Karthik Bhat, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Information Science in the Nick Howley College of Computing and Engineering. His research investigates how new technologies can support healthcare work, and how external factors influence the use of these technologies. This summer, he worked with STAR Scholar Babar Baloch, a computer science major, studying how burnout spreads across emergency medical services (EMS) providers, by analyzing Reddit posts from people in their lives.
In his nomination letter, Babar wrote that Dr. Bhat helped him develop critical thinking around his process and results and fostered a collaborative environment where he could receive feedback and guidance from the whole team, including his co-mentor Michelle Slawinski, an information science PhD student.
"What I appreciate most about Karthik is that he gave me both direction and room to grow," said Babar. "He trusted me with meaningful work, surrounded me with people such as Michelle and Shailyshreyee Tagore who were willing to teach me, and still expected me to develop my own reasoning instead of simply repeating theirs. By the end of the summer, I was not just filling out coding columns or completing research tasks. I was asking better questions about why a pattern mattered, what evidence actually supported it, and how I could explain it clearly to someone outside the project."
Wen-Jun Gao, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Neurobiology & Anatomy at the College of Medicine. His lab studies the developing prefrontal cortex and related neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, autism, and ADHD. This summer, he worked with STAR Scholar Dhanashri Balamurugan, a biological sciences major, who studied how psilocybin alters neural activity in the brains of adolescent mice.
Dhanashri initially planned to focus on an established marker of brain activity called c-Fos, but broadened her scope at the suggestion of Dr. Gao to include a new marker called pPDH that had not yet been studied in conjunction with psychedelics. She described this direction as "one of the most intellectually exciting experiences of my summer."
"As I learned more about the mechanism underlying pPDH," she said, "I became fascinated by both the science and the unanswered questions surrounding its potential applications. [...] By trusting me to take ownership of an unfamiliar subject and present it to the laboratory, [Dr. Gao] gave me the confidence to see myself as someone capable of making intellectual contributions."
She also spoke warmly of how Dr. Gao (known as "Papa Gao" to his students) created a welcoming yet rigorous lab environment and encouraged her to continue working there after STAR.
Congratulations again to both of these outstanding mentors! You can read more about their STAR Scholars' projects in the 2026 STAR Scholars Abstract Booklet [PDF].