Fellows
2021 Fellows
Congratulations to Landon Butler, Ryan Grewe, Shauni Windle, Md Ibrahim*, Justin Scott*, and Sarah Hileman*! These students were awarded the 2021 ITP Fellowships.
*Indicates a Senior Fellowship recipient.
2020 Fellows
Congratulations to Debarati Chanda, Adriana Townsend, Shauni Windle, Katie Oswalt, Md Ibrahim*, Justin Scott*, and Sarah Hileman*! These students were awarded the 2020 ITP Fellowships.
*Indicates a Senior Fellowship recipient.
Debarati Chanda
Lab: Dr. Pope; Neurotoxicology
Degree track: PhD candidate; Comparative Biomedical Sciences
Research: I study the effects of organophosphate toxicity on cholinergic activity and neural tissues using mice and rat models.
Adriana Townsend
Lab: Dr. Belden; Toxicology
Degree track: MS; Integrative Biology
Research: I study how adaptation to warmer temperatures impacts the susceptibility of an organism to toxicity of organic contaminants.
Shauni Windle
Lab: Drs. McMurry and Belden; Toxicology
Degree track: PhD; Integrative Biology
Research: The focus of my research is the effect of anthropogenic contamination on native amphibian endocrine systems and physiology.
Katie Oswalt
Lab: Dr. Fahlenkamp; Tissue Engineering
Degree track: PhD; Chemical Engineering
Research: I’m a member of a Tissue Engineering research group, and my research project has two main aims. The first aim is to develop a minimally invasive ocular drug delivery method that can be used to treat diseases of the retina. The second aim is to develop a tissue-engineered eye model that can be used as an in vitro model to test our drug delivery system.
Md Ibrahim
Lab: Dr. Minghetti; Toxicology
Degree track: PhD candidate; Integrative Biology
Research: I study how chloride affects metal speciation, toxicity, bioavailability, and metal responsive gene expressions. I use both in-vitro (The Rainbow Trout Gut Cell Line, RTgutGC) and in-vivo (Bluegill Fish, Lepomis macrochirus) models for my study.
Justin Scott
Lab: Dr. Minghetti; Toxicology
Degree track: PhD; Integrative Biology
Research: My research aims to develop methods for aquatic toxicity testing utilizing primary fish gill cells as alternatives to live fish assays to determine toxicity and bioavailability of pollutants dissolved or dispersed in water. Importantly, this procedure is able to drastically reduce the cost of current tests and the amount of living test specimens used on a regular basis. The main objective of my research will be to compare sensitivity and efficiency of in-vitro to in-vivo assays through various exposures to common toxicants found in whole effluent samples.
Sarah Hileman
Lab: Dr. Belden; Toxicology and Environmental Justice
Degree track: PhD candidate; Integrative Biology
Research: I study how pervasive anthropogenically caused carcinogens are in urban, public school playground soil. My ultimate goal is to determine how these pollutant levels correlate with racial diversity and socioeconomic status within the related school systems.