
Jayson Smith
Jay conducted his dissertation studies under the guidance of Dave Matus. Jay will present his research to the public on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 at 12:00 PM via Zoom. Please contact the Program Director at martha.furie@stonybrook.edu if you would like the Zoom link. The title of Jay's talk is 'SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling and an invasive gene regulatory network: Insights from C. elegans anchor cell invasion.' Additional details can be found in a flyer and an abstract.
Frank Celeste
Frank will present his dissertation work to the public on Friday, December 11, 2020, at 12:00 PM via Zoom. Please contact the Program Director at martha.furie@stonybrook.edu if you would like the Zoom link. Frank's talk is entitled 'The emergence of drug tolerance in cancer cell populations,' and his research was performed under the mentorship of Scott Powers. A flyer and an abstract contain further details.
Abraham Kohrman
Abraham carried out his dissertation research in the laboratory of David Matus. Abraham will share the results of his project with the public on Friday, March 13, 2020, at 11:00 AM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. The title of his talk is 'Quantitative measurement of the cell cycle: insights into differentiation and basement membrane invasion.' More information is available in a flyer and an abstract.
Young Jin Kim
Young Jin will present a public lecture describing his dissertation work, entitled 'Targeting nonsense-mediated mRNA decay for cystic fibrosis therapy,' on Friday, February 28, 2020, at 2:00 PM in the Hawkins Conference Room, Wendt Building, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Young Jin was mentored by Adrian Krainer, and details of the presentation are available in a flyer and abstract.
Jia Shen
Jia's talk is entitled 'Plasticity of the dentate gyrus' and will be delivered to the public on Tuesday, January 21, 2020, at 9:30 AM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. Jia was advised by Shaoyu Ge and co-advised by Qiaojie Xiong. A flyer and an abstract contain details of Jia's presentation.
Moises Guardado Rivas
Moises completed his doctoral research under the direction of Paul Bingham and Zuzana Zachar. His public lecture is entitled 'Anti-cancer mitochondrial metabolism drug CPI-613 induces catastrophic ATP depletion and cellular starvation'. It will be presented on Tuesday, August 6, 2019, at 2:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. Details are available in a flyer and abstract.
Christian Ruiz
Christian will present his dissertation work, entitled 'Metabolic signatures associated with mutant KRAS in non-small cell lung cancer', on Monday, August 5, 2019, at 3:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. Christian's research adviser was Geoffrey Girnun. Further details can be found in a flyer and abstract.
Allen Yu
Allen's research was carried out under the guidance of David Spector. Allen will give a public lecture on July 15, 2019, at 1:00 PM in the Hawkins Conference Room at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The title of his presentation is 'Characterization of long non-coding RNAs in pluripotency and hepatocellular carcinoma'. A flyer and abstract contain the details of Allen's talk.
Yuping Chen
Yuping will present his dissertation work to the public on Thursday, December 13, 2018, at 12:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. Yuping's talk is entitled 'How cells coordinate growth and division', and his research was carried out in the laboratory of Dr. Bruce Futcher. A flyer and abstract contain further details.
Brian Kinney
Brian completed his dissertation research under the guidance of Dr. Benjamin Martin. He will present a public lecture describing his research findings on Thursday, November 29, 2018, at 10:00 AM in Room 101 Laufer Center. His talk is entitled 'Canonical Wnt signaling and Sox2 maintain the neuromesodermal progenitor population in the zebrafish tailbud'. Details are available in the flyer and abstract for his presentation.
Alex Bott
Alex carried out his dissertation work in the laboratory of Dr. Wei-Xing Zong and moved with Dr. Zong to Rutgers University. His co-advisor on the Stony Brook campus is Dr. Geoffrey Girnun. Alex will present a public lecture, entitled 'Glutamine synthetase in cancer cell metabolism and oncogenesis', on Wednesday, June 13, 2018, at 12:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. A flyer and abstract contain the details of Alex's presentation.
Brinda Alagesan
Brinda's research was carried out under the supervision of Dr. David Tuveson. She will present her dissertation work, entitled 'Oncogenic Kras induces Nix to promote pancreatic cancer' to the public on April 25, 2018, at 11:00 AM in the Hawkins Conference Room at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Further information about her project can be found in this abstract.
Mansa Munshi
Mansa has completed her dissertation work in the laboratory of Dr. Maurizio Del Poeta. She will present her findings to the public on Thursday, April 12, 2018, at 2:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. Her talk is entitled 'The role of ceramide synthases in the pathogenicity of Cryptococcus neoformans'. Further details can be found in the flyer and abstract for her presentation.
Michael Klingener
Mike will present his dissertation research to the public on Friday, January 12, 2018, at 10:00 AM in Basic Science Tower Level 8, Room 180. Mike's work, performed in the laboratory of Dr. Adan Aguirre, is entitled 'Cleavage of amyloid precursor protein by ADAM10 and BACE1 regulates oligodendrocyte development and central nervous system myelination'. A flyer and abstract provide details of Mike's presentation.
Rachel Caston
Rachel has been mentored by Dr. Bruce Demple and will present her dissertation research to the public on Monday, December 11, 2017, at 10:00 AM in Basic Science Tower Level 8, Room 180. Her dissertation is entitled 'Base excision DNA repair in the mitochondria of differentiated neuronal cells’, and details can be found in the flyer and abstract for her talk.
Meng Lin
Meng Lin (Lemon) will be presenting her dissertation work to the public on Friday, December 8, 2017, at 10:00 AM in Room N-503 Social and Behavioral Sciences. Lemon has carried out her research, entitled 'Elucidating the genetic architecture and evolution of quantitative traits in South African populations with genomic data', under the guidance of Dr. Brenna Henn. Further details are available in the flyer and abstract for Lemon's talk.
Sai Zhou
Sai has been mentored by Dr. Aaron Neiman, Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Sai will present her research on Thursday, August 10, 2017, at 9:30 AM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. The title of her dissertation is 'From internal transcription start site selection to altered protein products: a systematic survey and a case study in budding yeast sporulation.’ Details are available in the flyer and abstract for her talk.
Sitapriya Moorthi
Sitapriya will present her dissertation work to the public on Monday, July 31, 2017 at 2:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. Sita was advised by Dr. Chiara Luberto, and the title of her presentation is 'Role and regulation of sphinogomyelin synthase in leukemia.' Further details can be found in the flyer and abstract for Sita's talk.
Reuben Hoffman
Reuben has been mentored by Dr. Aaron Neiman. His dissertation is entitled 'Long-chain polyprenols promote spore wall formation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and he will discuss his results in a public lecture on Friday, July 28, 2017, at 2:30 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. A flyer and abstract contain details.
Nitin Shirole
Nitin carried out his dissertation research under the direction of Dr. Raffaella Sordella. He will present his results on Monday, April 24, 2017, at 10:00 AM in Bush Auditorium at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in a talk entitled 'Role of truncating alleles of TP53 in tumorigenesis.' A flyer and abstract are available for further details.
Yiyang Wu
Yiyang will hold a public lecture describing her dissertation work on Friday, April 21, 2017, at 2:00 PM in the auditorium at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Woodbury Genome Center. The title of her talk is 'Toward precision medicine: from clinical genomics to induced pluripotent stem cell disease modeling.' Yiyang was mentored by Dr. Gholson Lyon, and further details can be found in this flyer and abstract.
Miriam Fein
Miriam will discuss her dissertation work, carried out under the guidance of Dr. Mikala Egeblad at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, on Wednesday, November 30, 2016, at 1:30 pm in the Hawkins Conference Room of the Wendt Building at CSHL. The title of Miriam's dissertation is 'Cancer cell CCR2 orchestrates escape from the adaptive immune response.' Further details are available in the flyer and abstract for Miriam's talk.
Jason O'Rawe
Jason has completed his doctoral studies under the guidance of Dr. Gholson Lyon at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Woodbury Genome Center. Jason will present his dissertation research, entitled 'Toward Reliable Analysis of Individual Genomes', to the public on Monday, August 1, 2016 at 9:00 am in Room 038 Life Sciences Building.
Ioana Rus
Ioana will be presenting her dissertation work to the public on Monday, May 9, 2016 at 12:30 pm in the Szybalski Conference Room of the Carnegie Library at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Ioana carried out her dissertation research, entitled ‘Harnessing redox regulation of protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B: a novel path to therapeutic design’, under the guidance of Dr. Nick Tonks.
Cara Moravec
Cara, who has been mentored by Dr. Howie Sirotkin, will be defending her dissertation, entitled ‘Maternal Rest/Nrsf regulates zebrafish behavior through snap25a/b’ on Tuesday, May 3rd. The public lecture will take place at 2:00 pm in Room 038 Life Sciences Building.
Robert Wysocki
Bobby will present his dissertation research on Tuesday, February 9, 2016, at 10:30 AM in the Bush Lecture Hall at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Bobby studied under the guidance of Dr. Mikala Egeblad, and his talk is entitled 'Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are induced by breast cancer cells to promote lung metastasis'.
Kaustav Mukherjee
Kaus will discuss his dissertation work, carried out under the guidance of Dr. Janet Leatherwood, on Friday, December 4, 2015, at 12:00 PM in Room 350 Life Sciences Building. The title of his talk is 'Post-transcriptional Gene Regulation During Meiosis in Schizosaccharomyces pombe'.
Kimberly Bell
Kim carried out her dissertation project, titled 'Pair-rule Regulation of wingless Transcription in the DrosophilaBlastoderm Embryo', under the guidance of Dr. Peter Gergen. She will present her work to the public on Tuesday, December 1, 2015, at 11:00 AM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building.
Sudipto Chakrabortty
Sudipto will present his work to the public on Friday, July 24, 2015, at 2:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. The title of his dissertation is 'Intracellular Transfer of Functional RNA through Extracellular Vesicles is a Medium of Communication Between Cells'. His advisor is Dr. Thomas Gingeras.
Christopher Morales
Chris completed his dissertation studies under the mentorship of Dr. Joshua Rest. He will present his results, entitled 'Gene Regulation and Interaction in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Genome', on Thursday, July 23, 2015, at 12:30 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building.
Erik Lavington
Erik has conducted his dissertation work under the guidance of Dr. Walter Eanes. He will present his research to the public on Thursday, July 23, 2015, at 10:30 AM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. The title of his talk is 'From Populations to Experiments: Finding and Testing Candidate Genes Based on Population Genetic Tests.'
Zunaira Shuja
Zunaira will deliver a talk based on her dissertation research on Monday, July 13, 2015, at 11:00 AM in Room 140, Level 5, Basic Science Tower. Zunaira's advisor is Dr. Thomas White, and the title of her presentation is 'Genetic Alterations to Cx25 Causing Palmoplantar Keratoderma and Hearing Loss Modify the Biophysical and Channel Properties of Cx43.'
Emmanuel Asare
Emmanuel has completed his dissertation research in the laboratory of Dr. Eckard Wimmer. He will be presenting his work to the public on Tuesday, July 7, 2015, at 2:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. The title of his dissertation is 'Genetic and Structural Analyses of Poliovirus Protein 2C ATPase.'
Lifang Li
Lifang will present her dissertation research, conducted under the guidance of Dr. James Konopka, on Friday, June 12, 2015, at 1:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences building. The title of her work is 'Identification of Novel Factors that Promote the Virulence of the Human Fungal Pathogen Candida albicans.'
Dong-Woo Hwang
Dong-Woo will present his dissertation work in a public lecture on Monday, June 8, 2015, at 2:00 PM in the Hawkins Conference Room (Rm #3514), Wendt Building, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Dong-Woo's advisor is Dr. Alea Mills, and the title of his dissertation is 'Chromatin Remodeler Chd5 Regulates Neural Cell Fate through the Interplay with Histone Demethylase Utx.'
Jamina Oomen-Hajagos
Jamina will present her dissertation research to the public on Friday, May 8, 2015, at 2:00 PM in Room 180, Level 8, Basic Science Tower. The title of her talk is 'The Function of pqbp1, a Causative Gene for Renpenning Syndrome, During Early Neural Development in Xenopus.' Jamina's dissertation advisor is Dr. Gerald Thomsen.
Jia-Ray Yu
Jia-Ray has been pursuing his research under the mentorship of Dr. Linda Van Aelst. He will present his dissertation work, entitled 'TGFbeta/Smad Signaling Through DOCK4 Facilitates Lung Adenocarcinoma Metastasis,' on Monday, March 9. 2015 at 12:00 PM in 2014 Samet Conference Room, Koch Building, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Diana Guimet
Diana, who has been conducting her research under the guidance of Dr. Patrick Hearing, will be presenting her work to the public on Thursday, November 21, 2014, at 1:45 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. The title of her dissertation is 'The Adenovirus L4-22K Protein Serves as the Master Regulator to Coordinate Late Gene Expression and Viral DNA Packaging.'
Fikri Birey
Fikri will be giving his public presentation on November 21, 2014, at 11:00 AM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. Fikri has pursued his research in the laboratory of Dr. Adan Aguirre, and his dissertation is entitled 'The Loss of NG2+ Glia-Mediated CNS Homeostasis in the Pathophysiology of Depression.'
Dun Li
Dun (Chuck) Li will present his dissertation work on Tuesday, August 26, 2014, at 10:00 AM in Room 145, Level 9, Basic Science Tower. His research, conducted under the guidance of Dr. Ute Moll, is entitled, 'Pharmacological Targeting of Mutant p53 - HSF1 Feed Forward Circuit.'
Stephanie Izzi
Stephanie will be presenting her dissertation work, entitled 'Neural Correlates and Peripheral miRNAs Associated with Stress-Induced Telomere Shortening,' on Wednesday, July 30, 2014, at 1:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. Stephanie carried out her research in the laboratory of Dr. Turhan Canli.
Craig Garafola
Craig has completed his dissertation work under the guidance of Dr. Fritz Henn, and he will be presenting it to the public on Tuesday, July 15, 2014 at 2:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. The title of his dissertation is 'Alteration in the Expression of a gamma-Protocadherin May Contribute to Susceptibility and Resistance to Learned Helplessness.'
Noah Levit
Noah, whose research mentor is Dr. Thomas White, will be presenting his dissertation work on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 in Room 180, Level 8, Basic Science Tower at 10:00 AM. His dissertation is entitled, 'Inhibition of Pathological Connexin26 Hemichannels Implicated in Keratitis-Ichthyosis-Deafness Syndrome.'
Matthew Beymer
Matt will be presenting his work, conducted under the guidance of Maricedes Acosta-Martinez, on Monday, May 5, 2014, at 2:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. His dissertation is entitled 'The Role of Phosphoinositide-3 Kinase in Regulating Kisspeptin Neurons within the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Gonadal Axis.'
AnnMarie Torres
Annie will present her dissertation research to the public on Thursday, March 13, 2014, at 2:00 PM in Room 038 Life Sciences Building. Annie's advisor is Dr. Adrianus van der Velden, and the title of her talk is 'L-Asparaginase II produced by S. Typhimurium Inhibits T Cell Responses through Hydrolysis of Asparagine and Suppression of Metabolic Reprogramming.'