Student Awards
Our students frequently receive recognition for their achievements both from Baylor College of Medicine 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 | Baylor College of Medicine |
| 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 | Baylor College of Medicine |
| Paige Hall | Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar | Baylor College of Medicine |
| Michal Tyrlik | Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar | Baylor College of Medicine |
| 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 | Baylor College of Medicine |
| 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 | Baylor College of Medicine |
| Apoorva Thatavarty | Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar | Baylor College of Medicine |
Student Publications
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 "Adeno-associated Virus-mediated Silencing of Sox4 Leads to Long-Term Amelioration of Liver Phenotypes in Mouse Models of Alagille Syndrome"
August 2025: Brandon Garcia from Dr. Jennifer Posey's lab and colleagues published a research article in Genome Medicine titled "Improving automated deep phenotyping through large language models using retrieval-augmented generation"
July 2025: Howard Lin from Donald Parson's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Blood titled "BRAF V600E-positive mononuclear cells in blood at diagnosis portend treatment failure and neurodegeneration in pediatric LCH"
July 2025: Jordan Fox from Dr. Grzegorz Ira's lab and colleagues published a research article in Nature Communications titled "Deficits in mitochondrial dynamics and iron balance result in templated insertions"
July 2025: Shelley Gibson and Haley Dostalik from Dr. Shinya Yamamoto's lab and colleagues published a review paper in Genome Research titled "Functional assays in Drosophila facilitate classification of variants of uncertain significance associated with rare diseases"
June 2025: Ching-Ju Hsu from Philip Lupo's lab and collagues published a research paper in Leukemia titled "All genetic subtypes of B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia exhibit increased incidence rates in children with Down syndrome"
May 2025: Morgan Stephens from Dr. Juan Botas' lab and colleagues published a research paper in American Journal of Human Genetics titled "Computational and functional prioritization identifies genes that rescue behavior and reduce tau protein in fly and human cell models of Alzheimer disease"
January 2025: Timothy Abreo from Edward Cooper's lab and colleagues published a research paper in eLife titled "Plural molecular and cellular mechanisms of pore domain KCNQ2 encephalopathy"
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 "Large-scale CRISPR/Cas9 deletions within the WFDC gene cluster uncover gene functionality and critical roles in mammalian reproduction"
December 2024: Moez Dawood from Dr. Richard Gibbs' lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genome Medicine titled "Using multiplexed functional data to reduce variant classification inequities in underrepresented populations"
November 2024: Kristy Jay from Dr. Michael Wangler's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genetics in Medicine titled "Loss-of-function in RBBP5 results in a syndromic neurodevelopmental disorder associated with microcephaly"
October 2024: Alice Wen from Dr. Christophe Herman's lab published a review paper in Current Opinion in Microbiology titled "Horizontal gene transfer and beyond: the delivery of biological matter by bacterial membrane vesicles to host and bacterial cells"
October 2024: Peter Lehmann from Dr. Gad Shaulsky's lab and colleagues published a research paper in iScience titled "Going against the family: Perturbation of a greenbeard pathway leads to falsebeard cheating"
September 2024: Jordan Fox from Dr. Grzegorz Ira's lab and colleagues published a research article in Nature Communications titled "Yeast EndoG prevents genome instability by degrading extranuclear DNA species"
July 2024: Yichi Niu from Dr. Chenghang (Chuck) Zong's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Nature Communications titled "Single-cell total-RNA profiling unveils regulatory hubs of transcription factors"
June 2024: Emily Busse from Dr. Brendan Lee's lab and colleagues published a review paper in Current Osteoporosis Reports titled "Genetic Evaluation for Monogenic Disorders of Low Bone Mass and Increased Bone Fragility: What Clinicians Need to Know"
May 2024: Zian Liao from Dr.Martin Matzuk's lab and colleagues published a research paper in eLife titled "Affinity-tagged SMAD1 and SMAD5 mouse lines reveal transcriptional reprogramming mechanisms during early pregnancy"
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 "Identification of potent pan-ephrin receptor kinase inhibitors using DNA-encoded chemistry technology"
April 2024: Zain Dardas from Dr. James Lupski's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genome Medicine titled "NODAL variants are associated with a continuum of laterality defects from simple D-transposition of the great arteries to heterotaxy"
February 2024: Haowei Du from Dr. James Lupski's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Nucleic Acids Research titled "HMZDupFinder: a robust computational approach for detecting intragenic homozygous duplications from exome sequencing data"
January 2024: Ishwar Hosamani from Dr. Andrew Groves' lab published a research article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled "Expression of Atoh1, Gfi1, and Pou4f3 in the mature cochlea reprograms nonsensory cells into hair cells"
October 2023: Cole Deisseroth from Dr. Huda Zoghbi's lab and colleagues published a research paper in American Journal of Human Genetics titled "Literature-based predictions of Mendelian disease therapies"
September 2023: Dillon Shapiro from Dr. Olivier Lichtarge's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Journal of the American Heart Association titled "Evolutionary Action-Machine Learning Model Identifies Candidate Genes Associated With Early-Onset Coronary Artery Disease"
August 2023: Kristy Jay from Dr. Michael Wangler's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genetics titled "A de novo missense variant in EZH1 associated with developmental delay exhibits functional deficits in Drosophila melanogaster"
May 2023: Timothy Wu from Dr. Joshua Shulman's lab and colleagues published a research paper in eLife titled "Tau polarizes an aging transcriptional signature to excitatory neurons and glia"
April 2023: Emily LaPlante from Dr. Aleksandar Milosavljevic's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Cell Genomics titled "exRNA-eCLIP intersection analysis reveals a map of extracellular RNA binding proteins and associated RNAs across major human biofluids and carriers"
March 2023: Matthew Cooke from Dr. Christophe Herman's lab and colleagues published a review paper in Journal of Bacteriology titled "Conjugation's Toolkit: the Roles of Nonstructural Proteins in Bacterial Sex"
February 2023: Stephanie Coffin from Dr. Huda Zoghbi's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Neuron titled "Disruption of the ATXN1-CIC complex reveals the role of additional nuclear ATXN1 interactors in spinocerebellar ataxia type 1"
January 2023: Kevin Ho from Xander Wehrens' lab and colleagues published a review paper in Archives of Toxicology titled "Role of Ca2+ in healthy and pathologic cardiac function: from normal excitation-contraction coupling to mutations that cause inherited arrhythmia"
December 2022: Brandon Pekarek from Dr. Ben Arenkiel's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genes & Development titled "Oxytocin signaling is necessary for synaptic maturation of adult-born neurons"
December 2022: Varduhi Petrosyan from Dr. Aleksandar Milosavljevic's lab and colleagues published a research paper in iScience titled "Identifying biomarkers of differential chemotherapy response in TNBC patient-derived xenografts with a CTD/WGCNA approach"
November 2022: Amrita Iyer from Dr. Andrew Groves's lab and colleagues published a research paper in eLife titled "Cellular reprogramming with ATOH1, GFI1, and POU4F3 implicate epigenetic changes and cell-cell signaling as obstacles to hair cell regeneration in mature mammals"
November 2022: Janel Peterson from Dr. Tom Cooper's lab and colleagues published a review paper in International Journal of Molecular Sciences titled "Clinical and Molecular Insights into Gastrointestinal Dysfunction in Myotonic Dystrophy Types 1 & 2"
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 "The multiple de novo copy number variant (MdnCNV) phenomenon presents with peri-zygotic DNA mutational signatures and multilocus pathogenic variation"
September 2022: Emily LaPlante from Dr. Aleksandar Milosavljevic's lab and colleagues published a research paper in iScience titled "XDec-CHI reveals immunosuppressive interactions in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma"
September 2022: Varduhi Petrosyan from Dr. Aleksandar Milosavljevic's lab and colleagues published a research paper in NPJ Breast Cancer titled "Immunologically "cold" triple negative breast cancers engraft at a higher rate in patient derived xenografts"
May 2022: Xuwen Li from Dr. Tao Wu's lab and colleagues published a research paper in Genome Biology titled "NT-seq: a chemical-based sequencing method for genomic methylome profiling"
