Emily Conklin (‘16) continues in the Ph.D. program at the University of Hawaii. She has also received a NSF-GRFP (graduate research fellowship) to support her work. Kit (Straley) Harcourt (‘11) is an ornithologist completing her Ph.D. in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology program at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Ashley (Bell) Anderson (‘11) is about to start teaching middle school math in Redmond, Washington, after several years teaching biology at the high school level. Elise Edwards (‘11) has just returned to Ithaca to begin a Ph.D. at Cornell in Natural Resources Conservation. Robert Nichols (‘15) continues in the Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley. Last year, he taught a much needed and highly successful Molecular Cloning course at the University of Makerere in Uganda.

Keyla Tumas (‘13) is in the Georgetown University/NIH Ph.D. program. Charlin Pereira (‘14) is at Iowa State University Vet School, while Amber Moore (‘14) is at the University of Illinois Vet School. Amanda Joy (‘06) received her Masters in Science Education from Syracuse University and became Educational Manager at the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden. She’s now the co-founder of the Wrinkled Brain Project, which creates materials for science education. Ali Chesney (‘09) received her Ph.D. studying prion disease at University of Wisconsin-Madison and is now a Toxicology Study Director for preclinical pharmaceutical drug safety assessment for a contract research organization. After a Ph.D. at Univeristy of Illinois-Urbana Champaign and a post-doc at Duke University, Liz Pratico (‘03) is now Associate Director CPD at bluebirdbio, a gene therapy company.

We’ve begun alumni involvement in our Biology Seminar Speaker series and meetings with the Pre-Health Society. Alumni who have come back to speak with us include:

Sarah Garcia (’09) recently received her Ph.D. from the University of Utah. Joe Goodliffe (’09) earned an Anatomy & Neurobiology Ph.D. from the Program in Cell & Molecular Biology, Boston University School of Medicine. Jamie Lisack (’16) traveled on to Germany upon her IC graduation to complete her Fulbright Fellowship at Universität Würzburg. Kiran Madura (’81) was a professor in pharmacology prior to becoming the Director in Biochemistry at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers University. Julia Schmidt (’13) took a gap year in Vietnam before entering the Physician’s Assistant Program at Yale. She is also enjoying all the fun (and hard!) firsts that come with being a new mom. Carolyn Vitale (’08) earned her MD at Temple. She then became a Pediatric Critical Care Fellow at the University of Michigan. Jennifer Kimball (‘05) talked to IC students about her postdoctoral work in agricultural plant breeding at North Carolina State University. She has since become an Assistant Professor at University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Adam (Longwich) Capoferri (‘13) is now studying at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dan Weller (‘12) completed his doctorate in Food Sciences at Cornell. After a postdoc there, he is now moving to University of Rochester. Aaron Bloom (‘08) spoke to the Pre-Health society about his experience as a resident in the Department of Anesthesiology, University of Minnesota. Joshua Messinger (‘14) is in the Ph.D. program in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University. KathyAnn (Katie) Lee (‘15) lives in Manhattan, and is putting her ace zebrafish skills to work in the lab of Florence Marlow at Albert Einstein School of Medicine to research egg development and maternal control of early development. She also fosters rescue kittens!

Want to let us know what you are up to these days, personally or professionally? Reach out to your favorite faculty or drop Nancy Pierce (npierce@ithaca.edu) a line, we would love to hear from you!