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Atlanta
Chapter

Current Scholars

ARCS® Foundation Atlanta Chapter is honored to present the 2023-2024 Scholar Awards to these outstanding candidates from Emory University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Morehouse College, and the University of Georgia.

 

 

Sarina Abrishamcar

Meet Sarina here.

  • Northside Hospital Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Epidemiology
  • First Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research Interest: how environmental and psychosocial exposures affect health outcomes through genomic mechanisms.
Anna Cole

Meet Anna here.

  • Glenn Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Cancer Biology
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research Interest: novel T and B cell cooperation in cancer immunotherapy.
Aniruddha Deshpande

Meet Aniruddha here.

  • Donnell Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Epidemiology
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research Interest: health impacts of extreme weather events from climate change with a special emphasis on floods and droughts.
Ariel Gale

Meet Ariel here.

  • Jeanne Berry Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Chemistry
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research Interests: method development for quantum chemistry in complex environments.
Nicole Hood
Nicole Hood

Meet Nicole here.

  • Gillin/Liss Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Epidemiology 
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interests: public health and infectious disease/HIV research. 
Louis Hopkins

Meet Louis here.

  • Herz Global Impact Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Immunology
  • First Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: tuberculosis pathogenesis and vaccine development.
Logan Kavanaugh
Logan Kavanaugh

Meet Logan here.

  • McGowan Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: understanding and combating the rise of bacterial antibiotic resistance.
Alicia Lane

Meet Alicia here.

  • Reid/ARCS Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Neuroscience
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: the relation of copper dysregulation and mitochondria to neurodegenerative disease.
Cameron Mattingly
Cameron Mattingly

Meet Cameron here.

  • Klamon Impact Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: lung tissue resident CD8+ T cells and their role in the immune response to respiratory pathogens.
Will McFadden

Meet Will here.

  • ARCS Century Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Biochemistry, Cell, and Developmental Biology
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: novel antiretroviral compounds with the potential for treating HIV-1 infection.
Vedhika Raghunathan

Meet Vedhika here.

  • Herz Global Impact Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
  • First Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: to understand the antigenic evolution of influenza A virus in the context of pre-existing immunity.
Julia Tanquary
Julia Tanquary

Meet Julia here.

  • Goodhew/McGonigle Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Biochemistry, Cell and Developmental Biology
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: the role of bacterial toxin-antitoxin complexes in bacterial survival and their influence on the ability of bacteria to survive stress.  Julia seeks to identify the cellular targets of these toxins.
Courtney Victor

Meet Courtney here.

  • Klamon/ARCS Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Environmental Health Sciences
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research Interest: understanding the impact of water quality on health among children in low-resource settings.
Simone Wien

Meet Simone here.

  • Petter Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Epidemiology
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interests: social epidemiology, substance abuse, and reproductive and perinatal health.
Sophie Yount
Sophie Yount

Meet Sophie here.

  • Bazzel/Lundeen Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Molecular and Systems Pharmacology
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: to understand circuit-level control of decision-making. New knowledge could shed light on innate learning systems that are “hijacked” by drug abuse.
Noam Altman-Kurosaki

Meet Noam here.

  • Herz Global Impact Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Biology
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: to understand the processes that drive coral reef decline and recovery.
Nolan Barrett
Nolan Barrett

Meet Nolan here.

  • Wahlen/ARCS Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Ocean Science and Engineering
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: marine natural products chemistry and chemical ecology.
Kenneth De Jesus-Morales
Kenneth De Jesus-Morales

Meet Kenneth here.

  • Lee Doyle ARCS Light Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Biomedical Engineering
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: optimizing a bio-printed aortic heart valve model capable of regeneration and repair for the pediatric population.
Anjana Dissanayaka

Meet Anjana here.

  • Northside Hospital Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Biomedical Engineering
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: leveraging and applying microfluidic techniques to develop low-cost diagnostic devices. 
Emmy Hughes

Meet Emmy here.

  • Lim/ARCS Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
  • First Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: the geologic history of the planet Mars.
Tawfik Hussein

Meet Tawfik here.

  • Boice Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Biomedical Engineering
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: The mechanics of the heart, specifically, simulating computationally the mechanical changes in the heart of patients with heart failure to help predict early stages of heart failure.
KC Jacobson

Meet KC here.

  • Herz Global Impact Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Bioengineering in ChBE
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: the neural mechanisms of impaired sensory processing in a human-relevant mouse model of autism spectrum disorder.
Christopher Roper

Meet Christopher here.

  • Dr. Burke/Dodson Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Aerospace Engineering
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interests: space accelerators, beam-plasma interactions, and plasma physics for basic science and direct energy applications.
Cassandra Shriver

Meet Cassandra here.

  • Chambers/Jones Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Quantitative Biosciences in Biological Sciences
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interests: comparative biomechanics, specifically mammalian climbing mechanics, with an emphasis on conservation applications.
Kevin Shu
Kevin Shu

Meet Kevin here.

  • Hardin/Turk/ARCS Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Algorithms, Combinatorics, and Optimization
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: applying ideas from pure math, in particular algebraic geometry, to solve optimization problems more efficiently.
Eudorah Vital

Meet Eudorah here.

  • Burke Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Biomedical Engineering
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: understanding the biophysical processes that underlie blood diseases/disorders and developing point-of-care diagnostics for these conditions.
Naoki Yokoyama

Meet Naoki here.

  • ARCS Century Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Robotics in Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: training virtual robots within realistic simulators using deep reinforcement learning and deploying them on robots in the real world.
Nathan Zavanelli

Meet Nathan here.

  • Carnovale Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Bioengineering in Mechanical Engineering
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: soft, skin-like electronics and sensors for wearable healthcare monitoring.
Justin Bromell

Meet Justin here.

  • Glenn Leadership Award
  • Biology Major
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interests: cancer, virology, and genetic therapies.  Currently researching obesity as it relates to cancer.
Wisler Charles

Meet Wisler here.

  • Carnovale Award
  • Biology Major
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: building the foundation for becoming a doctor in an effort to make things easier for the Black community.
Ayden Clark-Veal

Meet Ayden here.

  • Georgia-Pacific Award
  • Biology Major
  • First Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interests: healthcare, medicine and studying the human body.
Ramiah Curry

Meet Ramiah here.

  • Graves Award
  • Computer Science Major
  • First Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interests: computer coding, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
Myles Gosha

Meet Myles here.

  • Davis Award
  • Biology Major
  • First Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: to explore the relationship between behavior and the use of pharmaceuticals in order to understand the complexities of addiction.
Chavier McDaniel

Meet Chavier here.

  • Frazier/Whiting Award
  • Mathematics/Physics Major
  • First Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interests: technology and aviation.
Christian Moore

Meet Christian here.

  • Genuine Parts Award
  • Computer Science Major
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interests: Computer Science and Climate Change.
Amani Talbert

Meet Amani here.

  • Herren/Higgins Award
  • Chemistry Major
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research Interests: biochemistry, nuclear remediation, and computational chemistry.

 

Jana Carpenter

Meet Jana here.

  • Olchowski/Potter Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Bio-Analytical Chemistry
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: the relationship between bacterial metabolism and antibiotic resistance.
Amanda Caulfield
Amanda Caulfield

Meet Amanda here.

  • Sartain Lanier Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Infectious Diseases
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: immunomodulation in Bordetella pertussis and identifying immune correlates of protection that will inform the development of improved vaccines against whooping cough.
Kendall Clay
Kendall Clay

Meet Kendall here.

  • Boyd/ARCS Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Neuroscience
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: neural regeneration, specifically, investigating how worms called planarians regenerate their complex nervous system after injury.
Christian Freeman
Christian Freeman

Meet Christian here.

  • Burtchaell Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Chemistry
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: the effects of phospholipid composition on antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
Morgane Golan
Morgane Golan

Meet Morgane here.

  • Cooper/Mukharji Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Regenerative Medicine
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: studying and optimizing the therapeutic potential of neural stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles (NSC-EVs).
Natalie Gonzalez

Meet Natalie here.

  • Leake/Parsons/ARCS Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Genetics
  • First Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: understanding genetic incompatibilities between plant species that prevent successful hybridization.
Reagan Haney

Meet Reagan here.

  • Herz Global Impact Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: discovering the mechanism of action of a novel antimalarial and identifying and validating the molecular target(s) of this novel therapeutic.
Megan Meany

Meet Megan here.

  • Doyle/Easterly Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Genetics
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: the molecular mechanisms underlying sex determination and gonad differentiation in the brown anole lizard.
Judith Reyes Ballista

Meet Judith here.

  • Northside Hospital Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Infectious Diseases
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: the role of phospholipids in the entry and budding of RNA viruses.
Mariah Salcedo

Meet Mariah here.

  • Herz Global Impact Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interests: neurodegenerative disease and computational biology.
Colleen Sedney

Meet Colleen here.

  • Hinkle Award
  • Ph.D. Student, Infectious Diseases
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: host-pathogen interactions between infants and the bacteria responsible for whooping cough.
Matthew Treaster

Meet Matthew here.

  • Dick Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Genetics
  • Second Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: the evolution of sex chromosomes and genetic sex determination using three-spine stickleback fish.
Aarya Venkat
Aarya Venkat

Meet Aarya here.

  • Henry/Swensson/ARCS Award
  • Ph.D. Candidate, Biochemistry and Microbiology
  • Third Year ARCS Scholar
  • Research interest: enzymes critical to cellular signaling