Honors & Awards

Minkui Luo, PhD
Member, Sloan Kettering Institute
Pharmacology Program 

Yael David, PhD
Associate Member, Sloan Kettering Institute
Pharmacology Program 

Jason Lewis, PhD
Member, Pharmacology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute
Professor, Pharmacology Program 

Daniel A. Bachovchin, PhD
Associate Professor, Pharmacology Program

Mary Baylies, PhD 
Member, Developmental Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute 
Co-Director, BCMB Program
Professor, BCMB Program

Carl Nathan, M.D.
Chair, Immunology & Microbial Pathogenesis Graduate Program
Professor, Microbiology and Immunology

Sabine Ehrt, Ph.D.
Professor, Immunology & Microbial Pathogenesis Graduate Program
Co-Chair, Immunology & Microbial Pathogenesis Graduate Program

Anjali M. Rajadhyaksha, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Neuroscience Graduate Program

Yueming Li, Ph.D.
Professor, Pharmacology and Neuroscience Graduate Programs
Member, Chemical Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute

Mary Baylies, Ph.D.
Professor, Cell and Developmental Biology Graduate Program
Co-Director, BCMB Allied Graduate Programs
Member, Developmental Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute

David Scheinberg, M.D., Ph.D.
Chair, Pharmacology Graduate Program
Chair, Molecular Pharmacology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute
Director, Center for Experimental Therapeutics

Derek Tan, Ph.D.
Professor, Pharmacology Graduate Program
Director, Tri-Institutional Ph.D. Program in Chemical Biology
Member, Chemical Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute

Teresa Milner, Ph.D.
Professor, Neuroscience Graduate Program

Heidi Stuhlmann, Ph.D.
Professor, Cell and Developmental Biology Graduate Program

Theresa Lu, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Graduate Program

Marilyn Resh, Ph.D.
Chair, Cell and Developmental Biology Graduate Program
Member, Cell Biology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute

Charles Inturissi, Ph.D.
Professor, Pharmacology Graduate Program

Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program

• Gretchen Diehl, PhD
  Associate Professor

Neuroscience Program

• Amy Kuceyeski, PhD
  Professor of Mathematics in Radiology 

Population Health Sciences Program

• Laura Pinheiro, PhD
  Associate Professor of Health Services Research in Medicine

Biochemistry and Structural Biology Program

• Richard Hite, PhD
  Associate Member 

Cell and Developmental Biology Program

• Matthias Stadtfeld, PhD
  Associate Professor of Cell Biology in Medicine

Molecular Biology Program

• Dirk Remus, PhD
  Associate Professor 

Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology Program

• Harel Weinstein, DSc
  Professor of Physiology and Biophysics

Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology Program

• Jeremy Dittman, MD, PhD
  Associate Professor of Biochemistry

Pharmacology Program

• Lonny Levin, PhD
  Professor of Pharmacology 

Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program 

Theresa Lu, M.D., Ph.D. 
Member, Immunology Program, Hospital for Special Surgery 
Co-Director, Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program 

Pharmacology Program

Kristen Pleil, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Weill Cornell Medicine 

Pharmacology Program

Anthony Sauve, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Pharmacology Program
 

BCMB Allied Program

Kirk Deitsch, Ph.D.
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Weill Cornell Medicine
Co-Chair, Molecular Biology (BCMB) Program 
Professor, BCMB Program

Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program

Joseph Sun, Ph.D.
Member, Immunology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute 
Co-Director, Immunology & Microbial Pathogenesis Program 
Professor, Immunology & Microbial Pathogenesis Program

Physiology, Biophysics & Systems Biology Program

Jason Mezey, Ph.D. 
Professor of Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine 
Professor, PBSB Program

Pharmacology Program

John Blenis, Ph.D.
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Professor in Cancer Research
Associate Director of Basic Science, The Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center
Professor of Pharmacology, Weill Cornell Medicine 
Director, Pharmacology Program
Professor, Pharmacology Program
 

Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program

Alexander Rudensky, Ph.D.
Chairman, Immunology Program, Sloan Kettering Institute
Director, Ludwig Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Co-Chair, Immunology & Microbial Pathogenesis Program

Neuroscience Program

Anna Orr, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Neuroscience
Brain and Mind Research Institute

Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology Program

Lucy A Skrabanek, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Computational Biomedicine in Physiology and Biophysics
 

BCMB Allied Program

Richard White, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Sloan Kettering Institute, Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology Program

Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program

Sabine Ehrt, Ph.D.
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine 
Co-Chair, Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Graduate Program

Neuroscience Program

Conor Liston, M.D., Ph.D. 
Associate Professor of Neuroscience, Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine

Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology Program

Scott Blanchard, Ph.D.
Adjunct Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology Program

Pharmacology Program

Daniel Heller, Ph.D.
PhD, Associate Professor, Sloan Kettering Institute, Pharmacology Program

Daniel Barnett, (Mentors: Anna Orr, PhD, Adam Orr, PhD) for “Mitochondrial complex III-derived ROS amplify immunometabolic changes 
in astrocytes and promote dementia pathology.” Nature Metabolism.

UkJin Lee, (Mentor: Effie Apostolou, PhD) for “Postmitotic transcription and 3D regulation show locus-specific and differentiation-specific responses to cohesin depletion. ” Nature Genetics

Mir Zainab Howlader, (Mentor: Theresa T. Lu, MD, PhD) for “Lymphatic Dysfunction in Lupus Contributes to Cutaneous Photosensitivity And Lymph Node B Cell Responses.” Journal of Clinical Investigation

Kathleen Mills, (Mentor: Tobias Hohl, MD, PhD) for “GM-CSF-Mediated Epithelial-Immune Cell Cross-Talk Orchestrates Pulmonary Immunity to Aspergillus fumigatus” Science Immunology

• David J. Falvo, (Mentor: Rohit Chandwani, MD, PhD) for "A reversible epigenetic memory of inflammatory injury controls lineage plasticity and tumor initiation in the mouse pancreas" Developmental Cell, 58: 2959-2973 (2023)
• Albert S. Agustinus (Mentors: Yael David, PhD, and Samuel F. Bakhoum, MD, PhD) "Epigenetic dysregulation from chromosomal transit in micronuclei" Nature, 619, 176-183 (2023)

• Nakul Yadav (Conor Liston, MD, PhD, mentor): "Prefrontal feature representations drive memory recall." Nature 608.7921 (2022): 153-160.
   
• Jiang Yining (Simon Scheuring, PhD, mentor): "Membrane-mediated protein interactions drive membrane protein organization." Nature Communications 13.1 (2022): 7373.

• Bianca Diaz (Lukas Dow,  PhD, mentor): "Base Editing Sensor Libraries for High-Throughput Engineering and Functional Analysis of Cancer-Associated Single Nucleotide Variants." Nature Biotechnology (2022).
   
• Joshua Weiss (Richard White, MD, PhD, mentor)  “Anatomic Position Determines Oncogenic Specificity in Melanoma." Nature, Vol 604 (2022).

• Gary Dixon, (Danwei Huangfu, PhD, mentor): “QSER1 protects DNA methylation valleys from de novo methylation.” Science 372 (2021).
   
• Ke Xu, (Ming Li, PhD, mentor): “Glycolysis fuels phosphoinositide 3-kinase signaling to bolster T cell immunity.” Science 371 (2021).

• Jenny Yaohua Xue, (Piro Lito, MD, PhD, mentor): “Rapid non-uniform adaptation to conformation-specific KRAS (G12C) inhibition.” Nature 577, 421–425 (2020).
   
• Ryan Ries, (Samie Jaffrey, MD PhD, mentor): “m6A enhances the phase separation potential of mRNA.” Nature 571, 424–428 (2019).

• Jacob Litke, (Samie Jaffrey, MD, PhD, mentor): "Highly efficient expression of circular RNA aptamers in cells using autocatalytic transcripts." Nature Biotechnology, 2019 Jun;37(6):667-675.
   
• Ashley Chui and Sahana Rao, (Daniel Bachovchin, PhD, mentor): "N-terminal degradation activates the NLRP1B inflammasome."
  Science. 2019 Apr 5;364(6435):82-85.

• Asaf Poran and Christopher Nötzel, (Olivier Elemento, PhD & Björn F.C. Kafsack, PhD, mentors): “Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals a signature of sexual commitment in malaria parasites.” Nature, Nov 2;551(7678):95-99 (2017). 
   
• Theodoros Giavridis, (Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD, mentor): “CAR T cell-induced cytokine release syndrome is mediated by macrophages and abated by IL-1 blockade.” Nature Medicine, Jun;24(6):731-738 (2018).

• Daniel Thengone, (Nicholas Schiff, MD & Jonathan D. Victor, MD, PhD, mentors): Thengone DJ, Voss HU, Fridman EA, Schiff ND “Local changes in network structure contribute to late communication recovery after severe brain injury.” Science Translational Medicine, 8:368re5 (2016) 
   
• Guanshi Wang, (Alexandros Pertsinidis, PhD, mentor): Wang G, Hauver J, Thomas Z, Darst SA, Pertsinidis A, “Single-molecule real-time 3D imaging of the transcription cycle by modulation interferometry.” Cell, 167(7):1839-1852 (2016)

• Kari Fischer, PhD (Vivek Mittal, PhD, mentor) for "Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition is not required for lung metastasis but contributes to chemoresistance”, Nature. 
   
• Faranak Fattahi, PhD (Lorenz Studer, MD, mentor) for "Deriving human ENS lineages for cell therapy and drug discovery in Hirschsprung disease”, Nature.

• Andrew Tokay Drysdale, PhD (B.J. Casey, PhD, mentor) for "FAAH genetic variation enhances fronto-amygdala function in mouse and human." Nat Commun. 2015 Mar 3;6:6395.   
   
• Peng Kate Gao, PhD (Songhai Shi, PhD, mentor) for "Deterministic Progenitor Behavior and Unitary Production of Neurons in the Neocortex." Cell. 2014 Nov 6;159(4): 775-88. 
   
• Honorable Mention: Adam M. Levinson, PhD (Samuel Danishefsky, PhD) for "Total Synthesis of Aspervein via an Iodine(III)-Mediated Oxidative Cyclization." Org. Lett. 16, 4904-4907 (2014).

• Joseph Justin Mulvey, PhD (David Scheinberg, MD/PhD, mentor) for "Self-assembly of carbon nanotubes and antibodies on tumours for targeted amplified delivery." Nature Nanotechnology 8, 763–771 (2013). 
   
• Nurunisa Akyuz, PhD (Olga Boudker, PhD, mentor) for "Transport dynamics in a glutamate transporter homologue." Nature 502, 114-118 (2013). 

• Elissaveta Petrova, PhD (Marilyn Resh, PhD, mentor) for “Inhibitors of Hedgehog Acyltransferase Block Sonic Hedgehog Signaling.” Nature Chem.Biol. 9: 247-249.  
   
• Christopher Kloss, PhD (Michel Sadelain, PhD, mentor) for “Combinatorial Antigen Recognition with Balanced Signaling Promotes Selective Tumor Eradication by Engineered T cells.” Nature Biotechnology. 31: 71-75. 

• Eduardo F. Gallo, PhD (Constantino Iadecola, MD, mentor) for "Neuronal Nitric Oxide Contributes to Neuroplasticity-Associated Protein Expression through cGMP, Protein Kinase G, and Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase." Journal of Neuroscience 31(19):6947-6955, May 11, 2011.
   
• Polloneal Ocbin, PhD (Kathryn V. Anderson, PhD, mentor) for "Complex interactions between genes controlling trafficking in primary cilia." Nature Genetics, published online May 8, 2011 .

• Asif Maroof, PhD (Stewart Anderson, MD, mentor) for "Prospective Isolation of Cortical Interneuron Precursors from Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells." Journal of Neuroscience 30(13):4667-4675, March 31, 2010.
   
• Anton Rosenbaum, PhD (Frederick Maxfield, PhD, mentor) for "Endocytosis of P-Cyclodextrins is Responsible for Cholesterol Reduction in Niemann-Pick Type C Mutant Cells." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 107:5477-5482, March 23, 2010.

Andrea T. Hooper, PhD (Shahin Rafii, MD, mentor) for "Engraftment and Reconstitution of Hematopoiesis is Dependent on VEGFR2-Mediated Regeneration of Sinusoidal Endothelial Cells." Cell Stem Cell 4, 263-274, March 6, 2009.
 

Gloria Kwon, PhD (Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis, PhD, mentor) for "The Endoderm of the Mouse Embryo Arises by Dynamic Widespread Intercalation of Embryonic and Extraembryonic Lineages." Developmental Cel/15, 509-520, October 14, 2008.
 

• Meera Mani, PhD (Timothy Ryan, PhD, mentor) for "The Dual Phosphatase Activity of Synaptojanin l Is Required for Both Efficient Synaptic Vesicle Endocytosis and Availability at Nerve Terminals." Neuron , 56: 1004-I 018, 2007.
   
• Matthias T. Stephan, PhD (Michel Sadelain, PhD, mentor) for "T cell-encoded COSO and 4-lBBL Induce Auto- and Transcostimulation , Resulting in Potent Tumor Rejection ." Nature Medicine, 13: 1440-1449, 2007.

Gabrielle Peterson
BCMB Allied Program
In recognition of her contributions in the service of students with disabilities, and as founder and president of the Student Disability Association at WCM

Natalia Rivera-Sanchez
Pharmacology Program
In recognition of her numerous contributions to mentorship and science education in our community

Louisa Schilling and Erica Bulzomi
Neuroscience Program
In recognition of their efforts and dedication to “Brain Day”, an immersive, educational program teaching brain awareness at NYC public elementary schools.

Celeste Parra Bravo
Neuroscience Program
In recognition of her mentorship of incoming first-year PhD students in the WCGS near-peer mentorship program and at the New York Academy of Sciences.

Kathleen Mills
Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program and the Tobias Hohl Lab

In recognition of her mentorship of high school and undergraduate students and her services to the IMP program and WCGS.

Josue Barnes 
Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology Graduate Program
Iman Hajirasouliha and Olivier Elemento labs

Josue is being recognized for his leadership as president for two years of the Tri-Institutional Minority Society, and involvement in the Social Justice and Anti-Racism Taskforce.

Ifeh Akano
Pharmacology Graduate Program
Yael David Lab

Ifeh is being recognized for her outreach and work with the Tri-I Outreach Club, Tri-I Mentorship Initiative, Community Leader Fellowship Program, and Tri-I Outreach Fair.

Thais Klevorn
Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Graduate Program
Sabine Ehrt Lab

Thais is being recognized for her outreach and work with the Tri-Institutional Minority Society (TIMS).

Krysta DiKun
Pharmacology Graduate Program
Lorraine Gudas Lab
 

Thomas Rossetti (no picture available)
Pharmacology Graduate Program
Jochen Buck and Lonny Levin Lab

Krysta and Thomas are being recognized for co-chairing the 40th Annual Vincent du Vigneaud Research Symposium.

Pedro Silberman
Pharmacology Graduate Program
David Scheinberg Lab

Pedro is being recognized for his outreach to high school students through the founding of the High School Catalyst Program.

Jordana Thibado
Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology Graduate Program
Lonny Levin Lab

Jordana is being recognized for her outreach to children and young adults in the activities of the Tri-Institutional Outreach Committee, including Family Science Day, “STEM DAY” and other initiatives.

Thomas Galassi
Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology Graduate Program
Daniel Heller Lab

Thomas is being recognized for being a leader in developing a biomedical entrepreneurship ecosystem at Weill Cornell.

Suvey Pandey
Cell and Developmental Biology Graduate Program
Todd Evans Lab

Suvey is being recognized for his outstanding service as a GSEC wellness representative and his leadership role in founding Peers Advocating Wellness (PAWs).

Alexandra Cohen, PhD
Neuroscience Graduate Program
BJ Casey Lab
 

Sara DiNapoli
Pharmacology Graduate Program
Yariv Houvras Lab
 

Michael V. LeVine, PhD
PBSB Graduate Program
Harel Weinstein Lab

Alexandra, Sara, and Michael received the 2016 Student Service Award for founding the “Tri-Institutional Outreach Committee.”

• 2026: Ruth E. Atherton, Ph.D. ’99, J.D.
   
• 2025: Ting Jia, PhD, '08
   
• 2024: Cynthia Leifer, Ph.D., '99
   
• 2023: Cheryl Dreyfus, Ph.D., '76
   
• 2022: John MacMicking, Ph.D. ‘97
   
• 2021: Eric Huang, M.D. '86, Ph.D. '93
   
• 2020: Kornelia Polyak, M.D. '91, Ph.D. '95
   
• 2019: Katharine Hsu, M.D. '94, Ph.D. '93
   
• 2018: Janet Braam, Ph.D. '85
   
• 2017: Bruce Sullenger, Ph.D. '91
   
• 2016: Lisa Staiano-Coico, Ph.D. ‘81
   
• 2015: Avery August, Ph.D. '94
   
• 2014: M. Elizabeth Ross, M.D. ’79, Ph.D. ‘82
   
• 2013: James Di Santo, M.D. ‘91, Ph.D ‘89
   
• 2012: Carlos Cordon-Cardo, M.D., Ph.D ‘85
   
• 2011: Kathleen Scotto, Ph.D ‘83
   
• 2010: Christopher Ross, M.D.'83, Ph.D ‘82
   
• 2009: Geoffrey Ling, M.D., Ph.D ‘82
   
• 2008: Amir Askari, Ph.D ‘60
   
• 2007: Terry Magnuson, Ph.D ‘78
   
• 2006: Emilio Emini, Ph.D ‘80
   
• 2005: Ellen Goldberg, Ph.D ‘71
   
• 2004: Herbert Rosenkranz, Ph.D ‘59
   
• 2003: Abel Robertson, M.D., Ph.D ‘59
   
• 2002: Bonnie Mathieson, Ph.D ‘75 
   
• 2001: Hazel Szeto, M.D '77, Ph.D ‘77
   
• 2000: June Biedler, Ph.D ‘59    
   
• 1999: Priscilla Schaffer, Ph.D ‘69
   
• 1998: Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD ‘80
   
• 1997: Albert Kuperman, PhD ‘57