BRITE REU Participants

Payton Bock
Arizona State University
Major: Biochemistry
REU Lab: Zhang
Research Project: Analysis of Brain Hippocampus Single Nuclei RNA Sequencing in Mixed Dementia Patients

 

Josh Bowers
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh
Major: Microbiology
REU Lab: Dietze
Research Project: Validation of the PEcAn Terrestrial Ecosystem Forecast Using NASA SMAP Satellite Soil Moisture Observations

 

Ashley Eng
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Major: Microbiology
REU Lab: Bhatnager
Research Project: Metabolic Modeling of Soil Acidobacteriota Improves with Custom Resource Inputs

 

Giselle Hidalgo
Kean University
Major: Biotechnology with a concentration in Molecular Biology
REU Lab: Benson
Research Project: Finding De Novo Tandem Repeats Using VNTRseek

 

Angela Jiang
Smith College
Major: Biological Sciences
REU Lab: Davies
Research Project: Bored in a Changing Climate: Ocean Acidification and Boring Sponge Impact on Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea virginica) Gene Expression

 

Cecilia McCormick
University of California, Los Angeles
Major: Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
REU Lab: Dries
Research Project: A Spatial Analysis of the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Niche in Mice Fetal Liver

 

Laila Norford
University of Pennsylvania
Major: Bioengineering
REU Lab: Dries
Research Project: Spatiotemporal Patterns of RNA-binding Protein Gene Expression in the Developing Embryonic Mouse Brain

 

Hannah O’Grady
Mount Holyoke College
Major: Biology and Statistics
REU Lab: Deyle
Research Project: Using Space-for-Time to Understand the Empirical Dynamics of Tropical Rainforests

 

Julia Schulte
Luther College Decorah Iowa
Major: Biology and Data Science
REU Lab: Benson
Research Project: Compressing DNA Read Sequences to Reduce Database Size

 

My My Tran
Smith College
Major: Biological Sciences
REU Lab: Emili Lab
Research Project: Modeling Protein-Protein Interactions using Co-fractionation Mass Spectrometry (CF/MS) Data

Zoe Barinaga
University of Florida
Major: Biomedical Engineering
REU Lab: Bradham
Research Project: Optimizing Feature Selection in High Dimensional RNA seq Data

Jorge Lopez-Nava
Swarthmore College
Major: Mathematics
REU Lab: Bhatnager
Research Project: Simulating Nitrogen Interactions Within Microbial Communities from Metagenome Assembled Genomes (MAGs) and Genome-Scale Metabolic Models (GEMs)

Madeline Hughes
Brown University
Major: Computational Biology
REU Lab: Bradham
Research Project: A Pipeline for Constructing a 3D Coordinate Map of PMCs In Developing Embryos

Ryan Hernandez-Cancela
Clemson University
Major: Bioengineering, with a concentration in Biomaterials
REU Lab: Dupuis
Research Project: Fine-Mapping Genetic Loci showing Novel Associations with Incident Cardiovascular Disease in Type 2 Diabetes

Noah Fields
Stanford University
Major: Bioengineering
REU Lab: Benson
Research Project: Identifying Possible Variable Number of Tandem Repeats (VNTRs) Using Read Mapping Coverage

Sara Filler
Providence College
Major: Biology
REU Lab: Benson
Research Project: Testing the accuracy and speed of VNTRseek, a genetic variation detector, using a restricted read dataset

Victor Feagins
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Major: Statistics and Data Science
REU Lab: Dietze
Research Project: Automatic Pipeline for Estimating Normalized Difference Vegetation Index

Anika Rueppell
University of Toronto
Major: Global Health (Specialist, Dept. of Human Bio), Immunology, Statistics (Minor)
REU Lab: Johnson
Research Project: Secondary Analysis of Host Lung Microbiome Interactions with Tuberculosis

Katie Tyrrell
Wayne State University
Major: Chemical Engineering & Statistics
REU Lab: Deyle

Miguel Yanez
Whittier College
Major: Biology
REU Lab: Fiszbein
Research Project: Characterizing alternative first exons from stem cells and cardiomyocytes

Durdona Gaibova
Miami Dade College
Major: Mathematics
REU Lab: Campbell Lab
Research Project: Comparing mapping outputs of the single cell RNA sequencing data using alignment tools STARsolo and CellRanger

 

Briana Hackos
University of Colorado Boulder
Major: Mathematics
REU Lab: Bhatnagar Lab
Research Project: An Automated Pipeline for Nitrogen-cycling Gene Abundance Analysis

 

Blessing Ibe
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
Major: Statistics
REU Lab: Sebastiani Lab
Research Project: The Effect of APOE Gene SNPs on Brain Tissue Specific Gene Expression

 

Nebiyou Kebede
Roxbury Community College
Major: Computer Science
REU Lab: Johnson Lab
Research Project: Assessment of RSubread Using Mock Community Microbiome Data

 

Aubrey Odom
Brigham Young University
Major: Statistics, Emphasis in Biostatistics
REU Lab: Johnson Lab
Research Project: The TBSignatureProfiler: A Novel R Package for Comparing Tuberculosis Gene Expression Signatures

 

Nofal Ouardaoui
Tufts University
Major: Biology
REU Lab: Emili Lab
Research Project: The PM Map – A Proteomic and Metabolomic Data Visualization Network

 

Corinna Pilcher
St. Lawrence University
Major: Biology and Computer Science
REU Lab: Davies Lab
Research Project: Lunar Phase, Hour of the Day, and Seasonal Temperature Drive Symbiont C. goreaui Differential Expression in A. millepora Coral Host

 

Eric Sinton
Tufts University
Major: Mathematics
REU Lab: Campbell Lab
Research Project: Analyzing Lung Cancer Cell Subtypes with CELDA

 

Kathryn Atherton
Purdue University
Major: Biological Engineering
REU Lab: Bhatnagar Lab
Research Project: Can we predict the presence of pathogenic bacteria in soils?

 

 

 

 

Luke Dramko
University of North Dakota
Major: Computer Science
REU Lab: Dietze Lab
Research Project: Iterative Near-Term Ecological Forecasting: Applications to Land-Atmosphere CO₂ Fluxes

 

 

 

 

Katherine Duchinski
College of Charleston
Major: Biology, and Data Science
REU Lab: Benson Lab
Research Project: Single Copy VNTR Identification

 

 

Adam Lewis
Clark University
Major: Math, Biology, and Bioinformatics
REU Lab: Campbell Lab
Research Project: Enhancement of the Single Cell Toolkit (SCTK)

 

 

Olivia Marx
Southern Methodist University
Major: Math, and Biochemistry
REU Lab: Zaia Lab
Research Project: Glycoproteomic Data Quality and Similarity in Influenza A Virus Variants

 

 

 

 

Michelle Patino Calero
University of Texas, El Paso
Major: Computer Science
REU Lab: Korolev Lab
Research Project: Correcting for Environmental Factors in Microbiome Wide Association Studies

 

 

 

Mia Price
Miami University
Major: Biomedical Engineering
REU Lab: Bradham Lab
Research Project: The Application of V-Net in Identifying Primary Mesenchyme Cells in Sea Urchin Embryo Scans

 

 

Rahul Ramesh
Boston University
Major: Math and Computer Science
REU Lab: Benson Lab
Research Project: Tackling Indistinguishable TR’s and Verifying the Accuracy of VNTRseek

 

 

 

Spencer Richman
Rochester Institute of Technology
Major: Bioinformatics
REU Lab: Emili Lab
Research Project: A Computational Pipeline for Creating Small Molecule Metabolite Mass Spectral Libraries

 

 

Alyssa Taylor
Virginia Wesleyan University
Major: Biology, and Math
REU Lab: Sebastiani Lab
Research Project: Association of variant Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) alleles to decline in cognitive function with aging demonstrated through network modeling

 

 

 

 

Edel Aron

Iowa State University

Major:  Mathematics and Biology

REU Lab:  Dupuis Lab

Research Project:  Identification of Potential Causal Variants on Type II Diabetes Associated Loci through Fine-Mapping

 

 

 

Drew Ferrell

Mississippi State University

Major:  Biochemistry

REU Lab:  Laboratory for Biocomputing and Informatics

Research Project:  Tandem Repeats Annotation and Enrichment Analysis

 

 

 

 

Maddy Griswold

Pacific University

Major:  Bioinformatics emphasis

REU Lab:  Tullius Lab

Research Project:  Determination of Nucleotide Location Using Hydroxyl Radicals

 

 

 

Will Herbert

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Major:  Bioengineering, Minors in Computer Science and Statistics

REU Lab:  Segre Lab

Research Project:  Predicting microbial community function from 16s rRNA sequencing via Random Forest

 

 

 

Rowan Ogilvie

Rochester Institute of Technology

Major:  Bioinformatics emphasis

REU Lab:  Waxman Lab

Research Project:  Database for the Analysis of Peak Regions

 

 

 

 

Albert Okundaye

Roxbury Community College

Major:  Computer Science

REU Lab:  Laboratory for Biocomputing and Informatics

Research Project:  Investigating the Performance of a Genetic Variation Detection Program, VNTRseek

 

 

 

Brianna Richardson

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Major:  Bioinformatics and Computer Science

REU Lab:  Korolev Lab

Research Project:  The Story in the Stomach: the Statistical Analysis of Gut Microbe Communities in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

 

 

 

Christopher Rodriguez

Louisiana Tech University

Major:  Cyber Engineering

REU Lab:  Densmore Lab

Research Project:  u-DROP and DAFD: Tools for Microfluidic Droplet Generation Analysis

 

 

 

Jacquelyn Turcinovic

St. Edward’s University

Major:  Bioinformatics

REU Lab:  Zaia Lab

Research Project:  Metrics for Quantifying Differences in Influenza A Virus Hemagglutinin Site-specific Glycosylation

 

 

 

Kyndall Tyler

University of Houston

Major:  Mathematics

REU Lab:  Sebastiani Lab

Research Project: Understanding Cognitive Dysfunction for Early Identification

 

 

 

 

LeAnna Cates

University of Missouri – Kansas City

Major:  Biology (Bioinformatics emphasis)

REU Lab:  Talbot Lab of Microbial Ecology

Research Project:  Understanding Variation in Microbial Community Composition in Both Space and Time

Papers: Averill, C., Cates, L.L., Dietze, M.C. & Bhatnagar, J.M., Spatial vs. temporal controls over soil fungal community similarity at continental and global scales. ISME J 13, 2082–2093 (2019)

 

 

Elsa Fecke

St. Lawrence University

Major: Mathematics-Economics

REU Lab:  Quantum Information Group

Research Project:  Work on Copy Number Versus Gene Expression Biomarkers In Cancer

 

 

 

Michael Hasson 

Case Western Reserve University

Major: Biomedical Engineering

REU Lab: Segre Lab

Research Project: Synthetic Ecology of Microbes

 

 

 

Graham Kulig

Elon University

Major:  Biology

REU Lab:  Segre Lab

Research Project: High Throughput Phenotyping of E. coli Growth and Extracellular pH

 

 

 

Sunny Mahesh 

Arizona State University

Major: Computer Science

REU Lab:  Densmore Lab

Research Project: Living Computing Project (LCP)

 

 

 

Seth McDonald 

Ripon College

Major: Biology and Computer Science

REU Lab:  Allen Lab 

Research Project: Haloalkanoic Acid Dehalogenase Superfamily (HADSF)

 

 

 

Vivek Ramanan

Swarthmore College

Major: Computer Science and Biology

REU Lab: Korolev Lab

Research Project: Removing Spurious Associations in Microbiome Analysis

 

 

 

John Scaduto

Boston College

Major: Biology (Bioinformatics emphasis)

REU Lab: Laboratory for Biocomputing and Informatics

Research Project: Bit-Parallel Sequence Alignment Algorithms for Tandem Repeat Detection