Dr. Maureen Murphy is a Professor and Program Leader in the Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis Program of the Wistar Institute Cancer Center in Philadelphia. She is also the Associate Vice president for Faculty Affairs and Associate Director For Education and Career Development there. Maureen’s research is aimed at understanding and developing cures for cancer. Specifically, they focus on the p53 tumor suppressor protein that is responsible for stopping tumors from forming. When she’s not in...

Dr. Carlos Portela is the Brit and Alex d'Arbeloff Career Development Professor in Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Carlos’s research involves designing, making, and testing new types of materials that have unconventional properties. To do this, they rearrange the components of existing materials in three dimensions at the micro or nano scale to create new architected materials. The new materials may absorb a lot of energy upon impact, or be extremely lightweight, but also very stiff. When he’s...

Dr. Joel Fodrie is an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Marine Sciences and Department of Marine Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Joel studies estuaries which are habitats where freshwater from rivers and streams mixes with the salt water of the ocean. He acts as a sort of detective to investigate how things like salt marshes, sea grasses, and oyster reefs keep this habitat healthy and to determine what may be driving observed changes in fish abundance in...

Dr. Taylor Hutchison is an astrophysicist and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Taylor uses large telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope to study the most distant galaxies that we can detect in the universe. Her goal is to answer questions like what kinds of stars are inside these galaxies, how massive the galaxies are, and what elements are present. When she’s not working, Taylor engages in a variety of hobbies, crafts, and opportunities to learn new...

Dr. Ken Dawson-Scully is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida Atlantic University. Ken uses the fruit fly as a model to understand how animals have adapted to different kinds of changes in the environment and how they can cope with it. He uses neurophysiology and behavioral genetics approaches to study the impacts of different kinds of stresses, including high temperature and low oxygen. This work has important applications for human conditions like...

Dr. Stacey Harmer is a Professor of Plant Biology in the College of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis. Stacey studies different biological rhythms and the circadian clocks within organisms that create and maintain those rhythms. Circadian clocks can be found in various organisms, from bacteria to people. In particular, Stacey is interested in understanding why plants have circadian clocks, how these clocks work in plants, and what aspects of physiology and development...

Dr. Alan R. Saltiel is Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, Maryam Ahmadian Endowed Chair in Metabolic Health, Director of the Institute for Diabetes and Metabolic Health at UC, San Diego, and Director of the UCSD/UCLA Diabetes Research Center. Alan studies how cells that are involved in metabolism decide to take up and store energy, burn energy, or release energy for other cells to use in response to hormones, nutritional cues, and metabolic stress. He is particularly...

Dr. Erica Golemis is a Professor, Deputy Chief Science Officer, Co-Leader of the Molecular Therapeutics Program, and Director of the High Throughput Facility at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. In addition, Erica is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University School of Medicine, and the Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine. For most of her scientific career, Erica has been conducting cancer research. Her recent work investigates why...

Dr. David Fitzpatrick is Chief Executive Officer, Scientific Director, and Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience. The brain is important for so many aspects of our daily experiences, including what we perceive, what we think about, how we move, the decisions we make, and more. However, we still know relatively little about how the brain works and how it develops. David’s goal is to dive deep into these basic science questions of how the brain works and how...

Dr. Jennifer Ramp Neale is Director of Research and Conservation at the Denver Botanic Gardens. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Biology at the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Colorado Denver. The Denver Botanic Gardens is an accredited museum, a public nonprofit organization, and a research institution, so Jenny has a variety of different roles. She oversees the research conducted there, communicates their findings and the importance of science to different...

Dr. Eric Skaar is Director of the Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation, Director of the Division of Molecular Pathogenesis, the Ernest W. Goodpasture Chair in Pathology, and Vice Chair for Research and a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology at Vanderbilt University. Eric is a bacteriologist who studies the impact of nutrition on infectious disease. His research examines how the food we eat affects our susceptibility to...

Dr. Ellen Zweibel is the W. L. Kraushaar Professor of Astronomy and Physics, and the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Ellen is a theoretical astrophysicist who specializes in plasma astrophysics. Her studies examine electricity and magnetism in the cosmos, including phenomena like sun spots, the solar cycle, and high energy electromagnetic emissions (e.g. x-rays, gamma rays, and radio waves) from stars and galaxies. Ellen’s interests outside...

Dr. Ryan Potts is VP of Research and Head of the Induced Proximity Platform at Amgen that works on ways to bring two or more molecules in close proximity to each other to tackle drug targets that are currently considered “undruggable.” Ryan conducts early-stage research to discover new high-impact medicines for serious diseases that have a high unmet medical need. Their work examines biological pathways, drug targets, disease drivers, and new ways to create drugs that have the desired...

Dr. Pankaj Karande is an Associate Professor in Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Pankaj was trained as a chemical engineer, and his research aims to apply engineering approaches and technology to solve problems in biology and healthcare to improve the quality and quantity of human life. Projects in his lab span areas such as drug discovery, drug delivery, biomaterials, diagnostics, and more. When he’s not working, Pankaj loves to cook, and experimenting...

Dr. Claire Higgins is a Reader (faculty) in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London. She is also President of the European Hair Research Society and Vice President of the Institute of Trichologists, a professional association for researchers who study the hair and scalp. Claire teaches and conducts research in the areas of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. She uses skin and hair follicles as models to better...

Dr. Ariel Furst is the Paul M. Cook Career Development Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In her research, Ariel has been using microbes to address problems surrounding human health, environmental remediation, and sustainability. Her lab focuses on energy equity by developing  new technologies that are accessible to people who haven’t had access to technology but are negatively impacted by it. She is also working towards energy...

Dr. Michael Demetriou is Director of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Designated Comprehensive Care Clinic, Professor of Neurology, and Chief of the Division of Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) School of Medicine. In his research, Mike studies the biological roles of complex sugars called glycans. Glycans are mostly found outside of cells and on cell surfaces. They form a dense forest around the surface of cells and can interact with...

Dr. Beth Weaver is a Professor in the Department of Cell and Regenerative Biology and the Department of Oncology/McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. She is co-Leader of the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center. Beth studies a group of commonly used chemotherapy agents to better understand how they work, who will respond to these treatments, and how to make...

Dr. Magdalena Osburn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Northwestern University. Maggie's research brings together microbiology and geology to understand biological activity in different environments in the past and present. She studies unique microbes that live in extreme environments like deep mines, hot springs, and caves. When she’s not working, Maggie likes to go hiking, backpacking, and generally be outside exploring nature. When she’s able to...

Dr. Erdem Tabdanov is Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Penn State College of Medicine and also a Member of the Penn State Cancer Institute. He studies the mechanical and structural aspects of cells to better understand how cells physically move, sense their environments, and accomplish their various functions. This is very relevant to cancer biology and understanding the immune system. Some of Erdem’s hobbies outside of science include working out at the gym,...

Dr. Alexis “Lekki” Wood is Associate Professor at USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center in the Division of Pediatrics-Nutrition at Baylor College of Medicine. Research in Lekki’s lab aims to better understand how food influences our health. She examines the full chain of changes that occur from the moment food is put into our mouths, trough digestion and absorption of particular molecules, to where those molecules go and how they affect our organs. Outside of work, you can find Lekki...

Dr. Gareth Fraser is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Florida. Gareth is a developmental biologist interested in how things form during development, how they are recreated during regeneration, and how features develop and persist on evolutionary timescales. His lab typically examines these questions looking at oral teeth and dermal denticles (tooth-like structures) in unusual fish like pufferfish, hammerhead sharks, and ghost sharks (chimaera). When...

Dr. Rachel Perry is Assistant Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology) and of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at the Yale University School of Medicine. Rachel’s scientific training focused on how our bodies use nutrients to stay healthy and what goes wrong in diseases like obesity and diabetes. In her current lab, she applies this background to better understand how changes in metabolism (nutrient supply) may affect cancer and how our bodies respond to cancer treatments. In her free time,...

Dr. Susie Dai is an Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology at Texas A&M University. She is also Director of the Biomonitoring Program in the Iowa State Hygienic Laboratory, leading the Iowa Statewide Biomonitoring public health surveillance. Susie works at the interface of chemistry and biology, and her research leverages microorganisms like bacteria and fungus to synthesize chemicals of value or degrade poisonous chemicals. This work has important...