Current Scholars

• Ph.D. Program - Molecular & Cellular Biology
• BS in Biomedical Sciences and minor in Chemistry at Northern Arizona University
• At NAU he studied the fungal pathogen Coccidioides and the disease it causes, Valley Fever. As a PhD student, he is focusing on cancer research, specifically studying the enzyme known as QSOX1, which is upregulated in several cancer types and is correlated with increased invasion and metastasis of tumors.

• PhD Candidate in Applied Mathematics  
• Samantha receivedd a BS in Mathematics from ASU
• Samantha works on an interdisciplinary team of researchers to develop new tools to monitor disease transmission on the community level.
  While at-home and clinical tests for diseases like COVID-19 can help an individual determine their disease status,
  these tests may result in false negatives or have reporting delays. Her work relies on estimating the true number of cases via wastewater-based surveillance and mathematical modelling. This allows for a more accurate, real-time picture of transmission in a community and can help public officials make informed decisions in controlling the spread of a disease.

• PhD Candidate in Biochemistry
• Lillian received BS degrees in Biology and Chemistry  from University of Redlands
• Lillian investigates how renewable energy sources could power the planet. Her research aims to convert carbon dioxide into non-fossil based fuels and other value-added chemical products. In one approach she is pioneering, carbon dioxide is captured from the air by polymer-coated electrodes. Like the protein environments of biological enzymes (natures catalysts), the polymeric coatings provide low-energy pathways to achieving the overall chemical transformations. Lillian aims to improve understandings of the structure-activity relationships governing these hybrid materials and enable a more sustainable energy future.

• Ph.D. Program - Computer Science
• Danielle received a B.S in Biomedical Engineering from ASU.
• After working in industry and becoming an experienced professional in the field of cybersecurity, she returned to ASU to work as an NSF National Research Traineeship for Citizen Centered Smart Cities and Smart Living. Danielle's work investigates how to create a cyber-harm composite indicator that will allow users to evaluate if behaviors are leading to an increase in cyber risk. A cyber-harm indicator will be an opportunity to address the challenges users face in determining their risks. This research aims to address gaps researchers face in understanding how users' cyber risks change over time.

• Ph.D. Program - Microbiology
• Keilen received a B.S in Microbiology from Brigham Young University
• Her current research focuses on the genetics and physiology of stress responses in E. coli. Her work is on a mutation that makes cells more resistant to antibiotics, oxidative chemicals, high salt concentrations, high temperatures, and other conditions that are damaging to living organisms. She investigates how this mutation changes the internal workings of the cell and how we can work around similar mutations as they arise in pathogens. This work increases our understanding of "superbugs" and how we can fight them to eliminate infection and disease.

• Ph.D. Program - Applied Mathematics
• Marina received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton,
• Marina Mancuso is a returning ARCS Scholar, and her research focuses on mathematically modeling West Nile Virus and other mosquito-borne diseases. Marina is a year-round Graduate Student Intern in the Information Systems and Modeling Division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she works with a team of highly interdisciplinary researchers to incorporate data fusion techniques for studying the impact of climate change on mosquito-borne disease transmission.

• Ph.D. Program -  Electrical Engineering
• Tyler received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University.
• His research is focused on the operation of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) chamber, an ultra-high vacuum technique that allows for precision at the atomic layer. Tyler utilizes MBE to grow semiconductor materials for optical communication and autonomous vehicle sensors, gas and bio sensing for medical diagnostics of carbon monoxide (CO), water vapor (H₂O), carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄), as well as for the development into higher efficiency solar cells.

• Ph.D. Program - Chemical Engineering
• Sydney received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering with an Emphasis in Nanotechnology from the University of Southern California.
• Her research aims to enhance inorganic carbon capture and utilization in cyanobacteria through applied protein engineering. Cyanobacteria naturally synthesize many valuable chemicals directly from sunlight and carbon dioxide, making them promising platforms for large-scale biochemical production. Her goal is to improve overall bioproduction efficiency by creating robust genetic mutants with superior growth capabilities. Ultimately, this study will benefit humankind by advancing the development of renewable, economically competitive alternatives to conventional petroleum-based methods.

• Ph.D. Program - Materials Science & Engineering
• David received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Lamar University.
• His research focuses on applying highly transparent metal oxides as carrier-selective contacts for solar cells. The optical and electrical properties of the metal oxides, along with their potential to be made with a low-cost and scalable deposition technique, make them ideal candidates for boosting the performance and lowering the cost of solar cells.

• PhD Candidate in Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering  
• Justin received a BS in Marine Biology from the College of Charleston 
• He studies microbial bioremediation to treat groundwater pollution. Microbial bioremediation employs bacterial strains which can degrade human health degrading and environmentally damaging chemicals at the atomic scale. Many sites across the United States exist with the groundwater contaminants trichloroethene (TCE) and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). One facet of Justin's research seeks to enhance bioremediation outcomes in treating large dilute TCE groundwater contamination plumes.

• Ph.D. Program - Physiological Sciences
• BS and an MS in Biological Sciences from Southern Illinois University 
• Kelsey’s current research involves the evaluation of novel glycosylated peptide therapeutics in animal models of Parkinson’s Disease.

• Ph.D. Candidate in Biomedical Engineering
• Romi received a BS in Bioengineeering at the University of Washington
• She first became interested in muscle biology and cardiac disease pathogenesis.  Her current research investigates the molecular basis for cardiac relaxation and how disease-causing mutations impact that structure-function relationship.   She has mastered complex techniques such as time-resolved Forster's resonance energy transfer (TR-FRET) which she is using to investigate the structural basis for cardiac relaxation

• Ph.D. Candidate in Organic Chemistry
• Alessandra attended Ball State University earning a B.S. In Chemistry and Pre-Medicine.
• Her research focuses on  the design and synthesis of small molecule kinase inhibitors for the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC) and glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a very aggressive stage IV cancer that can occur in the brain and spinal cord. She is investigating compounds that present a novel approach in targeting GBM and have displayed efficacy in multiple GBM cell lines and with no observed toxicity to noncanerous cell lines.

• Ph.D. Candidate in Physics
• Christopher received a BS in Bioprocess Engineering from State University of New York
• ​​​​​​​Christopher uses some of the world's fastest supercomputers to study the strong force, which describes how quarks and gluons interact with each other. He is also working with scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National lab on how quantum computers can be used to study fundamental particles and their interactions. Christopher's research lays the groundwork needed to study particle physics using quantum computing. 

• Ph.D. Candidate in Biomedical Engineering
• Thomas received his Bachelor's in Physiology and Medical Science from the University of Arizona in 2017.​​​​​​​
• Following, he spent a couple of years working in a variety of medical settings as a scribe and then as a research technician.  With this experience, he determined his contribution towards medicine would be best suited as an engineer and returned to pursue a PhD in Biomedical Engineering.  Thomas's research focuses on imaging and developing computational models of digestive cancers for improvement in non-invasive detection and classification of these diseases.

Ph.D. Candidate in Molecular Medicine 
Pierce received a BS and an MS in Mooecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Arizona
Pierce is currently a 4^th year  PhD candidate studying virus-host interactions pertaining to the enigma of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) latency,  an incredibly complex virus and member of the herpes virus family with significant health impact in the immunocompromised transplant and cancer patients. His current studies investigate how HCMV hijacks host DNA replication and repair machinery for viral objectives during replicative and latent infection cycles.

• Ph.D. Program - Optical Sciences
• Christian received a BS in Geology from Amherst College
• Christian’s current research focuses on experimental quantum physics and exploring the limits that quantum mechanics places on making precision measurements with light, how one can surpass these limits, and incorporating these findings to advance scientific pursuits, for example, improving gravitational wave detectors or designing detectors to search for dark matter.

• Ph.D. Candidate in Applied Mathematics
• Sarah received a BS in Biology from Lafayette College and and MS in Applies Mathematics from the University of Arizona
• She is interested in exploring mathematics as a tool for understanding and representing biological problems. Her earlier research involved projects related to infectious disease epidemiology, including general population modeling of infectious disease spread and modeling of excess death factors of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador. Her continued work on COVID-19 pandemic issues led her to participate in a national, federally-sponsored Long COVID Challenge where she is developing a novel methodology that will be used for her research on prediction of acute respiratory distress in COVID-19 patients.

• PhD Program: Plant Sciences, University of Arizona
• Brooke received a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Arizona State University and an M.S. in Biology from University of Mississippi
• Her research examines the diversity of fungi in natural ecosystems, with a special focus on the fungi that live inside of the healthy leaves of plants (endophytes). She searches for patterns in how endophytes are distributed with insights from climate, coevolution, and host rarity across the world’s biomes, with the goal of understanding how fungi assemble and contribute to the health and success of their plant hosts

• Ph.D. Candidate in Physiological Sciences
• Savannah received a BS in Nutrition, a BHS and MS in Physiology from The University of Arizona
• Her research focuses on how diet impacts the crosstalk between the gut microbiota and overall host health.  Her master's thesis explored how prebiotic fibers in the diet can alter the small intestinal microbiota to restore small intestinal nutrient sensing and improve energy and glucose homeostasis, which is impaired with high fat diet feeding.  Her goal is to uncover novel therapeutics that target or are derived from the gut microbiota or from different dietary sources like specific plant-based flours to treat metabolic diseases like obesity and type 2 diabetes.