2024 SROP Faculty Mentors
Below is a list of faculty mentors for the 2024 SROP season. Please note this list is not comprehensive, but rather faculty who have preemptively volunteered to take on an SROP student for the summer.
If you wish to work with a faculty mentor who is not on this list, please continue to apply and list that faculty on your application for the matching process.
| Faculty Name | Department | Lab Keywords | Projects for SROP |
| Karen Abram, PhD | Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences | Criminal Justice, Needs and Outcomes, Longitudinal, Intergenerational | Examining intergenerational relationships in firearm violence, Drug use disorders, Delinquency, and Parental incarceration |
| Emma Alexander, PhD | Computer Science | Computer Vision, Imaging, Bio-inspired, Inverse Problems | Scientific and hyperspectral imaging using a combination of data-driven and physical-model-based inversion and optimization techniques |
| Mark Beeman, PhD | Psychology / NUIN | Problem Solving, Creativity, Cognitive Neuroscience | Generating creative solutions to different types of problems (puzzles; also math problems, and other) |
| Rinad Beidas, PhD | Medical Social Sciences | Implementation Science, Applied Clinical Research, Firearm Injury Prevention, Mental Health, Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease | Implementing a secure firearm storage program in pediatric primary care as s universal suicide prevention program |
| Daniel Brat MD, PhD | Pathology | Glioblastoma, Tumor Micro-environment, Glioma Stem Cells, Immunosuppression, Hypoxia | Influence of hypoxia and tumor associated macrophages on hippo signaling that supports stem cell behavior in GBM cells |
| Jaime Dominguez, PhD | Political Science | Urban, Race, Ethnic Politics | |
| David Dunand, PhD | Materials Science and Engineering | Metallurgy, Additive Manufacturing, Biomedical Implants | Additive manufacturing of titanium and stell biomedical implants |
| Patricia Franklin, MD | Department of Medical Social Sciences | Patient Reported Outcome Measures, Osteoarthritis and Aging, Disparity in Musculoskeletal Outcomes, Implementation Science | Patient-reported outcome measures to assess physical function and outcomes in aging adults with osteoarthritis and other chronic conditions |
| Changiz Geula, PhD | Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease | Brain Aging, SuccessfulCognitive Aging (SuperAging), Dementias, Neurodegenerative Disorders | Pathologic, anatomic, neurochemical and molecular studies of age-related brain changes, pathobiology of dementias, including frontotemporal dementia, and investigator of factors the contribute to successful cognitive aging (SuperAging) |
| Lucy Godley, MD, PhD | Medicine/Hematology-Oncology | Germline Cancer Risk | Study molecular mechanisms by which germline cancer predisposition alleles lead to hematopoietic malignancies |
| Claudia Haase, PhD | Education and Social Policy (SESP) | Emotion, Relationships, Life-span Development, Mental Health, Psychophysiology | Study healthy development across the life span with a focus on emotions in individuals and couples by combining insights and paradigms from life-span developmental, affective, and relationship science |
| Laurel Harbridge-Yong, PhD | Political Science | American Politics, Primary Elections, Representation, Threats and Violence | Understanding how primary voters make decisions in elections and how this shapes the electoral incentives of legislators |
| Jennifer Kearney, PhD | Pharmacology | Neuroscience, Pharmacology, Genetics, Epilepsy, Mechanisms of Disease | Understanding how genetic variants lead to altered excitability in the brain and how disease variants interact with an individual's genetic background to influence severity |
| Liming Li, PhD | Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics | Protein Aggregation, Prion Conversion, Neurodegenerative Diseases, Amyloids, Epigenetics | |
| Jeffrey Lopez, PhD | Chemical and Biological Engineering | Energy Storage, Lithium Ion Batteries, Sustainability, Electrolytes | Development of new materials for lithium ion batteries and understanding electrolyte decomposition mechanisms |
| Heather Pinkett, PhD | Molecular Biosciences | Multidrug Resistance, Antibiotics, ABC Transporters, Middle Ear Infection | Study how the Non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHI) bacteria avoid the human immune responses and thus prevent pathogen death |
| Lucas Pinto, MD, PhD | Neuroscience | Decision Making, Cognitive Flexibility, Neuromodulation, Cortical Circuits | |
| Karla Satchell, PhD | Microbiology-Immunology | Bacteria, Virus, Pathogenesis, Structure, Drug Discovery | Conducting biochemical assays of chemical ligands that are putative inhibitors of helicases from viruses with pandemic potential |
| Richard Smith, PhD | Pharmacology | Brain Development, Genetics, Epilepsy | Electrophysiology, and high-throughput microscopy to study fundamental biophysical mechanisms of neocortex development |
| Nathaniel Stern, PhD | Physics and Astronomy | Optics, Nanomaterials, Magnetism, Quantum Information | Fundamental quantum interactions of photons with atoms, nano-scale structures, and magnetic material |
| Mel Ulmer, PhD | Physics and Astronomy | Optics, Astrophysics, Data Analysis | ME related to the magnetic control of deformable mirror, Analysis of archival exoplanet imaging data, Analysis of archival X-ray observations of active galactic nuclei |
| Qian Wang, PhD | Mechanical Engineering | Electrical Contact, Tribology, Surface Engineering, Novel Lubricant and Surface Materials, Biomedical Devices | Experimental exploration of phenomena related to electrical contact interface, novel surface design for damage-free sliding interfaces |
| Sandra Waxman, PhD | Psychology | Infant, Cognition, Language, Child | Language and cognitive development in infants ranging from 4 months to 3 years |
| Adriana Weisleder, PhD | Communication Sciences & Disorders | Language Development, Bilingualism, Early Literacy, Parent-Child Interactions, Late Talkers | Language development in Spanish-English bilingual toddlers, Latine parents’ perceptions of differences in young children’s language development, Care pediatricians provide for bilingual families |
| Gayle Woloschak, PhD | Radiation Oncology | Radiation Biology, Nanotechnology, Molecular Biology, Radiation Protection | Mechanisms of nanoconstruct delivery to different cell types for cancer imaging or therapy. |
| Minoli Perera, PharmD, PhD | Pharmacology | Pharmacogenomics, African American Genomes | Functional validation of previously discovered genetic variants associated with drug response. We usually use cell culture methods including CRISPR |
| Peng Zhang, PhD | Neurological Surgery | Nanotechnology, Immunotherapy, Cancer Immunology, Brain Tumor Research, Metabolism | Integrate nanotechnology, immunology, cancer biology, immunometabolism, and bioinformatics to develop new RNA therapeutics |
| Jing Zheng, PhD | Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery | Hearing Loss, Cochlea, Noise Exposure | |
| Rachel Zuckert, PhD | Philosophy | History of Western Philosophy, Aesthetics | Relationship between art/aesthetics and science, religion, and politics in the Scottish Enlightenment, thinking about texts, Kant's conception of reason as aspirational |