uate research fellowships are among the · 2018. 6. 1. · acceptance at top-notch graduate and...

1CUNY 2013 AWARD RECIPIENTS

The 2013 National Science Foundation Grad-uate Research Fellowships are among the

nation’s most prestigious awards for graduatestudy in science, technology, engineering andmath. This year, The City University of New Yorkproudly celebrates our 23 graduating seniors andrecent alumni who won 2013 National ScienceFoundation Graduate Research Fellowships —more than any other public university system in

the Northeast. We’re pleased to spotlight the University’s “All-StarScience Teams” of NSF winners, along with a selection of otherhonorees from the Class of 2013. The external awards they’ve wonunderscore the caliber of CUNY’s graduates. These range from feder-ally funded Fulbright Fellowships for research and teaching abroad toacceptance at top-notch graduate and professional institutions aroundthe country, where CUNY alumni are pursuing law, medicine and thefull range of arts, sciences and social sciences. New alumni are alsoentering the workforce, engaging in public service or contributing tocharitable activities to enhance their personal growth. This specialedition of Salute to Scholars magazine salutes some of these remark-able students. See www.cuny.edu/allstars for a larger listing. TheUniversity congratulates all members of the Class of 2013 for enrichingour nation and, indeed, our world.

Warm best wishes,

William P. Kelly,Interim Chancellor

AWARDS_StS student awards program 7/18/13 3:43 PM Page 3

2 CUNY 2013 AWARD RECIPIENTS

Mizanur AhmedMacaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Jonas E. Salk Scholarship

Kyle Athayde Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College, ’13Coro Fellowship

Hunter Gross Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College, ’15Critical Language Scholarship (China)

Anna Groysman Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Jonas E. Salk Scholarship

Philip LiuMacaulay Honors College at City College, ’12National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Ivana Mellers Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College, ’12Fulbright Fellowship

Kristina Navrazhina Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College, ’14Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program

Ayodele Oti Macaulay Honors College at City College, ’12Princeton in Latin America

Christopher J. ParisanoMacaulay Honors College at Queens College, ’08National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Aleksey RuditskiyMacaulay Honors College at City College, ’12National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Emma SchatoffMacaulay Honors College at City College, ’13Jonas E. Salk Scholarship



Julius Edson (City College,B.E. in chemical engineering,2012), now a doctoral student at theUniversity of California-Irvine, has won a

National Science Foundation Graduate

Research Fellowship by suggesting a new way

of attacking the rising number of lethal

bacteria that are immune to antibiotics.

He wants to use a substance called

chitosan that’s found in the shells of crabs,

shrimp and other marine animals. Chitosan

can damage the bacterial cell membrane

through an electrostatic interaction. “The

chitosan sticks to and ruptures the cell

membrane of microbes then serves as an

antenna to direct the body’s own immune

system to attack,” Edson says.

But chitosan dissolves only in an environ-

ment that is more acidic than the human

body can tolerate. Edson intends to chemi-

cally modify chitosan so it can readily func-

tion in the body without losing its

innate properties.

He started at City as premed

but became interested in this

field while studying colloidal

systems with associate professor

Ilona Kretzschmar. This made

him realize that a degree in chemical

engineering was “a perfect fit.” He adds: “I’ll

still be able to help in the medical field.”

Edson was born in Nigeria. As a youngster,

he contracted various illnesses and was not

expected to survive. “But I am here and

healthy,” he says.

With survival came a sense of responsi-

bility to help others. Edson immigrated to the

United States at 7. As a City undergraduate,

he won a scholarship from the Louis Stokes

Alliances for Minority Participation, an NSF-

funded program to encourage underrepre-

sented minority students to pursue a

baccalaureate degree in the STEM fields. It

enabled him to conduct water-treatment

studies in Colombia. He has also conducted

research in Sweden and Austria.


4

Nikoleta Despodova (John Jay College ofCriminal Justice, B.A. in forensicpsychology, 2013) won a National Science FoundationGraduate Research Fellowship to study her hypothesis that inti-

mate-partner violence among same-sex couples may be seen —

by criminal court jurors — as less serious, less likely to reoccur

and less likely to lead to physical injuries.

“The stereotypical image of rape and intimate-partner

violence is of a man being stronger and assaulting a woman, but

when faced with two male or two female partners, jurors have

doubts about who they’re supposed to believe,” Despodova

says, citing studies that appear to demonstrate this.

Despodova, who plans to pursue a doctorate, has suggested

deepening the research by giving questionnaires to

240 jury-eligible community members, followed

by a mock trial. She also proposed investi-

gating the extent to which myths and stereo-

types affect such judgments.

Despodova first questioned how evidence is

evaluated at 16, during the trial of the motorcy-

clist who fatally injured her grandfather. She

completed four years of baccalaureate studies in English and

literature in her native Bulgaria. Then in 2008 she moved to the

United States to pursue a degree in forensic psychology. She

attended a John Jay open house and enrolled.

At John Jay, she engaged in varied related research. She

worked with professor Elizabeth Jeglic to examine the attitudes

of student jurors; the research was

supported by the U.S. Depart-

ment of Education’s Ronald

E. McNair Postbaccalau-

reate Achievement

Program, which

prepares underrepre-

sented students for

doctoral work. She

also conducted inde-

pendent research

with professor

Mark Fondacaro

and in professor

Margaret Bull

Kovera’s lab.

Jan Dominik Stepinski Macaulay Honors College at City College, ’13National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Jaimie Stettin Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College/CUNY BA, ’11Fulbright Fellowship

Alison Wong Macaulay Honors College at Queens College, ’15Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship

Madeline Yap Macaulay Honors College at Queens College, ’13Fulbright Fellowship (Korea)

Pietro BaroneBaruch College, ’13London School of Economics and Political Science, MSc in International Relations

Mayara G. GuimaraesBaruch College, ’13Harnisch Scholarship and Golden Key International Honor Society, 2012

Ralph E. LabatonBaruch College, ’13Georgetown University, Law Center, JD

Dustin LeeBaruch College, ’13IPG Marketing Fellowship Award, 2012

Marco LeungBaruch College, ’13Brooklyn College, Masters of Science

Logan LuoBaruch College, ’13Pace University, Lublin school of Business, MS

Lulu MeroBaruch College, ’13

IFM, University of Strath-clyde, MSc Finance

Irina Mironova,Baruch College, ’13Salk Scholarship, 2013

Elaina MontagueBaruch College, ’13University of Nebraska-Lincoln,Liberal Arts, PhD

Rukmani NayyarBaruch College, ’13Baruch College, Masters of Marketing

Hongjie PanBaruch College, ’13University of Edinburgh, Business School, MS

Alina PavlovaMacauley Honors College at Baruch College, ’13Tulane University Law School, J.D.

Svetlana RafailovaMacauley Honors College at Baruch College, ’13Baruch College, Master’s Degree

Rebecca SeidmanBaruch College, ’13Hunter College, Masters in Social Work

Marissa Stuart, Baruch MBALeader of Tomorrow by The St.Gallen Foundation for InternationalStudents in Switzerland

Ellen AdamsBrooklyn College, M.F.A. ’13Fulbright 2013

Mizanur Ahmed Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13 State University of New York,Downstate Medical Center, College of Medicine, MD

Mizanur Ahmed Brooklyn College, ’13 JESS, 2013

Nathalie Louise BelkinBrooklyn College, ’13 Long Island University, PalmerSchool of Library Sciences, MLS

CUNY 2013 AWARD RECIPIENTS



Dane Christie (City College2013, B.E. in chemical engi-neering) — who will attend PrincetonUniversity in the fall — was awarded a

National Science Foundation Graduate

Research Fellowship. The Jamaican-born

Christie once pitched for the Toronto

Bluejays’ Dominican Republic farm team.

He now aims to earn a doctorate.

“My mom told me I needed to think

about college,” he says. “But that was the

farthest thing from my mind. I was a 6-

foot, 7-inch left-hander.” Ultimately,

after two years with the team, he joined

his mother in New York, worked in

construction for four years and then

entered the Hostos-City College dual-

degree engineering program.

Hostos assistant professor Yoel

Rodriguez, who teaches chemistry and

physics, “gave me the push and the belief

in myself I was lacking at the time,”

Christie says. At City, he found new

mentors in professor John

Lombardi and associate professor

Ilona Kretzschmar — with whom

Christie researched colloidal

assembly.

His NSF proposal evolved from his

research into improving the efficiency of

organic solar (photovoltaic) cells, which

generate electricity from sunlight.

For that proposal, Christie suggested

researching the purely organic bulk-

heterojunction solar cell. “I proposed an

experimental protocol, which would boost

efficiency,” Christie says. That could lead

to better, cheaper and more environmen-

tally friendly solar panels. This approach

could be applied to other technologies,

including LED lights and batteries.

Christie is married to Ashley Christie,

whom he met when she was a student at

Baruch. She transferred to City College

when he did and will enter New York

University’s master’s in social work

program.

Anthony BukherBrooklyn College, ’13 Long Island University, Registered Occupational Therapist OTR

Mireille GoldBrooklyn College, ’13 M.S.E.University of Washington, PhD Program (School Psychology)

Anna GroysmanMacaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13 State University of New York,Downstate Medical Center, College of Medicine, MD

Quanda JohnsonBrooklyn College, ’13Fulbright 2013

Yvonne JurisBrooklyn College, ’13 Columbia School of Journalism

Ember Kane Skye Lee Brooklyn College, ’13 University of Massachusetts,Amherst, PhD Program (Sociology)

Sarah Ita Levitan Brooklyn College, B.S. ’13 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship2013, Columbia University, Computer Science Program

Jonathan LinBrooklyn College, ’13 Columbia University, PhD Program (Sociology)

Daniel MargolisBrooklyn College, ’13 University of Massachusetts,Amherst, PhD Program (Political Science)



Aaron Dolor (HunterCollege, B.A. magnacum laude in biochem-

istry, minor in linguis-tics, 2012) won a 2013

National Science Foundation Graduate Research

Fellowship by proposing a novel way of exploring how

“specialized zwitterionic fats” function.

“Specialized zwitterionic fats” refers to a layer of fat

that separates the interior of the cell from its environ-

ment. It has positive and negative electrical charges at

different locations, plays a critical role in determining

whether molecules can get in or out of the cell, but it’s

not clear precisely what mechanism it uses.

Dolor, now a doctoral candidate at the University of

California-San Francisco, suggests studying the impact

of synthetic zwitterionic fats with an inverse electrical

charge.

“The idea is to understand how, if you reverse the

charge, it affects lipid biophysics,” he says. “That can

inform our knowledge of how molecules get into cells,

which is potentially important for delivering drugs in

diseases like cancer and HIV. Perhaps, if you change the

charge, drugs can get through the cell membrane.”

Dolor has not decided whether to use his grant for this

project. He can transfer it to other research.

Born in New York City and raised on the Caribbean

island of St. Lucia through age 6, Dolor worked for two

years as an undergraduate researcher in the laboratory

of chemistry professor Charles M. Drain. In 2012, he

won a CUNY Jonas E. Salk Scholarship for graduate

research.



Meryl Horn (HunterCollege, B.A. in biology,2012), now in a doctoral program at

the University of California-San Fran-

cisco, will use her National Science Founda-

tion Graduate Research Fellowship to develop a better

understanding of how memory works. She intends to

use her grant to look at how the brain’s circuitry that

controls contextual memory can be altered in drug-

addicted animals.

She explains: “A rat that is addicted to cocaine might be

trained to push a lever in a box to get a dose. If it is later

put back in the box, even after it has been weaned from

the drug, it is likely to press that lever again and again.”

In explaining how this is relevant to human behavior,

Horn says, “For addicts, contextual cues can trigger

processes that lead to relapse and can thus be detri-

mental to their recovery.”

She decided to pursue her interest in science when

she was a receptionist across the street from Hunter

College — after she had earned a baccalaureate degree

from Clark University in international development and

social change.

In her first year at Hunter, when she was also working

full time, she encountered associate professor Roger

Persell, who was teaching an honors introduction to

biology class. Ultimately, she says that in neurobiology

she found “the perfect combination of hard scientific

rigor that was missing in international development.”

She then spent three years in the laboratory of assis-

tant professor Carmen V. Melendez-Vasquez.

At UC-San Francisco, Horn switched her field of

research to learning and memory and is studying with

neurology professor Patricia Janak, who holds an

endowed chair in addiction research.


8

Vadricka Etienne, a second-yeardoctoral student at the CUNYGraduate Center, has won a National

Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow-

ship that will help her explore whether the

approximately 776,000 U.S. residents of Haitian

ancestry will cling to their roots into the third

generation. Or, like so many other groups, will

dissolve into the great American melting pot.

A second-generation Haitian-American who

grew up in Orlando, Fla., Etienne (University of

South Florida, B.A. in communication, minors in

sociology and anthropology, 2011) says that

previous research on the assimilation of children

of immigrants has focused on their ethnic iden-

tity choices but not on how members of the

second generation try to convey their culture to

their children.

“While it was less complicated for the first

generation to pass on their cultural heritage

because they often raise their children in ways

similar to their own upbringing, the second

generation has refashioned the cultural heritage

of their parents as they participate in the Amer-

ican culture, which begs the questions of not only

what is the second generation passing on but

how,” she writes.

Her hypothesis is that most likely the third

generation will not maintain its Haitian identity,

particularly in cities without strong cultural

support. (The 2010 census tallied

about 268,000 New Yorkers

who were born in Haiti or

were of Haitian

descent.)

She envisions

taking an ethno-

graphic approach

involving interviews with families.

Etienne says she applied to CUNY

because of three professors —

Philip Kasinitz, Nancy Foner and

Richard Alba — “who I kept

coming across as I did research on

assimilation and black identities”

and who have written about immi-

gration by various groups, assim-

ilation and ethnic politics.

Luciano MeloBrooklyn College, ’13 American University, PhD Program

Marika PlaterBrooklyn College, ’13 M.A.Rutgers University

Benjamin RudshteynMacaulay Honors at Brooklyn College, B.S. ’13 Goldwater Scholarship 2012Yale University, Chemistry Doctoral Program

Ayesha Arif Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College

Martha D’ua Awereh Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13University of Cincinnati Medical College

Jerald Cherian Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College

Priyanka Chopra Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College

Kathy Chu Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College

Stephanie Christie Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13PREP Program in Biomedical Science at Mt. Sinai

Robert Colbourn Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College,MD/PhD program

Gerri Connaught Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Hunter School of Social Work

Sarah Dienstag Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Einstein College of Medicine

Emmanuel Ekwedike Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13City College, MS in Math, GEM Fellowship Award

Mikhail Goman Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College

Abraham Haimed Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College, EME Program

Megan Hanson Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13MA in English at BC Touro College Resource Center Coordinator,

Priya Haran Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Penn State, PhD in Biomedical Science

Koby Herman Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College



CUNY 2013 AWARD RECIPIENTS 9

Eun Jin Hong Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College

Andre Jordan Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13University of Miami, PhD in Chemistry

Nishant Kumar Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College

Swati Kumar Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College

Samuel Landau Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13UCLA Law School

Matthew Lee Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College, MD/PhD program

Madeline Mineo Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathy

Camillia Monestime Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY at Stony Brook, PhD in Biology

Ru Chen (City College,B.E. in chemical engi-

neering, 2013) — won a

National Science Foundation Grad-

uate Research Scholarship and will enter

a doctoral program at the University of

Delaware in the fall.

She will explore the possibility of

detecting cancer by looking for abnormal

variations of glycoproteins, which are

proteins attached by carbohydrates

through a process called glycosylation.

Many mammalian diseases involve

glycosylation, but its role is not clear.

Ru Chen was born in China, in a rural

Fujian province. Her grandfather, the

area’s only physician, read to her each

night from his herbal handbook. Chen

was 4 when she first heard about cancer,

after seeing a crying woman holding her

son. Ultimately, cancer also claimed her

grandfather, whom she calls “my greatest

mentor.”

Chen spent a year in a Chinese law

school and barely spoke English when

she immigrated to the United States four

years ago.

Reading the newspaper voraciously

helped her to improve her oral English,

although she adds that vocabulary was difficult for

her. She emphasizes how grateful she is for the help

provided by professors and students. “The one thing I

feel lucky for is that math is universal,” she adds.

With assistant professor of chemical engineering

Raymond Tu, she investigated how temperature at

the air-water interface affects kinetic differences in

the self-assembly of the Beta 9H peptide.

With chemistry professor Teresa Bandosz, she

explored the synthesis of copper-based metallic

organic framework composites, which could improve

environmental sustainability. She had a summer

internship at Merck, related to vaccine research. As

president of City’s chapter of the American Institute

of Chemical Engineers, she helped introduce

minority middle-school students to potential oppor-

tunities in science and engineering


CUNY 2013 AWARD RECIPIENTS10

Jasmine Hatcher (QueensCollege, B.A. in chemistry, 2009),

won a National Science Foundation

Graduate Research Fellowship to

explore whether the radioactive

element technetium-99 can be

reduced to a pure metal to

store it more safely.

Technetium-99 exists in two

forms. One, 99Tc, is the radionu-

clide most commonly used to image the

body in nuclear medicine scans.

But the other sits in old, potentially leaky

waste tanks as a byproduct of uranium and pluto-

nium fission from mid-20th century nuclear

weapon manufacturing — a terrifying long-term

threat to water and the food chain.

Hatcher became interested in chemical

research at Queensborough Community College,

where she earned an associate degree in 2006.

Her mentor, associate professor Sharon Lall-

Ramnarine, arranged for her to work as her

summer research assistant at Brookhaven

National Laboratory from 2005 to 2007.

“She convinced me to go to grad school,”

Hatcher says. “Any excuse or doubts, she shot

down.”

At Queens College, Hatcher studied with

professor of chemistry and biochemistry Robert

Engel, and Brookhaven National Laboratory scien-

tist James Wishart, who collaborates with Lall-

Ramnarine, brought her in to work as a lab tech.

After earning her bachelor’s degree, she spent

three years at Brookhaven. There, Hatcher

became proficient at purifying ionic liquids. She

worked with physical and organic chemists and a

nuclear engineer and says she “saw the need for

chemists who are really knowledgeable about

nuclear energy and how things work.”

Wishart recommended that she pursue a

doctorate under Hunter professor Lynn

Francesconi, whose research focuses on tech-

netium. As a first-year graduate student, Hatcher

is rotating through laboratories to get a broader

frame of reference for her doctoral research.

Sarah Najam Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13New York University College of Dentistry

Samuel Nourieli Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Rutgers University, MS in City and Regional Planning

Amrita Persaud Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Hunter College, MA in Anthropology

Joshua Pulinat Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Research Study Assistant in Psychological and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan Kettering

Apurva Shah Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13SUNY Downstate Medical College

Jamille Sutton Macaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Columbia School of Journalism

Michele WilliamsMacaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Summer Fellow at the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Clinic at Northeastern University; University of London, Goldsmith College,Theater and Performance Department

Julie ZengMacaulay Honors College at Brooklyn College, ’13Albany School of Pharmacy



Ben Hixon (Hunter College, B.A. incomputer science, 2012), now in a Univer-sity of Washington doctoral program, won a National

Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to

explore Open IE — open information extraction — an

alternate and useful technique for searching online.

“In a normal search, you’re looking for key words, but

in Open IE, you’re using facts,” he explains.

Open IE automatically pulls facts

from news stories, blogs and other

text on the Internet and catalogs

them in a database. For example,

he says that “if you have the sen-

tence, ‘President Obama is in the

White House,’ you can extract that

Obama is the current president.” Hixon

is figuring out how to search the database.

Hixon elegantly simplifies Open IE for the general

public. But his research, which began when he was an

undergraduate, is characterized by depth and detail.

It dates back to a database class with Hunter com-

puter science professor Susan Epstein. Over several

semesters, Hixon worked with her on a project related

to building a dialogue system for people who are blind

and want to query the Andrew Heiskell Braille and

Talking Book Library in Manhattan.

During a 2011 Research Experience for Undergrad-

uates program, Hixon worked with Epstein’s collabo-

rator — Rebecca Passonneau, director of

Columbia University’s Center for Computa-

tional Learning Systems. After graduation,

he returned to work in Passonneau’s lab

and was to present a paper on this research

at the June 2013 conference of the North

American Association for Computational

Linguistics.

His research with University of Washington profes-

sor Oren Etzioni, who pioneered open information ex-

traction, has shifted from voice recognition to

“conversational search.”


Fazaana AliThe City College of New York, ’13Louisiana State University Schoolof Veterinary Medicine

Monica Bal The City College of New York, ’13American University of Antigua School of Medicine

Gabriela BisonoThe City College of New York, ’13SUNY Downstate College of Medicine

Mohammed BouharaThe City College of New York, ’13The Ohio State College of Medicine

Miguel BrionesThe City College of New York, ’13PhD, Psychology, CUNY Graduate Center

Rochelle Catuira The City College of New York, ’13UC Davis School of Law

Ru ChenThe City College of New York, ’13National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Michael CinelliThe City College of New York, ’13New York College of Osteopathic Medicine

Lucas CorcoranThe City College of New York, ’13PhD, English, CUNY Graduate Center

Dane ChristieThe City College of New York, ’13National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

Chathuranga De SilvaThe City College of New York, ’13PhD, Chemical Engineering, Columbia University

Moises DominguezThe City College of New York, ’13Yale School of Medicine

Angela FarooqiThe City College of New York, ’13Frank H. Netter, MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University

12

Ekaterina Larina (Brooklyn College, B.S. ingeology, 2012), now in the college’s geology master’sprogram, won a National Science Foundation Graduate

Research Fellowship to explore what caused the mass extinc-

tion of ammonites millions of years ago.

In the Maastrichtian Age — before Earth’s last mass extinc-

tion 65.5 million years ago — ammonites were as dominant in

the sea as dinosaurs were on land. The extinction of these crea-

tures (think of an octopus with a shell) was most likely due to a

sustained global winter.

Well-preserved ammonite shells in the Owl Creek Forma-

tion — a section of ancient ocean floor that Larina studies in

Mississippi — could provide a richer understanding of prehis-

toric marine life. Larina first visited Mississippi through an

undergraduate NSF-sponsored Research Experiences for

Undergraduates.

“I’m trying to reconstruct the temperatures and to study how

changes in ammonite distribution could be related to environ-

mental perturbations, such as climate or global sea-level

change,” she says.

Her fascination with fossils began when she

was 7, in her native Kazakhstan, when her geol-

ogist grandfather handed her a trilobite.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union,

Larina’s parents insisted she pursue a career

in management and economics. She had almost

finished a master’s degree there when an opportu-

nity arose to study geology here. She had to start from the

beginning, taking intensive English-as-

second-language courses while

studying for that B.S. She

now conducts research

with her mentor,

lecturer Matthew

Garb.

Larina plans to

earn her master’s

degree in 2013 and

pursue a

doctorate with

her fellowship.

She teaches

undergraduate

geology and stratig-

raphy courses at the

college.




Philip Liu (MacaulayHonors College at CityCollege, B.E. in chem-ical engineering, 2012)

won a National Science Foundation

Graduate Research Fellowship that

will enable him to conduct research at

the nano-level of microelectronics.

His research relates to “Moore’s

Law” — announced in 1965 by Intel

founder Gordon Moore — that predicts

that the number of transistors per

square inch on integrated circuits will

double every 18 months.

But, as microelectronics researchers

try to pack more and more circuits into

increasingly tiny packages, they’re

colliding with the peculiar physics that

take place on the nanoscale. When

things get exceedingly small, the risk of

short-circuiting soars, and the very

flow of electrons makes them too hot

to function.

Liu intends to pursue a solution.

Guided by two professors in the

chemical engineering doctoral

program at the University of Texas at

Austin, Liu will be facing several major

challenges. He hopes to create a mate-

rial that will insulate electrical circuits

and conduct heat efficiently away from

them — two seemingly incompatible functions that

have never been combined before. He hopes to do this

with a polymer composite, which would enable more

silicon chips to be stacked upon one another than is

now possible. And that would allow adherence to

Moore’s Law.

“My first project is to synthesize boron nitride

nanotubes, which are long, skinny tubes with

nanometer diameters,” Liu says

As an undergraduate, Liu had an NSF-funded

Research Experiences for Undergraduates at

Columbia University. He also worked on artificial eye

research at the Lawrence Livermore National Labora-

tory. Liu intends to work in industry after earning his

doctorate.

Patria GerardoThe City College of New York, ’13UMDNJ School of Osteopathic Medicine

Hyeondo (Luke) HwangMacaulay Honors College at TheCity College of New York, ’13PhD, Chemistry, University of Chicago

David Jacobson The City College of New York, ’13Brooklyn Law School

Natalie MarteThe City College of New York, ’13San Juan Bautista School of Medicine

Rodolfo Martinez The City College of New York, ’13Brooklyn Law School

Heidy Martinez-AvilaThe City College of New York, ’13Howard University College of Medicine

Jessica MendezThe City College of New York, ’13PhD, History, Columbia University

Neelu Pathayil Macaulay Honors College at TheCity College of New York, ’13UC Hastings School of Law



Tariq RadwanThe City College of New York, ’13University of Buffalo School of Medicineand Biomedical Sciences

Mohammad RattuMacaulay Honors College at The City College of New York, ’13New York College of Osteopathic Medicine

Kijon Roberts The City College of New York, ’13Georgetown University Law Center

Natalia SaavedraThe City College of New York, ’13Emory University Law School

Alen SajanThe City College of New York, ’13SUNY Downstate College of Medicine

Arielle ScardinoMacaulay Honors College at The City College of New York, ’13PhD, Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Stony Brook University

Nihir ShahThe City College of New York, ’13New York College of Podiatric Medicine

Jorge Swett TapiaThe City College of New York, ’13University of Buffalo School of Dental Medicine

Jan Dominik StepinskiThe City College of New York, ’13National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

14

Christopher Parisano, adoctoral student at theGraduate Center, won aNational Science Foundation Graduate

Research Fellowship to study how

marginalized city residents and the

government are squaring off over arche-

ological ruins in Lima, Peru.

Parisano (Macaulay Honors College

at Queens College, B.A. in anthropology

2008) is looking at a plan to empty out

and preserve Lima’s pre-Hispanic sites

as a tourist-oriented “heritage circuit.”

Over the past 30 years, Peru’s highland

dwellers have migrated to the city and

constructed shantytowns in the ruins.

“They come up against a rigid definition

of the sanctioned uses of archeological

sites that is connected to a rigid defini-

tion of the nation-state,” Parisano says.

Parisano first went to rural Peru as an

undergraduate in 2007, taking an

anthropological field-methods

course.

As a child, he

watched his father

and grandfather in

Willets Point, Queens

where they “worked

magic” on cars, in the

shadow of the old Shea Stadium. Later,

also while an undergraduate, Parisano

returned to Willets Point to analyze how

Queens was being transformed by immi-

grants, the tenacity of local mechanics

and the city’s attempts to develop the

ostensibly dilapidated area into the

“economic engine” of Queens. His work

won the 2008 Society for Urban,

National, and Transnational Anthro-

pology Student Paper Prize.

“When I grew large enough to peer

inside a car’s engine compartment, my

father sharply announced that I would

find no future there, as he once did,”

Parisano recalls. And yet, in a round-

about way, he did find his way to the

future in Willets Point.


Jonathan VoegelerThe City College of New York, ’13Yale Law School

Sally Abdelghafar CUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13Saint John’s University School of Education, Masters

Hogai AryoubiCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13George Mason University School of Education, Masters

Russell BarlowCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13Fulbright U.S. Student Grant 2013 (Germany)

Indra BoharaCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13Baruch College, Masters,Public Administration

Dexter CorbinCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13City College, Masters,Landscape Architecture

Adam GoodkindCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13Graduate Center, Masters, Linguistics

Rabiah GulCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13University of Dayton School of Law

Justin JosephCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Masters, Oral Biology

Makeba LavanCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13Graduate Center, Ph.D. English

Dana ManzellaCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13University of St. Joseph School of Pharmacy, Doctor of Pharmacy

Joseph MarlettaCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13New York Institute of Technology, Masters, Communications

Immacolata MazzoneCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13CUNY Graduate Center, Masters, Liberal Arts

Nicolas MontanoCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13Marshall Scholarship, 2013Harvard Latino Leadership Initiative, 2012

Florina PetcuCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13East Bay State University, Masters, Counseling Psychology

James Michael PrettymanCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13Harvard Divinity School, Masters

Arielle RothenbergCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13School of Visual Arts, Art Therapy Program

Jon SotoCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13Hunter College School of Education, Masters, Rehabilitation Counseling

Joshua TrinidadCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship 2013 (Colombia)

Andrew ZieglerCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13Brooklyn College, Masters, English

15

Sarah Ita Levitan (BrooklynCollege, B.S. in computer science,2013) won a National Science FoundationGraduate Research Fellowship that will help her

attempt to develop an objective, computer-based

system that would analyze children’s speech,

looking for patterns that could identify those

with autism spectrum disorders.

With an estimated 1 million to 1.5 million

Americans having an autism spectrum disorder

— and the prevalence of autism believed to affect

one in 88 children — a reliable method of diag-

nosis could help many get the early intervention

that is so important to their future development.

Levitan’s award will support her research in

Columbia University’s computer science

doctoral program.

“As of now, there isn’t a simple diagnostic test

for autism,” Levitan says. “It is done by a set of

subjective assessments.” Some, for example, look

at turn-taking in conversation — or echolalia,

where children repeat things they have heard

instead of engaging in conversation.

During high school and college, Levitan volun-

teered and then worked with children with

autism at the Hebrew Academy for Special Chil-

dren in Brooklyn. She observed that early detec-

tion “could make a world of difference.”

At Brooklyn College, she worked on a compu-

tational biology research project with mentor

Dina Sokol, an associate professor of computer

and information science.

“She studies tandem repeats

in DNA, which are used to

diagnose diseases and in

human identity testing,”

Levitan says.

At Sokol’s suggestion,

Levitan applied for a Distributed

Research Experiences for Undergradu-

ates award from the Computer Research

Association’s Committee on the Status of

Women in Computing Research. That led

to spending the summer after her junior

year conducting research in the laboratory

of Julia Hirschberg, director of Columbia’s

Spoken Language Processing

Group.




It sounds like sciencefiction: The U.S. Armycharging across thebattlefield, wearing body armorthat makes it invisible to the enemy.

Yet Aleksey Ruditskiy says that it

might be possible with the right

assembly of nanocrystals and the

presence of an electrical field.

“We all like science fiction around

here,” says Ruditskiy (Macaulay

Honors College at City College of

New York, B.E. in chemical engi-

neering, 2012), who is working

toward a Ph.D. in chemical engi-

neering at Georgia Institute of Tech-

nology. He adds with a laugh, “It’s

how we get our ideas.”

Ruditskiy will pursue

his research, which

also has what he calls

“more mundane

applications, like seals

for doors on a ship that

can compress and decom-

press by flipping a switch,” with a

2013 National Science Foundation

Graduate Research Fellowship. He is

now studying in the laboratory of

professor Younan Xia, the Brock

Family Chair and Georgia Research

Alliance Eminent Scholar in

Nanomedicine.

Born in Minsk, Belarus, he and his

family moved to New York City as

refugees in 2002, when he was 11.

“My mother and father were both

engineers who got degrees in the

Soviet Union,” he says. “I showed

interest in encyclopedias, so they

bought them, and I read them.”

At City College, he worked with

teachers like associate professor

Ilona Kretzschmar, who supervised

his work on the electromagnetic

assembly of Janus particles for nearly

four years.

Evonne ZitouniCUNY Baccalaureate Degree, ’13CUNY Graduate Center, Masters, Liberal Arts

Sally AbdelghafarJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13New York City Teaching Fellowship, 2013

Rosmarin BelliardJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13New York City Urban Fellows, 2013

Carlene BobbJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Signature Role Model Program, 2013

Joel CabreraJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Arizona State University, M.A.

Anjelica CamachoJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13JENESYS 2.0 and Youth Exchange Program with North America, 2013

Mircea Alexandru ComanescuJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Alexander Joseph Memorial Award, 2013

Mircea Alexandru ComanescuJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Graduate Center, Criminal Justice Doctoral Program,Forensic Science Specialization

Maxi CruzJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13JENESYS 2.0 and Youth Exchange Program with North America, 2013

John Spencer CusickJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13New York City Urban Fellowship, 2013

Rachelle Theresa FernandezJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Columbia University, School of Social Work



For Jamar Whaley (Queens College, B.A. 2011), it has been a long, difficult climb. But this year, he won aNational Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and a federal Fulbright Fellowship. In 2009, he was awarded a federal

Goldwater Scholarship.

Here are some of the challenges he has faced:

Years ago, feeling unprepared, Whaley quit Styuvesant High School. Later, without a GED, he talked his way into a tech-

nical position that led to middle management. He had to take a CUNY admissions test to get into Queens. He rescued a

crack-addicted friend. Recently, in his 30s, he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, had surgery, and the prognosis is

good.

He plans to seek admission to a neuroscience doctoral program. But first he will study at the internationally known

Beijing addiction clinic run by Ran Tao, noted for his work on Internet addiction disorder.

The United States is said to rank second behind China in the number of individuals whose lives are severely affected

by Internet addiction. Whaley’s prospective doctoral work would involve functional magnetic resonance imaging to

compare how Internet addicts’ brains function normally and when encountering addictive triggers.

Whaley originally planned on clinical psychology, but an experimental methods class led him into research in associate professor

Robert Ranaldi’s laboratory. He also decided to become a role model for minority students in his field.

Whaley’s great-grandmother, Elizabeth, now 91, raised him from infancy in Flushing, and he says he wants to help others the way

she helped him.

“I want to make sure others can have a life and excel after they have underachieved,” he says.



To win a 2013 NationalScience FoundationGraduate ResearchFellowship, Jan Stepinski

(Macaulay Honors College at City

College, B.E. in environmental engineering,

2013) proposed using the data-crunching,

mathematical process of inversion to identify

components in the chaotic stream of informa-

tion detected by atmospheric sensors.

At City College, his related core undergrad-

uate research was with Alexander Gilerson, an

associate professor of electrical engineering,

who uses remote sensing to evaluate and

predict ocean health.

Stepinski, CCNY’s 2013 valedictorian, will

attend the Stanford Institute for Computational

and Mathematical Engineering in the fall.

During his work at Stanford while an under-

graduate, Peter Kitanidis, a professor of civil

and environmental engineering, asked him to

employ inversion to reveal “how liquids flow

through aquifers. This helps scientists to

understand the repair of aquifers from

fracking and oil drilling.”

Inversion is also useful for understanding

atmospheric pollutants.

Despite the premise of the NSF award,

Stepinski has shifted the likely focus of his

doctoral research, which the NSF grant allows.

He has been in contact with a Stanford electrical

engineering professor who works with radar.

Although he began his college career more

interested in the humanities and economics,

he now says, “I think mathematics in its purest

form is an approximation of the world.”

Born in Brooklyn, Stepinski says he “spent

most of my youth upstate in the forest.”

At City College, Stepinski also won the

Belden Medal for Advanced Calculus, the Post

Scholarship from the Society of American Mili-

tary Engineers and the Peggy Cornell Benline

Scholarship from the Municipal Engineers of

the City of New York, all awarded in 2012. He

studied at the Frankfurt School of Finance &

Management during the summer of 2011.

Lauren Alexandra FischerJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Presidential Management Fellowship, 2013

Kamar-Jay FosterJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Middlebury College, The French School

Daniel GolebiewskiJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Columbia University in the City of New York,Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,M.A. in Human Rights Studies

Atenedoro GonzalezJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Saint John’s University, College of Law, JD

Daniel B. GrogulJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Touro Law School, Law School, JD

Daniel B. GrogulJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Uniformed Fire Officers Association Award, 2013

Rabiah GulJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Thomas W. Smith Fellowship, 2012

Khrys-Ann Monique JosephsJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Dean Scholarship from Boston College —Lynch School of Education, 2013

Jamila KhanJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13CUNY Women's Public Service Internship Program, 2012

Kemar McIntoshJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Stony Brook University — SUNY, Graduate School



Maria Louisa Strangas, aGraduate Center doctoralstudent, has won a National ScienceFoundation Graduate Research Fellow-

ship and is heading to the Brazilian forests

to study how temperature patterns have

affected the evolution of some rare lizards.

Strangas (University of Rochester, B.S.

in ecology and evolutionary biology, 2010)

intends to look for Gymnophthalmid

lizards found only on certain mountains.

Strangas adds that she chose to study

lizards because they are very vulnerable to

climate change and don’t move far during

their lifetimes. By sampling particular

populations, she will get information about

the climatic histories of their locations.

She says she will, in part, look at

“patterns to try to identify regions of the

forest that might harbor the species most

vulnerable to future climate change.” Her

work grows out of her curiosity about the

process of diversification in the

Atlantic forest of Brazil, which

has received far less atten-

tion than the country’s

Amazon forest.

As an undergraduate,

she worked on research

projects documenting the

composition of forests near

Rochester. She also worked with logger-

head sea turtles through ARCHELON, the

Sea Turtle Conservation Society of Greece.

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa in

2010, Strangas went to work as a techni-

cian in the laboratory of City College assis-

tant professor Ana Carnaval before

deciding to pursue a doctorate. Carnaval

studies spatial patterns of biodiversity and

their underlying evolutionary and ecolog-

ical processes. Queens’ Carnaval

continues to be her Ph.D. mentor.

Strangas also has taught fifth- and sixth-

graders science at an after-school program

in Queens.

Melanie P. MonzonJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Alex Smith Award for Excellence in Criminology, Interdisciplinary StudiesAward for Academic Excellence, 2013

Shante MoralesJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’132012 Women’s Forum Education Fund Scholarship, 2012

Abby Lynn MulayJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Long Island University, Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program

Danielle PalumboJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Forensic Psychology M.A.

Nayanny Yarinet Bello PaniaguaJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Washington DC internship with the Rogowsky program, 2013Anne Scheiber Memorial Award, Distinguished Service Award, 2013

Karolina PrzegiendaJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Adler School of Professional Psychology,Psy.D in Clinical Psychology

Ratko RakocevicJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Scholar-athlete, 2013

Arlety RosarioJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Hunter College, MSW



Tayyaba Toseef, amaster’s studentat HunterCollege, has a National

Science Foundation Fellow-

ship to pursue research that

could point the way toward therapies that may

reverse the degenerative process in multiple

sclerosis patients and regrow the myelin that

their central nervous systems have lost.

MS is a disease in which the protective

myelin sheath surrounding nerves is

destroyed. This severely limits nerve function

and causes cognitive and motor defects.

Myelin is like the insulation surrounding elec-

tric wires: If it’s destroyed, the wires can’t

function properly.

Toseef’s research proposal aims for a better

understanding of how oligodendrocytes cells

that myelinate neurons (that is, put the insu-

lation on nerves) in the central nervous

system — function over the course of brain

development. Her goal is to knock out a key

gene that governs formation of oligodendro-

cytes and then compare myelination in

normal mice and those missing the gene.

Toseef is working under the mentorship of

Hunter assistant professor of biological

sciences Carmen Melendez-Vasquez. “If we

can identify the molecular mechanisms

involved in nerve myelination, we can manip-

ulate them to occur in adulthood and induce

remyelination in conditions where myelin is

depleted,” she says.

Toseef began elementary school in her

native Pakistan and then in Saudi Arabia. Her

family moved to Delaware when she was in

fifth grade, and she lived there until earning

her bachelor’s degree in biology from

Delaware State University in 2011.

Toseef has previously worked on two proj-

ects studying brain development. She hopes to

enter a Ph.D. program to pursue a career in

academic research. In addition to lab and

coursework, she has conducted classroom

demonstrations of neuroscience topics for

fifth-graders in Harlem Central Middle

School.

Malgorzata Renata SekowskaJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Anthony and Josephine Chmura MemorialScholarship, 2012

Naithram “Nate” SinghJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13INTERPOLWashington, D.C., Internship, 2013

Ryan L. SpikerJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Presidential Management Fellowship, 2013

Arianne VargasMacauley Honors College at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13City College, Computer science

Chassitty N. WhitmanJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Ph.D.— Clinical Psychology with full funding

Thomas Scot WolinetzJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, ’13Hofstra University School of Law, Maurice A. Deane School of Law, JD

Folashade S. AlawiyeNew York City College of Technology,’13National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates Award



Jake V. Vaynshteyn, CityCollege, B.E., 2009, will use hisNational Science Foundation Graduate

Research Fellowship to refine his under-

graduate research of the brain’s cerebral

cortex as a first-year doctoral student at

Albert Einstein College of Medicine of

Yeshiva University.

The cerebral cortex, the outermost layer

of neural tissue on the brain, plays a modu-

latory role in memory, perception, atten-

tion, thought, language and consciousness.

It may represent the pinnacle of engi-

neering.

Vaynshteyn was born in the Soviet Union

to artist parents who left because

they were not willing to

paint regime propa-

ganda. They moved to

France and Utah

before settling in New

York as their son

entered junior high school.

Vaynshteyn later attended

Queens College as a mathematics major and

then switched to City as his interest in

biomedical engineering grew.

About City and the Grove School of Engi-

neering, he says: “They craft your mind to

solve problems.”

For two years after graduation, Vaynshteyn

was a technician at Rockefeller University

and began asking the kinds of questions that

neuroscientists pose regarding the brain.

Using his engineering background, though,

he was able to help a postdoctoral student

develop an animal testing system in a molec-

ular genetics laboratory.

While at Queens, Vaynshteyn met and

ultimately married Wendy Sanchez, who

had a dual major in chemistry and computer

science and sought to combine her interests

in biomedical engineering. She also

switched to the Grove School, and they

worked on his senior project together. She

earned her B.E. degree the year after he did,

2010. The couple, who have two sons, aged 3

and 19 months, are at Einstein.

Jacqueline Eleanor AnscombeNew York City College of Technology, ’13Scholarship Award for Broadway SoundMaster Classes, 2013

Kristen Battaglia New York City College of Technology, ’13Bebe and Louise Hoffman Award for Creative Exploration of Food and Arts Winner, Junior Pastry Chef Challenge, U.S. Pastry Competition

Erica Dee BreinerNew York City College of Technology, ’13Made In NY (MINY) Scholarship, 2013

Emilie Chinchilla New York City College of Technology, ’13Master of Science in SustainabilityCity College of NY

Jeane Ivy CruzNew York City College of Technology, ’13C.A.R.E. Community Service Award in memory of Professor Felice A. Chiaperini

Raymond Garcia New York City College of Technology, ’13The Charles Mauro Award

Caroline GodoyNew York City College of Technology, ’13Société Culinaire Philanthropique Award forOutstanding Potential in Pastry Arts

Lorena M. Gomez New York City College of Technology, ’13Grand Central Partnership — Grand Gourmet Market



Joseph M. Gordon New York City College of Technology, ’13Partridge Invitation ScholarshipFoundation Eddie Lane Award

Gloria M. GrantheNew York City College of Technology, ’13Elizabeth Vicksell Award, 2013

Luciane Grillo New York City College of Technology, ’13Eddie Bergman Award

Melissa Mack New York City College of Technology, ’13Fellowship to attend Master's program in Mathematics Teacher Education St. John’s University.

Randa MarieNew York City College of Technology, ’13Leo F. Caproni Global Citizen Award

Sandy J. MarinNew York City College of Technology, ’13The International Chefs Associa-tion, Big Apple Chapter Award

Lukman Solola, BrooklynCollege, B.S. in chemistry,2012, now in a chemistry doctoralprogram at the University of Pennsylvania

— won a National Science Foundation

Graduate Research Fellowship to help him

search for an environmentally friendly way

to extract rare-earth metals.

Rare-earth metals — including dyspro-

sium, europium, neodymium, terbium and

yttrium — are in critically short supply.

They are needed, though, to produce cell-

phones, electronic equipment and clean-

energy products such as wind turbines,

electric vehicles, photovoltaic thin-film

solar cells and fluorescent lights.

Despite the term “rare earth,” these and

similar metallic elements are not actually

rare. They are, though, difficult to extract

from the ores than contain them. China has

built a near-monopoly with an extraction

process that begins with rocks, but then uses

chemicals that are not environmentally

friendly. Solola is looking for an alternative,

cleaner way to do this. In the United States,

he emphasizes, “we have a vibrant, environ-

mentally friendly policy.”

In his laboratory, he emphasizes, he deals

with reagents and compounds rather

than rocks. His mentor is Eric J.

Schelter, an assistant

professor of inorganic and

materials chemistry.

Solola was born in

Nigeria and moved to

Brooklyn about six years ago,

after finishing high school. In the

summer of 2011, as an undergraduate, he

interned at Johns Hopkins School of Medi-

cine. The summer before he worked on on

research on breast cancer vaccines at Albert

Einstein College of Medicine.

It was a high school chemistry teacher

who motivated Solola to pursue chemistry.

Now he volunteers at a Philadelphia high

school, helping to teach 11th- and 12th-

grade chemistry.



Juan MejiaNew York City College ofTechnology, ’13CCNY’s Master’s program in Computer Science

Juan MejiaNew York City Collegeof Technology, ’13National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates Award

Clark B. Monzon New York City College of Technology, ’13The International Chefs Associa-tion, Big Apple Chapter Award

Glenroy A. MooreNew York City College of Technology, ’13Francis Lorenzini Cuisine and Culture Award

Carlos J. MorochoNew York City College of Technology, ’13Société Culinaire PhilanthropiqueAward for Outstanding Potential inCulinary Arts

Emily Rodriguez New York City College of Technology, ’13The American Institute of Wine & Food

Claudia Sanchez New York City College of Technology, ’13Société Culinaire PhilanthropiqueAward for Outstanding Potential in Culinary Arts

Tom SanderNew York City College of Technology, ’13Debragga & Spitler Award

Carlos E. SantiagoNew York City College of Technology, ’13Bear Dallis Associates Award for potential in Special EventsPlanning Management

Adolfo A SedaNew York City College of Technology, ’13Frederick Wildman & Sons, LTD Outstanding Potential in theWine Industry Award, 2013

Roopesh SeenarineNew York City College of Technology, ’13The Betsy Schaible Travel Award

Valentina StanovovaNew York City College of Technology, ’13Harvard University Graduate School of Design CareerDiscovery Program

Hong Jie Su New York City College of Technology, ’13The Halton E. Merrill Award

Diandra TobonNew York City College of Technology, ’13Société Culinaire PhilanthropiqueAward for Outstanding Potential inPastry Arts

Douglas John TriglianosNew York City College of Technology, ’13New York Law School, JD/MBA

Julio VianaNew York City College of Technology, ’13Master in Civil Engineering/Construction Management Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec Canada

Imani J. Wood New York City College of Technology, ’13The Union Square Hospitality Group Award

Karmen Yu New York City College of Technology, ’13PhD program in Math Education,Montclair State University.

Yi Ming Yu New York City College of Technology, ’13CCNY’s Master's program in Pure Mathematics

Dmitriy ZemelNew York City College of Technology, ’13Masters of Architecture (M.ARCH), Pratt Institute

Stephanie Jean-BaptisteQueens College, ’13Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship

Michelle ChanQueens College, ’13Jeannette K. Watson Summer Fellowship

Tara GildeaQueens College, ’13Beinecke BrothersMemorial Scholarship

Tracy LeongQueens College, ’13Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship

William A. LeverettQueens College, ’13Jeannette K. Watson Summer Fellowship

Madeline T. YapQueens College, ’13Fulbright Fellowship


uate research fellowships are among the · 2018. 6. 1. · acceptance at top-notch graduate and...

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