Student Awards
Our students frequently receive recognition for their achievements both from ÌÇÐÄvlogÃÛÌÒ 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 | ÌÇÐÄvlogÃÛÌÒ 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 | ÌÇÐÄvlogÃÛÌÒ of Medicine |
| Paige Hall | Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar | ÌÇÐÄvlogÃÛÌÒ of Medicine |
| Michal Tyrlik | Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar | ÌÇÐÄvlogÃÛÌÒ 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 | ÌÇÐÄvlogÃÛÌÒ 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 | ÌÇÐÄvlogÃÛÌÒ of Medicine |
| Apoorva Thatavarty | Baylor Research Advocates for Student Scientists (BRASS) Scholar | ÌÇÐÄvlogÃÛÌÒ 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 ""
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 ""