Dragons on Fire: Kudos for Student Achievements: Summer 2024

Here's a snapshot of awards, scholarships, publications and fellowships Drexel University students have earned in the past term.

Scholarships and Publications

Olivia Maddox, BS environmental science ’26, and Maven Mercado, BS environmental science ’26, both from the College of Arts and Sciences, were selected for the 2024 DAAD Research Internships in Science & Engineering (RISE). DAAD RISE offers opportunities for undergraduate students to conduct research at universities in Germany.

Maven Mercado, BS environmental science ’26 from the College of Arts and Sciences, was awarded a Summer Student Fellowship at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts and was also recently named Drexel's fourth-ever recipient of the NOAA Earnest F. Hollings Scholarship. 

Nisha Patel, BS biological sciences ’25, and Abhishek Jeyapratap, BS mathematics ’25, both from the College of Arts and Sciences, were selected as 2024 Goldwater Scholarship recipients. The Goldwater Scholarship recognizes undergraduates in science, math and engineering planning to pursue research careers and with the potential to be leaders in their fields.

Marley Downes, BS/MS materials science and engineering ’24 from the College of Engineering, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships Program award to support her PhD studies during the 2024–25 academic year. The program, which is the oldest of its kind, recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

Breanne E. Pirino, a PhD candidate in neuroscience; Brody A. Carpenter, a MS student in neuroscience; Pelagia G. Candelas, MD ’25, all from the College of Medicine, along with several College of Medicine alumni and a colleague at Binghamton University authored “Kappa-Opioid Receptor Stimulation in the Nucleus Accumbens Shell and Ethanol Drinking: Differential Effects by Rostro-Caudal Location and Level of Drinking,” which was published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

Madeline Plummer, BS public health ’26, and Jingxin Yao, MS public health PhD ’26, both from the Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health, received scholar awards for their outstanding research abstracts which they presented at the American Psychosomatic Society's 81st Annual Scientific Meeting in Brighton, U.K. from March 20-23. Plummer’s abstract was titled “Socioeconomic Status, Health Locus of Control and Inflammation Among Cancer Survivors” and Yao’s abstract was titled “Association of Household Wealth and Inflammation Among Adults in the Midlife of the United States (MIDUS).”

Marissa Campbell, MPH community health and prevention ’25 from the Dornsife School of Public Health, was selected to participate in the national MCH Title V Summer Internship Program in April 2024. Her internship will be at the New Jersey Department of Health Division of Family Health Systems.

Carissa Colligan, PhD candidate in marketing from the Bennett S. Lebow College of Business, presented a working paper co-authored with Assistant Professor of Marketing Jillian Hmurovic, PhD, titled “Virtual Volunteering: Conceptualizing New Ways Consumers Are Using Technology to Support Social Causes,” which was accepted as a Competitive Paper presentation at the Annual Society for Consumer Psychology in March.

Alyssa Kemp, BS/MS environmental engineering ’25 from the College of Engineering, was named a 2024 Truman Scholar and is Drexel University’s third-ever student and second in a row to earn the highly prestigious Harry S. Truman Scholarship. About 60 students nationwide receive the scholarship, which grants them $30,000 towards three years of graduate study that leads to a career in public service. After graduation, Kemp aspires to enter a JD program, specializing in environmental and energy law.

Pennoni Honors College’s Undergraduate Research & Enrichment Programs (UREP) unit had 26 students apply and be accepted to present at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Long Beach, California, from April 7-10, 2024. UREP fully funded 12 students, with three more funded through cost-sharing with College of Arts and Sciences and The Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. 

Aly Chew, business and design merchandising ’24 from the Bennett S. LeBow College of Business and the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, and Allie Gress ’24, Krysta Mendoza ’25 and Rajvi Dharamshi ’26, design & merchandising students from the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, won the 2024 National Retail Federation Foundation University challenge. The students presented a case study to leaders from retail’s biggest companies, winning a $30,000 scholarship to divide among the team.

Nadia Bouras, biological sciences ’24 from the College of Arts and Sciences, co-authored a paper titled “Prefrontal Regulation of Social Behavior and Related Deficits: Insights from Rodent Studies,” along with Wen Jun Gao, MD, PhD, professor of neurobiology and anatomy in the College of Medicine, and Nancy Mack, PhD neuroscience ’22. The paper was published in Biological Psychiatry.

Allison Choong, sociology ’28 from the College of Arts and Sciences and Honors program student in the Pennoni Honors College, was funded by the Pennoni Honors College’s Teagle Grant to attend and present at the Youth Forum for the UN’s 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. Choong led a discussion, “Girl-Led Activism: How to Get It Right,” based on a children’s book called “Safiya Speaks Up” that she contributed to that addresses safety from violence for girls.

Sajda Adam, BS psychology ’26 from the College of Arts and Sciences, presented at the International Neuropsychological Society’s annual meeting, “Neuropsychology Without Borders,” in New York City.

Academic Accolades and Other Achievements

Emily Griffith, PhD candidate in ornithology from the College of Arts and Sciences, and research associate in the Academy of Natural Sciences, won a Society of Systematic Biologists Early Systematists Award, which includes three years of free membership to the Society of Systematic Biology and a $1,000 cash award for research.

Hailee Mayer, PhD candidate in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, won the new investigator session at UltraCon 2024, hosted by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine, for her co-authored paper titled, “An in vitro Investigation of Lumason’s Subharmonic Response for Pressure Estimation with Direct Comparison to Sonazoid and Definity.”

Karissa Barbarevech, Arielle D’Elia, and Bryan Kwok, PhD candidates from the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, won the 2024 BIOMED Student Best Paper Award for their outstanding work and publication as first authors of their respective papers.

Satvik Tripathi, BS computer science ’26 from the College of Computing & Informatics and honors student in the Pennoni Honors College, was awarded honorable mention in the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2024 Student E-poster Competition in Technology, Engineering & Math for his poster titled “Domain-Transfer Learning for Diabetic Retinopathy Classification in Resource Constraint Settings.”

Joel Thomas, BS data science ’27 from the College of Computing & Informatics, won the PECO Co-op Day Award from PECO Energy. The award recognized Thomas’ creation of an operations management dashboard, utilizing Microsoft Power BI and the CRoss Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM) methodology, to help PECO’s New Business department meaningfully allocate resources such as crews, consultants and capital. Thomas is the first co-op student from PECO's New Business department to win this award.

A team of 10 College of Engineering graduating students won first place in the integration category at the Architectural Engineering Institute’s 2024 International Student Design Competition for their redesign of a Veterans Affairs ambulatory care center in Omaha, Nebraska. The multidisciplinary team, consisting of students majoring in civil, architectural and environmental engineering, collaborated across all systems design and challenges to showcase innovative features such as a vegetation garden, double skin facade on the building and modular construction while collaborating effectively across all systems design and challenges.

Federal Litigation and Appeals Clinic students Michael Harvey-Broughton, JD ’26, and Allyson Stevens, JD ’25, both from the Thomas R. Kline School of Law, successfully obtained asylum for their client.

Kline School of Law’s Moot Court Team placed first overall in the Nell Hennesy Employee Benefits Moot Court Competition. The is the third time the team took top honors in the seven-year history of the tournament.

Priya Kuruganti, operations and supply chain management ’26 from the LeBow College of Business, was part of a team that placed first in the Measure of Music Hackathon, a competition involving groups collaborating and presenting a project that relates to data in the music industry.

Katie Mathew, PhD candidate in in education from the School of Education, was awarded the Outstanding Dissertation award from the American Education Association Early Childhood Education and Development Special Interest Group. She received her award at the 2024 AERA annual meeting held in Philadelphia.

Maya Hillis, a PhD candidate in environmental engineering in the College of Engineering, is leading work in Eastwick that aims to address emergency preparedness for flooding in the neighborhood, which resides predominantly in a 100-year floodplain, as part of her work with The Environmental Collaboratory. Hillis has reviewed and synthesized community feedback data shared by the Office of Emergency Management and Office of Sustainability and mapped current efforts and initiatives to connect the identified concerns with corresponding initiatives.

Savannah Gurule ’24, Michaela Youngblood ’24 and Raen Johnston ’24, all studying elementary education at the School of Education, created their own mini courses for students at the middle school, Science Leadership Academy-Beeber in Philadelphia. Gurule and Youngblood’s course created a robotics team for the school, while Johnston's course focused on knitting. The robotics team led by Gurule and Youngblood won top prize for most innovative robot at its very first citywide robotics tournament.