Where Our Grads Are Now

Nicola Habash, Graduated May 2021

At the University of Delaware, Nicola completed an Honors Degree with Distinction in Biological Sciences with minors in Africana Studies and Women and Gender Studies. While earning his degree, he was an American Global Fellow at UD's English Language Institute, a science tutor at the OAE, and a work-shop leader for UD's integrated honors chemistry program. Nicola served his community by volunteering at Compassionate Care Hospice at St. Francis Hospital, Christiana Care's Emergency Department, and Exceptional Care for Children. Nicola was a research assistant in the Schwarz lab, studying neuroimmunology and behavior. In addition to presenting his research at three neuroscience conferences, he completed a thesis and is in the process of publishing a paper with the lab.

Nicola is currently a student at Jefferson's Sidney Kimmel Medical College where he will pursue a degree in medicine. Outside of class, he is becoming adjusted to living in Philadelphia and is a member of Jefferson's Professional Conduct Committee. ​

Simran Tandon, Graduated May 2021

While attending the University of Delaware, Simran double majored in Biology and Psychology with a minor in Spanish. She studied abroad 3 times to Spain, Argentina, and Australia. Simran was also a part of Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity, and was a research assistant at the Child's Play psychology lab, studying children with autism.

After graduation, Simran moved to Boston, MA and started a job as an Inside Sales Representative for Agilent Technologies, a biotechnology company. She currently works on a team that sells cell analysis instruments to research labs.​

Christabelle Ayensu-Asiedu

While attending the University of Delaware, Christabelle formerly a Chemistry Workshop Leader & Coordinator, UD Secretary for NAACP, Corresponding Secretary for Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., START Lab Undergraduate Research Assistant, STAR Lab Student Assistant, and MAPS. 

Christabell is currently a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, working towards a M.S degree in Biotechnology, with plans to graduate Fall 2020.  Upon graduation, she will be applying to medical school. Outside of classes, she works as a part time research assistant at Johns Hopkins Adherence research center in the pulmonary and critical care center. 

Jackie Littman, Graduated May 2020

​Jackie is the former Captain of the UD Color Guard in the UD Marching Band, Member of Harrington Theatre Arts Company (HTAC), Member of Delazure (UD's Indoor Color Guard), Chemistry Workshop Leader, and Biology Ambassador.  

After researching with Dr. Jessica Tanis, Jackie realized that she really enjoyed research, especially in regards to biology and its real time applications to human health. This led her to public health and epidemiology.  She has since applied to 8 different public health graduate school programs and was accepted into every single one. Jackie eventually committed to the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health, pursuing a Master's degree in Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology, where she will combine her background in genetics research with her passion for human health and disease prevention. 

Due to Jackie’s heavy involvement in the color guard in the UD marching band led her to the opportunity of working as a color guard instructor at her former high school in Maryland, which she is currently doing virtually. 

Lauren Reich, Graduated Spring 2019

Lauren is a former Undergraduate Teaching Assistant in Microbiology (BISC300), Undergraduate Research Assistant for Dr. Tania Roth, and former President of oSTEM (out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), and Biology Ambassador.    

Lauren is currently enrolled in a Post-Baccalaureate fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, which is a program for those interested in a graduate or medical school in order to enhance their training. She is working in Dr. Han-Yu Shih’s lab at the National Eye Institute where they study the role of Type I lymphocytes in the central nervous system. Specifically, Lauren’s project aims to investigate how the cytokine and transcription factor profiles of Natural Killer (NK) cells and Type I Innate Lymphoid Cells (ILC1s) of the central nervous system are altered with aging. She is planning on applying  to their PhD programs in Fall 2020.

Bailey Weatherbee, Graduated Spring 2019

For the past year (2019 - 2020),  Bailey has been working in Dr. Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz's lab in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience as a First-year PhD student, funded by the Gates Cambridge Trust.  Currently, she has become involved in several projects at varying stages. The Zernicka-Goetz’s lab recently had a manuscript accepted to Nature Communications, with Bailey being the co-first author on which investigates the effect of specific aneuploidies on the developmental potential of human embryos. During the COVID-19 lock-down, she was also able to submit an invited review to Developmental Biology regarding the use of human stem cells to model aspects of pre-gastrulation human embryogenesis, as well as have a short first-author paper on the expression of genes related to coronavirus infection in the early embryo accepted into Open Biology. Currently, she has started back in the lab working limited hours, as the lab is preparing a revised manuscript on single-cell sequencing of post-implantation human embryos and the role of certain signaling pathways and domains for resubmission to Nature Cell Biology. In addition to these papers and projects, she has started her own projects with a focus on (1) reprogramming human ESCs to extra-embryonic stem cell types as a way to investigate transcription factor networks underlying cell identity and (2) defining key signaling factors and transcription factors in human amniotic epithelium specification and differentiation. These are longer-term projects on which Bailey has taken the lead on and will continue on through her PhD.

Outside of the lab, Bailey has been active in the Gates Cambridge Community, participating in many social and professional development events, which have been very useful. Recently, she was elected as the Community Officer on the Gates Cambridge Council. In this role, she is particularly charged with organizing programming aimed at promoting anti-racism and anti-discrimination both to improve the community at Cambridge and to equip Scholars' with the knowledge needed to push for positive change in their careers and daily lives.

Bailey enjoys keeping in touch with Dr. Salil Lachke and members of the Lachke lab.  Since graduating from UD, she successfully published some of her findings from her undergraduate thesis in Human Genetics, which she is very excited about!