Summer Research Fellowships for Emma, Alyssa, and Erica

Congrats

to our excellent undergraduates for receiving competitive summer research fellowships this year.

Rising 2nd-year Emma Parker was awarded a CAD Bio Summer Internship, for remote research this summer on new analytical procedures to assess the extent of gelation in a photocrosslinked hydrogel. With this funding from the UVA Center for Advanced Biomanufacturing, she will be diving into literature and drafting detailed protocols to test out when she returns to lab.

Rising 4th-year Alyssa Montalbine was awarded the Lester Andrews Undergraduate Summer Research Scholarship in Chemistry, which would have funded experiments on new methods to guide T cell motility in hydrogels. As all research must go remote this summer, we’ll be retooling the project to make progress remotely.

Finally, rising 2nd-year Erica Kem was awarded a summer fellowship from USOAR, a UVA program from the Office of Undergraduate Research, which uses work-study for meaningful research experience. Erica will be researching methods to culture ex vivo tissues under flow for long-term culture.

We are proud of you all!

Congratulations, Dr. Maura Belanger

We are very proud of Dr. Maura Belanger for successfully defending her PhD in April, 2020, and graduating today in UVA Chemistry’s virtual graduation ceremony!

Maura was one of the first two graduate students to join the laboratory. She helped establish much of the foundational science that now informs our efforts to study immunity ex vivo. Along the way, she was awarded a fellowship on the Immunology Training Grant, contributed to 2 co-author papers, 2 first-author papers, and is currently leading the writing of a comprehensive review for submission this summer. Congratulations Maura for all of your achievements!

Welcome Pargat, Emma, and Erica!

Our lab is growing. Recently we welcomed Dr. Pargat Singh to the group, from CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology in India, to work on methods to detect cytokines in tissue. His expertise in protein modification and microfluidics is a wonderful addition.

We also welcomed two new undergraduates, Erica Kem and Emma Parker. They will contribute to our work with lymph node slices and to protein modification projects, respectively. We are delighted to have their energy and enthusiasm in the lab.

Meg presents at SciX

In October 2019, PhD student Megan Catterton represented the lab at SciX 2019 in the ANACHEM Award award session, a session in honor of Prof. Robert Kennedy receiving the ANACHEM award. Held in Palm Springs, CA, this special symposium included leaders in the field of microfluidics for bioanalysis. Meg made us proud!

1st-yr Jon Zatorski wins NSF GRFP

We are thrilled and honored that first-year PhD student Jon Zatorski was awarded an Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation this week. This is a major accomplishment that reflects Jon’s hard work throughout his college career, in our lab over the summer before grad school officially began, and in the fall semester to draft a strong proposal and personal statement while also juggling coursework and teaching commitments. We are very excited to see what he achieves over the next few years!

Hutcheson undergraduate award

We are very proud of Eirini Stylianopoulos for being awarded a Hutcheson Undergraduate Research Fellowship for summer 2019! This competitive award is generously funded by a charitable gift from Randy and Rossie Hutcheson, for top undergraduates working in Carter Immunology Center labs on immunology projects. We look forward to Eirini’s work on antibody-based reagents to sense cytokines!

Welcome Jon, Sophie, and Aditya!

The Pompano lab is growing. We welcome 3 new Chemistry PhD students this fall: Jon Zatorski, Aditya Rane, and Sophie Cook. Looking forward to what they will accomplish in the coming years!

Prof. Pompano named Lab on a Chip Emerging Investigator

Professor Pompano was named an Emerging Investigator by Lab on a Chip, following publication of our article on a movable port for stimulation of slices of live tissue.  What an honor!  You can read the full interview here.

Welcome Gianna Haskin from Xavier University

We are thrilled to have Gianna Haskin, a rising second year student at Xavier University of Louisiana, join us for summer research this summer.  She is participating in the First Year Research Experience (FYRE) program, a nationwide program that sponsors first-time research experiences after the first year of college.  Gianna is working on pioneering methods for long term culture of lymph node slices!  She has done a great job in her first month, and we look forward to seeing what she achieves by the end of the summer.

Good Luck to Drake, Ben and Kristen!

As UVA begins to prepare for Final Exercises we want to thank all our graduating undergrads for all their hard work over the past years.  Many of them have been part of the lab since the first summer and they have helped shape the lab and develop many of our novel procedures.  They have done excellent work and we wish them the best of luck as they move forward in their scientific careers. 

We will miss you all but look forward to seeing your future accomplishments.