Genetics & Genomics Student Awards and Publications

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Student Awards

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Our students frequently receive recognition for their achievements both from �� as well as from other institutions and organizations. Below is a listing of some of the awards and honors they have earned in recent years.

Nathalie Aceves
Benjamin Belfort
Christie Buchovecky
Emily Busse
Ian Campbell
Stephanie Coffin
Ann Collins
Holly Cukier
Cole Deisseroth
Lois Dodson
Laura Heckman
Owen Hirschi
Erica Homan
Kevin Ho
Brooke Horist
Hamin Lee
Caressa Lietman
Brittney Lozzi
Megan Mair
Carl Mangleburg
Cynthia Kim McClard
Kristen Meyer
Chloe Munderloh
Dipak Patel
Katherine Pendleton
Janel Peterson
Edward Pietryk
Mona Shahbazian
Hadley Sheppard
Morgan Stephens
Grace Tietz
Rebekah Townsley
Christopher Ward
Margaret Wat
Andrew Yang

Recipient	Award	Organization/Event
Ruu Hsu	Awarded Kids Beating Cancer Emerging Scientist Grant	Kids Beating Cancer
Matthew McAlister	2nd Place Speaker Award	BCM Molecular and Human Genetics Annual Retreat
English Laserna	1st Place Talk	35th Annual Research Symposium at BCM
English Laserna	International Scholar Award ($25,000)	Philanthropic Educational Organization (PEO)
English Laserna	The 66th McKusick Short Course Educational Travel Award	Jackson Laboratory
English Laserna	People’s Choice Award	American Society of Microbiology-Texas Medical Center Image Contest
English Laserna	1st Place Speaker Award	BCM Molecular and Human Genetics Annual Retreat
Brooke Horist	3rd Place Speaker Award	BCM Molecular and Human Genetics Annual Retreat
Nathalie Aceves	Selected as Predoctoral Finalist	2025 ASHG Trainee Research Excellence Award
Anna Burkhalter	2025 BP America Biomedical Scholar	BP America Biomedical Scholar Endowment

Recipient	Award	Organization/Event
Jake Chamblee	National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellowship	NSF Graduate Fellowship Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)
Christiana Wang	David L. Rimoin Inspiring Excellence Award from the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics Foundation	2024 ACMG Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting
Gwendolynn Hummel	Fulbright Scholar 2024-2025	Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Award Board
Gwynna Fuller	Best Student Poster Award	Society for Developmental Biology 83rd Annual Meeting
Ruu Hsu	Travel Award Recipient	2024 Annual Meeting Society for Birth Defects Research and Prevention
Janel Peterson	Best Basic Science Oral Presentation	14th International Myotonic Dystrophy Consortium Meeting, The Netherlands
English Laserna	BRASS Outstanding Community Scholar of the Year	Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
English Laserna	3rd Place Speaker Award	BCM Clinical Translational Research Certificate of Added Qualification (CTR-CAQ) Third Annual Retreat

Recipient	Award	Organization/Event
Dipak Patel	AHA Predoctoral Fellowship 2024-2026	American Heart Association
Fisher Cherry	GSBS Busch-80 Scholarship Award	��
Katherine Pendleton	3rd Place Elevator Pitch Competition	BCM Graduate Student Symposium
Harini Tirumala	1st Place Platform Speaker	BCM Graduate Student Symposium
Katarzyna Kent	Best Poster Presentation	BCM Department of Pathology and Immunology Trainee Research Symposium
Dharaniya Sakthivel	Poster Presentation - Honorable Mention	Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center 18th Annual Research Symposium
Dharaniya Sakthivel	Featured Book Chapter - Honorarium	Elsevier Inc.
Ruu Hsu	CPRIT Predoctoral Training Grant 2023-2025	Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas
Eric Garcia	Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar	��
Paige Hall	Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar	��
Michal Tyrlik	Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar	��
Janel Peterson	Best Poster Presentation	Annual Frontiers in Digestive Diseases Symposium

Recipient	Award	Organization/Event
Emily Busse	BP America Biomedical Scholarship	BP America Endowment
Catherine Bradley	2nd place platform speaker	BCM Graduate Student Symposium
Harini Pallikarana Tirumlala	2nd place poster presentation	BCM Graduate Student Symposium
Katarzyna Kent	Post Award for Research Relevant to Contraceptive Research and Development	Gates Foundation
Morgan Stephens	F31 Fellowship "Investigating the Role of the Cytoskeleton"	National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Katherine Pendleton	Award: F31 fellowship "Investigating the role of CRAT as a driver of triple negative breast cancer chemoresistance"	National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute
Janel Peterson	Best Research Poster Presentation	Department of Pathology & Immunology Trainee Research Symposium

Recipient	Award	Organization/Event
Moez Dawood	CPRIT Predoctoral Training Grant 2021-2023	Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas
Andrew Yang	CPRIT Predoctoral Training Grant 2021-2023	Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas
Adam Weinstein	Honorable Mention-Oral Presentation	Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center Symposium 2021
Owen Hirschi	F31 Fellowship "Germline Structural Variant Identification and Functional Determination in Childhood Cancer" - F31CA265163	National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute
Dharaniya Sakthivel	CPRIT Predoctoral Training Grant 2021-2023	Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas
Varuna Chander	Third Place, Three Minute Thesis Competition	��
Timothy Abreo	Predoctoral Research Fellowship	American Epilepsy Society
Venkatasubramaniam Sundaramurthy	Predoctoral Fellowship	American Heart Association
Cathy Bradley	First Place Oral Presentation	BCM, Medical Scientist Training Program Symposium 2021
C. Grant Mangleburg	Third Place Oral Presentation	BCM, Medical Scientist Training Program Symposium 2021
Varuna Chander	Semifinalist, Charles J. Epstein Trainee Award for Excellence in Human Genetics	American Society of Human Genetics 2021
English Laserna	Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar	��
Apoorva Thatavarty	Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar	��

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Student Publications

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Our students publish their work as research papers and review articles in peer-reviewed journals. Below is a selection of publications where Genetics & Genomics students served as first or co-first authors, demonstrating their leadership in advancing the field.

October 2025: Duncan Fox from Dr. Hamed Jafar-Nejad's lab and colleagues published a research article in Gastroenterology titled ""

August 2025: Brandon Garcia from Dr. Jennifer Posey's lab and colleagues published a research article in Genome Medicine titled ""

July 2025: Howard Lin from Donald Parson's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Blood titled ""

July 2025: Jordan Fox from Dr. Grzegorz Ira's lab and colleagues published a research article in Nature Communications titled ""

July 2025: Shelley Gibson and Haley Dostalik from Dr. Shinya Yamamoto's lab and colleagues published a review paper in Genome Research titled ""

June 2025: Ching-Ju Hsu from Philip Lupo's lab and collagues published a research paper in Leukemia titled ""

May 2025: Morgan Stephens from Dr. Juan Botas' lab and colleagues published a research paper in American Journal of Human Genetics titled ""

January 2025: Timothy Abreo from Edward Cooper's lab and colleagues published a research paper in eLife titled ""

December 2024: Katarzyna Kent from Dr. Martin Matzuk's lab and colleagues published a research paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled ""

December 2024: Moez Dawood from Dr. Richard Gibbs' lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genome Medicine titled ""

November 2024: Kristy Jay from Dr. Michael Wangler's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genetics in Medicine titled ""

October 2024: Alice Wen from Dr. Christophe Herman's lab published a review paper in Current Opinion in Microbiology titled ""

October 2024: Peter Lehmann from Dr. Gad Shaulsky's lab and colleagues published a research paper in iScience titled ""

September 2024: Jordan Fox from Dr. Grzegorz Ira's lab and colleagues published a research article in Nature Communications titled ""

July 2024: Yichi Niu from Dr. Chenghang (Chuck) Zong's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Nature Communications titled ""

June 2024: Emily Busse from Dr. Brendan Lee's lab and colleagues published a review paper in Current Osteoporosis Reports titled ""

May 2024: Zian Liao from Dr.Martin Matzuk's lab and colleagues published a research paper in eLife titled ""

May 2024: Zian Liao from Dr.Martin Matzuk's lab and colleagues published a research paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled ""

April 2024: Zain Dardas from Dr. James Lupski's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genome Medicine titled ""

February 2024: Haowei Du from Dr. James Lupski's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Nucleic Acids Research titled ""

January 2024: Ishwar Hosamani from Dr. Andrew Groves' lab published a research article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled ""

October 2023: Cole Deisseroth from Dr. Huda Zoghbi's lab and colleagues published a research paper in American Journal of Human Genetics titled ""

September 2023: Dillon Shapiro from Dr. Olivier Lichtarge's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Journal of the American Heart Association titled ""

August 2023: Kristy Jay from Dr. Michael Wangler's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genetics titled ""

May 2023: Timothy Wu from Dr. Joshua Shulman's lab and colleagues published a research paper in eLife titled ""

April 2023: Emily LaPlante from Dr. Aleksandar Milosavljevic's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Cell Genomics titled ""

March 2023: Matthew Cooke from Dr. Christophe Herman's lab and colleagues published a review paper in Journal of Bacteriology titled ""

February 2023: Stephanie Coffin from Dr. Huda Zoghbi's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Neuron titled ""

January 2023: Kevin Ho from Xander Wehrens' lab and colleagues published a review paper in Archives of Toxicology titled ""

December 2022: Brandon Pekarek from Dr. Ben Arenkiel's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genes & Development titled ""

December 2022: Varduhi Petrosyan from Dr. Aleksandar Milosavljevic's lab and colleagues published a research paper in iScience titled ""

November 2022: Amrita Iyer from Dr. Andrew Groves's lab and colleagues published a research paper in eLife titled ""

November 2022: Janel Peterson from Dr. Tom Cooper's lab and colleagues published a review paper in International Journal of Molecular Sciences titled ""

October 2022: Haowei Du, Christopher Grochowski and Angad Jolly from Dr. Jim Lupski's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genome Medicine titled ""

September 2022: Emily LaPlante from Dr. Aleksandar Milosavljevic's lab and colleagues published a research paper in iScience titled ""

September 2022: Varduhi Petrosyan from Dr. Aleksandar Milosavljevic's lab and colleagues published a research paper in NPJ Breast Cancer titled ""

May 2022: Xuwen Li from Dr. Tao Wu's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genome Biology titled ""

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