Connor Krolak is a 2nd year Bioengineering PhD student studying how ultrasound can be used to create better diagnoses for cancer, and then also use ultrasound to treat the cancer as well. He is currently focusing on using ultrasound to diagnose a really difficult type of liver cancer – hepatocellular carcinoma.
Read MoreChristina Bjarvin is a graduate student and researcher at the University of Washington’s School of Environmental Forest Sciences, working and studying in the Center for International Trade of Forest Products lab. Her research focuses on how constructing tall buildings out of wood can help us fight climate change.
Read MoreSaumya Jani is a graduate student researcher in the University of Washington’s Department on Lab Medicine and Pathology. She is studying the immune response to an aggressive and often lethal skin cancer, Merkel cell carcinoma, in order to improve immune-based cancer treatments.
Read MoreNicole Gregorio is a second year PhD student in bioengineering at the University of Washington. She is developing new, Jell-O-like materials that help us better understand cells and disease. These materials are also a key part of improving disease treatments that help the body regenerate itself.
Read MoreLance De Koninck is a second-year bioengineering PhD student studying how to better deliver drugs using ultrasound. His research explorers how ultrasound can increase the temperature inside of cells, weakening them and assisting drugs to better penetrate these cells.
Read MoreDoris Dai is a fifth-year PhD student in social psychology at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on how historical representations of Native Americans shape non-Native individuals’ (mis)perceptions of Native Americans, and how such (mis)perceptions have downstream negative consequences on Native Americans’ well-being and lived experiences.
Read MoreCaitlin Cruz is a Masters student in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. She works in the field of biofuels— transportation fuels made from renewable resources. Her research examines what sorts of policies create the most beneficial conditions for biofuel facilities across the US, hoping to make the implementation of these fuels more widespread.
Read MoreOlivia Kern is a second year PhD student studying how emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2 outsmart the body’s early defenses. She is particularly interested in connecting the tactics that the virus uses when it infects our lung cells to disease severity, in order to develop drugs and vaccines that combat all coronaviruses.
Read MoreRachel Gariepy is a second-year Ph.D. student studying how materials that undergo laser cooling can impact the surrounding environment. She is examining how the temperature difference caused by these materials affects the activity rate of enzymes, which are of vital importance in many biological and biochemical processes.
Read MoreYasmine Farhat is a 5th year PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Farhat studies how environmental changes impact the movement of metals (both helpful and toxic) in rice paddies, and change the nutritional quality of rice.
Read MoreGabriella Reggiano works in a computational structural biology lab, a fancy way of saying she spends her time at a computer, writing a bunch of code and looking at a lot of protein models. Unlike most scientists, her goal isn’t to answer a fundamental question about the universe, but to develop a method that will make it easier for scientists to understand how proteins move, so they can answer whatever questions spark their curiosity (as long as they’re about proteins).
Read MoreTammi van Neel is a Ph.D. candidate in the Chemistry department at the University of Washington. She develops analytical tools and methods to study how cells communicate with each other using beads that capture small, short-lived signaling molecules.
Read MoreAshley R. Townes is a passion-driven fish ecologist, educator, and international in-field environmental researcher working in the realm of ecological restoration and natural resource management at various international agencies, NGOs, and institutions around the world. At the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, Townes is studying both the behavior and ecology of spawning sockeye salmon ( Oncorhynchus nerka ) and the effects of marine biogenic habitat on groundfish species that are ecological, commercially and economically important.
Read MoreSarah Sweger is a Ph.D. student in the Chemistry department at the University of Washington, but Sweger’s work sits at the crossroads between chemistry, biology, and physics. Sweger’s research focuses on utilizing electrons as magnetic “rulers” to understand the structure and function of proteins and how we can use statistics to determine the reliability of our measurements.
Read MoreEmma Myers is a Ph.D. candidate studying marine geophysics at UW. Her work focuses on characterizing the structure of the Earth beneath the ocean and how the Earth deforms along earthquake-producing subduction zone faults to better understand potential earthquake hazards.
Read MoreBri Gabel is an experienced aquaculturist who managed a community science team for nearly a decade, focusing on rearing jellyfish for aquarium display and scientific research. For the last two years, her jellyfish have been used to help scientists understand what jellyfish are eating and how that might influence the entire Puget Sound food web.
Read MoreKevin Bishop builds machines that shoot lasers at brains to make them glow–a key part of 3D microscopes that scientists and doctors can use to look at individual brain cells. His goal is to use light to make tools to treat brain diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Read MoreChristine Baker, a graduate student in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington, studies the movement of water by currents that are driven by breaking waves along the coast, specifically rip currents, which are hazardous for recreational swimmers. Using large-scale laboratory experiments, she seeks to understand when and how sand, pollutants, larvae, and unsuspecting swimmers move from the region where waves break to the open ocean.
Read MoreHannah Lewis is fascinated by how viruses hijack our cells to cause disease. She is a molecular biology PhD student at the University of Washington studying how Herpes Simplex Virus 1 manipulates proteins that package human DNA.
Read MoreHéctor Delgado Díaz is an astronomer and astrobiologist who is passionate about the search for extraterrestrial life. He studies the efficiency of each observation technique used to look at planets outside the solar system (exoplanets) and creates simulations of how the atmospheres of the exoplanets would look like through the lens of space telescopes.
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