Dragons on Fire: Kudos for Student Achievement: Summer 2026

Here’s a snapshot of awards, scholarships, publications, fellowships and other accolades and noteworthy achievements that Drexel University students earned from June to August 2026. These details are courtesy of the Office of the Provost, Pennoni Honors College and others.

Scholarships, Fellowships and Publications

Jordana Benblatt, BS community health and prevention ’26, Honors, from the Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health, was published in the June 2026 edition of Teaching in Higher Education. The article, which Benblatt co-wrote with a former Drexel professor, was titled “Who Gets to Learn Through Research? Rethinking Undergraduate Research as Inclusive Pedagogy,” and was based on Benblatt’s experience in the Pennoni Honors College’s STAR (Students Tackling Advanced Research) Scholars Program. During the program, Benblatt examined inequity in access to undergraduate research opportunities and used STAR as a case study. They examined how Undergraduate Research and Enrichment Programs in the Pennoni Honors College has attempted to counter those inequities and finesse the program and its policies to better ensure students have opportunities not only to research but also to build meaningful relationships with their mentors.

Nikolai Przybylski, biomedical engineering ’28, from the Nick Howley College of Engineering and Computing’s School of Biomedical Engineering and Science, is first author of a chapter, titled “Manufacturing as Biology: How T-Cell Processing Shapes Therapeutic Outcomes,” in the forthcoming Pharmacology of T-Cell Therapies. The book is the 106th volume in Advances in Pharmacology, a series that provides cutting-edge research.

Sanjana Doshi and Emily Rainey, both Master of Public Health students from the David Dornsife School of Public Health, were selected as This Is Public Health ambassadors for the 2026–2027 school year. This nationwide program, organized by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, gives public health students the opportunity to promote public health awareness and advocacy.

Fairuz Chowdhury and Xinge Li, both doctoral candidates in marketing from the Bennett S. LeBow College of Business, recently published the paper “Scarcity, Status, and Social Distance: How Macro Influencers Gain Persuasive Advantage at the Bottom of the Pyramid,” in Psychology & Marketing, a top-tier academic journal in marketing, with co-author Chen Wang, PhD, associate professor of marketing at LeBow.

Mustafa Eren, BS economics ’27 from the LeBow College of Business, was named a NABE Scholar by the NABE Foundation, the charitable arm of the National Association for Business Economics. Eren will receive one year of membership in NABE, which includes professional-development courses toward earning the Certified Business Economist (CBE) credential, and will attend seminars and workshops with leading economists and researchers.

Brittney Cullen, AuD ’27 from the College of Nursing and Health Professions, has been elected to the national Board of Directors of the Student Academy of Audiology (SAA) as a member-at-large.

Jahzeel Martinez, physics and mathematics ’28 from the College of Arts and Sciences, was awarded the Peggy Dixon Two-Year Scholarship from the Society of Physics Students (SPS). The scholarship supports students transitioning from two-year colleges into physics bachelor's degree programs. This is the second year in a row that Martinez has been selected as an SPS scholarship recipient.

PhD candidates from the College of Medicine and undergraduate students from the College of Arts and Sciences co-authored “ACSS2 Suppresses Ferroptosis to Drive Breast Cancer Brain Metastasis,” which was published in Cancer Research. Students include Riley Young, PhD candidate in molecular and cell biology; Jessica Merzy, PhD candidate in molecular and cell biology and genetics; and Nusaiba Ahmed, PhD candidate in biochemistry of health and disease, all from the College of Medicine, as well as Sophia Medori and Rujula Warade, both biological sciences ’27 from the College of Arts and Sciences. Other co-authors included alumni, faculty and colleagues from Thomas Jefferson University.

Ariana Aguilar, MS/MBA in television and media management and business administration Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design and the LeBow College of Business, was one of 40 students selected for the prestigious Television Academy Foundation Internship program. The Foundation offers paid internships at top Hollywood studios and production companies annually to college students nationwide.

Darya Ramezani, PhD candidate in digital media in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, received Drexel's PhD Pre-Candidacy Research Excellence Award in 2026.

Kate Buskirk, custom-designed major ’28, Honors, from the Pennoni Honors College, was one of six nationwide recipients of the Portz Interdisciplinary Fellowship, which provides resources to students to explore innovative ideas. Buskirk received $5,000 to examine digital and embodied communities devoted to electronic dance music (EDM) and how fans and creators navigate socio-economic conditions. By the end of the fellowship, Buskirk will present a poster and create a multimedia archive site with supplemental examples that elaborate on her findings.

Pooja Doshi, DrPH, MPH ’26 from the Dornsife School of Public Health, published an article, “A Better Question to Ask About Equity Data in School Health Screenings,” in Science Politics that was informed by dissertation research. The article dives into if school health programs, like screenings for vision problems, generate data that can answer equity-related questions.

Arden Edgerton, BS biology ’21, now a PhD student in the Microbiology and Immunology program in the College of Medicine, co-authored “Adenosine as a Metabolic Checkpoint in CD8+ T Cell Dysfunction,” which was published online in Trends in Immunology, along with several College of Medicine faculty members.

Eighteen students who graduated in 2026 completed the Pennoni Honors College’s SuperNova Undergraduate Research Fellows Program, which recognizes students who participated in research throughout their undergraduate careers. The students completed many terms of research, presented at conferences, published articles in journals and applied to fellowships.

• Sajda Adam, BS psychology ’26 from the College of Arts and Sciences
• Riyana Bhatt, BS biological sciences ’26, Honors, from the College of Arts and Sciences
• Cristina Burz, BS biological sciences ’26, Honors, from the College of Arts and Sciences
• Alli Dickerson, BS psychology ’26 from the College of Arts and Sciences
• Emma Johnson, BA history ’26 from the College of Arts and Sciences
• Madhu Karuppiah, BS biomedical engineering ’26 from the School of Biomedical Engineering and Science
• Maven Mercado, BS environmental science ’26 from the College of Arts and Sciences
• Manya Mittal, BS public health ’26, Honors, from the Dornsife School of Public Health
• Madeline Navea, BS psychology ’26 from the College of Arts and Sciences
• Tarek Olabi, BS biological sciences ’26 from the College of Arts and Sciences
• Rhythm Osan, BS/MS architectural and civil engineering ’26, Honors, from the School of Engineering within Howley College
• Madeline Plummer, BS public health ’26, Honors, from the Dornsife School of Public Health
• McKayla Procopio, BS physics ’26, Honors, from the College of Arts and Sciences
• Lourdes Arkitha Stephen Raj, BS physics and psychology ’26 from the College of Arts and Sciences
• Caroline Ries, BS biomedical engineering ’26, Honors, from the School of Biomedical Engineering and Science
• Vidhi Shah, BS/MS user experience and interaction design ’26, Honors, from the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design
• Sarah Sikder, BS health sciences ’26, Honors, from the College of Nursing and Health Professions
• Santiago Sosa, BS electrical and computer engineering ’26, Honors, from the School of Engineering

Academic Accolades and Other Achievements

Students from the Drexel Maternal and Child Health Student Organization partnered with the University of Minnesota's Maternal and Child Health Student Interest Group to host a nationwide collaborative event dedicated to learning more about menstrual equity. Catherine Turner, MPH ’26 from the Dornsife School of Public Health, helped spearhead the webinar and presented during the event.

Elizabeth Anastasio, BA history ’27 from the College of Arts and Sciences, co-curated an exhibit with Drexel University Archives featuring the Drexel Echo, Drexel’s first student publication. The exhibit is on display through January 2027 outside the Archives’ Reading Room in the W.W. Hagerty Library.

Katie McKeown, BA history ’27, and Sophia Stutte, BA history ’26, both from the College of Arts and Sciences, co-curated Exploring National Anniversaries Through the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel (supported by a grant from Campus250), presenting artifacts from the Collection as explored by students in “History of Philadelphia” (HIST 276) classes taught by Toni Pitock, PhD, associate teaching professor of history from the College of Arts and Sciences. The exhibit was supported by a grant from Campus250 and will be on display at Hagerty Library until Nov. 13.

Four Westphal College of Media Arts & Design students were involved in developing a new exhibition, Pennsylvania’s Founding: How a City and a Colony Shaped America’s Civic DNA, curated by the Drexel University Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships and Atwater Kent Collection and on display at the National Constitution Center through Jan. 3, 2027. Casey Kovarick, BS graphic design ’27 designed the exhibition catalog; Utkarsha Nagtode and Brendon Webster, MS human-computer interaction and user experience ’26, developed and implemented the display of two interactive components and created their online versions as well as an online version of the exhibit; and Jenna Gilley, MS arts administration ’26, developed content for the two interactive components.

Nassair Barry, BA art history ’28 from the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, is curating a display at the URBN Center through a co-op with the Drexel Founding Collection. The display follows fashion trends as seen in Collection paintings and artifacts of different eras, alongside accessories from the Fox Historic Costume Collection.

Vincent Vazanna, Doctor of Business Administration candidate in the LeBow College of Business, received the Outstanding Contribution to Research award at the 16th Annual Conference on Engaged Management Scholarship, organized by the Executive DBA Council and Universidad Pontificia Comillas, for his presentation, “Let’s Eat: A Human vs AI Marketing Endorsement Investigation on Purchase Intention in the Restaurant Space.”

Laura Miller, PhD candidate in biology from the College of Arts and Sciences, won a Young Investigator Award from the Pan-American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology for a talk she recently gave at a conference in Pittsburgh.

College of Medicine medical students Anthony Russo ’28, Abdallah Belhadj ’28, Muhammad Hozien ’28, Jon Hsieh ’29 and Rohan Chandragathgi ’29 placed third nationally at Sling Health’s National Demo Day with their pitch presentation, “CSFlow: A Novel Device for Monitoring CSF Flow in Shunts in Pediatric Hydrocephalus,” securing seed funding to further develop the project.

Emma Yashinksy, BS graphic design ’27 from the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, designed the exhibition John Langdon: Symmetry & Ambiguity, now on display at Drexel’s Rincliffe Gallery, with the Drexel Founding Collection in collaboration with graphic design faculty and alumni.