Cohort 11

Meet the 2020 Scholars

These accomplished STEM students are engaged in guided internships and research projects at Weill Cornell, Belfer, Mt Sinai and other prominent NYC-based institutions.

Kyra Abbu ‘22
Major: Data Science and Biostatistics
Research Institution: Hunter College

Kyra Alyssa Abbu is a third-year undergraduate student at CUNY Hunter College pursuing her bachelor’s degree in computer science and statistics. She is a part of the Daedalus Scholars Program (Computer Science Honors Program), the Thomas W. Smith Academic Fellowship and the John P. McNulty Scholars Program for Leadership and Excellence in Math and Science.

During the summer of 2020, Kyra received the Raab Presidential Fellowship, allowing her to pursue a data science and analytics internship at RubiconMD, a telehealth startup company that enables primary care providers to connect with top specialists. In this role, Kyra extracted, transported and loaded data between multiple databases. During the spring of 2020, Kyra was a data science intern at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene where she assisted in building machine learning models to improve data quality for the NYC Master Person Electronic Health Record data matching project. This project was done in collaboration with Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

Through the support of the McNulty scholarship, Kyra will be working with Dr. Lei Xie in the Data Science, Machine Learning, and Bioinformatics Lab at Hunter College with whom she previously worked with in co-authoring a drug discovery paper that is currently in review. Kyra hopes to become a data scientist in the field of public health to increase access to high quality healthcare for the underserved. Upon finishing her undergraduate degree, Kyra plans to pursue a graduate degree that merges her interests in computer science, statistics and public health.

Katie Nikishina ‘22
Major: Biology
Research Institution: Memorial Sloan Kettering

Katie Nikishina is a third-year student at Hunter College majoring in biology. She is part of the Jenny Hunter Scholars Program and the John P. McNulty Scholars Program.

Katie has four years of research experience beginning from her junior year in high school as a research intern in the Lu lab at Long Island University and as a research intern in the Boire lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Katie began her research endeavors working with embedded nanofibers in the Lu lab and continued her scientific pursuit in the Boire lab working on the crosstalk between cancer cells and astrocytes in the leptomeningeal space. Katie participated in the SCORE 2019 program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where she began her research on the crosstalk between Leptomeningeal metastatic cancer cells and astrocytes in the brain microenvironment.

During summer 2020, Katie participated in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center CARES program where she conducted a literature review on the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development. Besides her vast academic achievements, Katie is a patient companion volunteer at Maimonides Medical Center as well as a kitchen aid volunteer for the elderly at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House. She has a passion for helping others which stemmed into her deep interest in medicine.

Katie aspires to become a physician with her passion for science and helping others.

Nga Yu Lo ‘22
Major: Mathematics, Computer Science
Research Institution: Weill Cornell

Nga Yu Lo is a third-year undergraduate at Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College where she is majoring in mathematics and computer science.

In the summer of 2020, she participated in a REU at Oregon State University where she worked alongside Dr. Juan Restrepo in developing epidemic and economic models in order to better understand the impact of economic drivers on the spread of diseases. The project allowed Nga Yu to develop a sophisticated understanding of numerical methods, stochastic processes and probability. Nga Yu hopes to apply her mathematical knowledge to her interests of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Her interests stem from participating in an autonomous navigation workshop at Hunter College with Professor Susan Epstein and Professor Katherine St. John in winter 2020. It is apparent that development in A.I. are crucial to the technology of the future with applications in industries, public health and national defense. With support from the McNulty scholarship, Nga Yu will be working at Weill Cornell Medical Center, under the supervision of Alexandros Sigaras, in a project involving artificial intelligence in precision medicine.

Upon completion of her undergraduate degree, she plans to pursue a doctoral program where she can pursue research in technology with significant impact on our future. In the future, she hopes to work with government laboratories, such as Los Alamos National Laboratory, on projects protecting national assets through the development of information technology.

Sabina Kubayeva ‘22
Major: Biology
Research Institution: Mt. Sinai

Sabina Kubayeva is a third-year student in the Macaulay Honors program at Hunter College majoring in biological science with a minor in public health on a pre-health track. In addition to being a Macaulay Honors Scholar, Sabina is a recipient of the John P. McNulty scholarship and the summer 2020 Raab Presidential Fellowship.

She has four years of research experience stemming from her junior year of high school, where she was a research assistant at a neuroscience lab at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. She finalized two research projects pertaining to the role of a memory molecule called PKMzeta and its role in Alzheimer's disease. Sabina then participated in the SCORE program at Memorial Sloan Kettering where she conducted research on the role of fatty acids in metastatic melanoma. She also has multiple literature review experiences and will be conducting a COVID-19 seroprevelance study with a focus on immunocompromised patients with Dr. Serre-Yu Wong at Mount Sinai as a McNulty Scholar.

Her research experiences have accumulated to three projects and presentations at approximately ten different conferences where she won awards at each one. The diversity in Sabina's research experiences have pushed her to pursue a career in pathology. In the future, Sabina hopes to becomes a forensic pathologist assistant and merge the field together with research.

Victoria Cagle ‘21
Major: Environmental Studies
Research Institution: Hunter College

Victoria Cagle is a senior at Hunter College where she is pursuing bachelor’s degrees in environmental studies and biochemistry. She is a recipient of the John P. McNulty scholarship which allows her to research the potential for environmental remediation through the use of biocompatible synthetic organic and inorganic polymers with her mentor, Spiro Alexandratos.

In her studies, Victoria is focusing on hydrology and the fate and transport of pollutants in water systems along with the potential that chemistry has for environmental remediation within these systems.

Upon completion of her undergraduate studies, she intends to attend graduate school where she can further study environmental chemistry and work towards a career as a researcher.

Feda Hammood ‘21
Major: Biological Science
Research Institution: Rockefeller University

Feda Hammood is a third-year student at Hunter College, the City University of New York. She is on the pre-medical track pursuing a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and a minor in Arabic studies. In addition to being a John P. McNulty Scholar, she is a Yalow Honors Scholar. Feda began research her freshman year at The Rockefeller University in the Laboratory of Genetics under Dr. Michael W. Young and Dr. Wanhe Li. In the Young lab, Feda studies the molecular mechanisms that generate, sustain and modify sleep behavior in Drosophila. She aims to investigate the complexity of stress-induced animal behaviors. She studied social isolation induced sleep loss in Drosophila and was able to present her findings at Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) where she was granted an award.

In the summer of 2020, Feda participated in the Clinical Genetics and Bioinformatics Program at the Keck Graduate Institute based in Claremont, California. Through this program she has developed a greater understanding of human genomics, precision medicine, and bioinformatics as well learning how data analytics can be used to provide clinical recommendations for patients with genetic disorders. She also works as a medical scribe in an internal medicine clinic. She aims to incorporate genomic information about an individual as part of their clinical care in the future. As a Palestinian-American female, she aims to increase female Arab representation in STEM.

Sarah Francesca Whittle ‘22
Major: Physics, Mathematics
Research Institution: Hunter College

Sarah Francesca Whittle is a third-year undergraduate student at Hunter College, the City University of New York. She is majoring in physics and minoring in art history and math. She is a part of the Thomas Hunter Honors Program, the John P. McNulty Scholars Program, and the Muse Scholars Program for visual and performing arts, film, media and creative writing.

In the summer of 2019, she began research at Hunter College under Dr. Greenbaum, working with nuclear magnetic resonance and electron paramagnetic resonance. These two methods of analysis utilize the spins of atomic nuclei and electrons to analyze molecular structure by observing how nuclear spins interact when put inside a powerful magnet. Through this work they are evaluating materials to be used towards renewable energy applications such as lithium batteries and fuel cells.

Upon completion of her undergraduate degree, she plans to pursue a doctoral program to continue her studies in physics.

Rita Pozovskiy ‘21
Major: Economics
Research Institution: Belfer

Rita Pozovskiy is a fourth-year undergraduate student at the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College, double majoring in economics and biochemistry. She is a recipient of the John P. McNulty scholarship, which has allowed her to continue working as a research assistant at Weill Cornell in the area of metabolic oncology. She works in the lab of Dr. Marcus Goncalves, aiming to better understand how hormones, cytokines, and metabolites regulate systemic metabolism in the setting of cancer; and how these factors are changed with dietary interventions.

In the Goncalves Lab, under the direct mentorship of Shakti Ramsamooj, Rita is responsible for collecting and organizing data procured from various diet studies in mouse colonies concerned with cancer cachexia. In some cases, she can provide research support in an administrative capacity through completing paperwork, logging data, organizing spreadsheets and preparing correspondence or presentation materials. However, she spends most of her time assisting with mouse-work and performing enzyme assays.

Upon completion of her undergraduate studies, Rita intends to pursue a career as a physician-scientist. The beauty and excitement of translational research motivate her desire to formulate theories that will lead to new ways of thinking. Rita aspires to educate, as well as provide counsel and help shape public policies.