Thesis Defenses

• Abdul Abdul defended his thesis titled “Imaging Reconstruction Utilizing Indexed Sequencing for Studying Mammalian Tissue Aging.” Abdul was mentored by Junyue Cao at The Rockefeller University.
• Danielle Isakov defended her thesis titled “Investigating the Effect of Interferon-Alpha on Hematopoiesis in Myeloproliferative Neoplasms.” Danielle was mentored by Dr. Anna Nam at Weill Cornell Medicine.
• Tiffany Merlinsky defended her thesis titled “Cysteine Availability Limits CD8+ T Cell Priming in Severe COVID-19.” Tiffany was mentored by Dr. Santosh Vardhana at the Sloan Kettering Institute.
• Abby Xie defended her thesis titled “Determinants of Cellular TCA Cycle Dependency.” Abby was mentored by Dr. Lydia Finley at the Sloan Kettering Institute.
• Drew D’Avino defended his thesis titled ““Genotype to Phenotype Relationships in Clonal Evolution From Single Cells to Large Cohorts.” Drew was mentored by Dr. Dan Landau at Weill Cornell Medicine.
• Rohan Roy defended his thesis titled “The reinnervation of sensory hair cells following lesion of the lateral line cranial nerve.” Rohan was mentored by Dr. A. James Hudspeth at The Rockefeller University.
• Won Jun Kim defended his thesis titled “Mis-Splicing-Derived Neoantigens and Cognate TCRs
• in Splicing Factor Mutant Leukemias.” Won was mentored by Dr. Omar Abdel-Wahab at the Sloan Kettering Institute.
• Sarah Soellner-Szwed defended her thesis titled “Bacteriophage Endolysins: Anti-infectives and Lysidiagnostics for the Post-Antibiotic Era.” Sarah was mentored by Dr. Vince Fishetti at The Rockefeller University.
• Tom Das defended his thesis titled “Sodium Channel Binding-Independent Roles of FGF13 in the Heart.” Tom was mentored by Dr. Geoffrey Pitt at Weill Cornell Medicine.
• Sakila Nazia defended her thesis titled "Arginine Metabolism Serves as a Carbamoyl Phosphate Salvage Pathway in Mycobacterium tuberculosis." Sakila was mentored by Dr. Kyu Rhee at Weill Cornell Medicine.
• George Zakusilo defended his thesis titled "Human Ku70/80 plays an essential role in rRNA maturation." George was mentored by Dr. Titia de Lange at The Rockefeller University.
• Cayla Broton defended her thesis titled “Regulation of DNA replication dynamics and S phase exit by replisome-associated protein RTF2.” Stephanie was mentored by Dr. Agata Smorgorzewska (Tri-I '03) at The Rockefeller University.
• David Rosenthal defended his thesis titled “The E2F-To-FOXM1 Relay: Two Waves of Transcription Control Cell-Cycle Exit.” David was mentored by Dr. Tobias Meyer at Weill Cornell Medicine.

• Stephanie Azzopardi defended her thesis titled “Role of iRhom2 in Olfaction: Implications for Odorant Receptor Regulation and Activity-Dependent Adaptation.” Stephanie was mentored by Carl Blobel in the Hospital for Special Surgery.
• Nicky Blobel defended his thesis titled “Endogenous sources of DNA damage that drive human disease.” Nicky was mentored by Agata Smogorzewska in The Rockefeller University.
• Kirsten Bredvik defended her thesis titled “Differential Regulation of Mitochondrial Metabolism in Inhibitory and Excitatory Synapses.” Kirsten was mentored by Timothy Ryan in the Weill Cornell Medical College.
• Jeremy Chang defended his thesis titled “Revealing Smc5/6's Dynamic Behavior on Diverse DNA Topologies Through Single-Molecule Methods.” Jeremy was mentored by Shixin Liu in The Rockefeller University.
• Briana Christophers defended her thesis titled “Drosophila Muscle Cofilin Maintains Neuromuscular Junction Structure for Proper Neurotransmission.” Briana was mentored by Mary Baylies in the Sloan Kettering Institute.
• Felipe D'Andrea defended his thesis titled “Inquiries into the Mycobacterial Caseinolytic Protease System.” Felipe was mentored by Jeremy Rock in The Rockefeller University.
• Alisha Dua defended her thesis titled “Whole-Brain Networks Invariant to Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Treatment Support a Trait-Like Representation of Depression.” Alisha was mentored by Conor Liston in the Weill Cornell Medical College.
• Sarah Hanif defended her thesis titled “The Orphan G Protein-Coupled Receptor GPR52 is a Novel Regulator of Breast Cancer Multicellular Organization.” Sarah was mentored by Kristy Brown in the Weill Cornell Medical College.
• Abby Jane defended her thesis titled “A Neuronal Circuit Motif for Leaky Vector Integration.” Abigail was mentored by Gaby Maimon in The Rockefeller University.
• Hyejin Kim defended her thesis titled “Modulation of the CRISPR-Cas9 Immune Response.” Hyejin was mentored by Luciano Marraffini in The Rockefeller University.
• Yilun Ma defended his thesis titled “In Vivo Characterization of Keratinocytes in the Melanoma Microenvironment.” Yilun was mentored by Richard White in the Sloan Kettering Institute.
• Jez Marston defended his thesis titled “Transposable Element Expression in Adaptive and Innate Immune Responses at the Bulk and Single Cell Resolution.” Jez was mentored by Doug Nixon and Ethel Cesarman in the Weill Cornell Medical College.
• Jesse Novak defended his thesis titled “Leveraging Cellular Metabolism to Direct Epithelial Tissue Regeneration.” Jesse was mentored by Elaine Fuchs in The Rockefeller University.
• Preethi Periyakoil defended her thesis titled “Deep Topic Modeling Deconvolves Cell States from Spatial Transcriptomic Profiles of the Rheumatoid Arthritis Synovium.” Preethi K. was mentored by Christina Leslie in the Sloan Kettering Institute.
• Victoria Von Saucken defended her thesis titled “Postsynaptic BMP Signaling Instructs Myonuclear Properties to Support Neuromuscular Junction Activity.” Victoria was mentored by Mary Baylies in the Sloan Kettering Institute.

• Dalton Banh defended his thesis titled “Sensing and Synergy by Anti-Bacteriophage Immune Systems in Staphylococcus.” Dalton was mentored by Luciano Marraffini in The Rockefeller University.
• Alex Barbulescu defended his thesis titled “Investigating the Effect of Antibody-Mediated Feedback on Ongoing Germinal Center Responses.” Alexandru was mentored by Gabriel Victora in The Rockefeller University.
• Zi-Ning Choo defended her thesis titled “Loose Ends in Cancer Genome Structure.” Zi-Ning was mentored by Marcin Imielinski in the Weill Cornell Medical College.
• Deeksha Deep defended her thesis titled “Regulation of Polytypic T Cell Responses in Infection.” Deeksha was mentored by Alexander Rudensky in the Sloan Kettering Institute.
• Ben Jackson defended his thesis titled “Metabolic Control of Naïve Pluripotency.” Benjamin was mentored by Lydia Finley in the Sloan Kettering Institute.
• Yaniv Kazanksy defended his thesis titled “Towards Targeted Therapy for Pediatric Sarcomas.” Yaniv was mentored by Alex Kentsis in the Sloan Kettering Institute.
• Claire Kenney defended her thesis titled “Atypical CRISPR-Cas9 Targets Mediate Efficient Immunity Against Bacterial Viruses.” Claire was mentored by Luciano Marraffini in The Rockefeller University.
• Ariana Rabinowitsch defended her thesis titled “Effect of iRhom2 Cytotail Mutations on ADAM17 Function In Vivo: Implications for Tylosis with Oesophageal Cancer.” Ariana was mentored by Carl Blobel in the Hospital for Special Surgery.
• Chris Saffran defended his thesis titled “FAN1: Protecting DNA Through Competition and Teamwork.” Christian was mentored by Agata Smogorzewska in The Rockefeller University.
• Daniel Stor defended his thesis titled “Antimicrobial Peptides and Bilayer Dependent Defense.” Daniel was mentored by Olaf Andersen in the Weill Cornell Medical College.
• Stefan Torborg defended his thesis titled “An Equilibrium of Malignant Cell States Controlled by WNT and Notch Drives Pancreas Cancer Growth.” Stefan was mentored by Tuomas Tammela in the Sloan Kettering Institute.
• Camila Villasante defended her thesis titled “The Nanomechanics of Protocadherin 15, a Protein Essential for Human Hearing.” Camila was mentored by A. James Hudspeth in The Rockefeller University.
• Sam Williams defended his thesis titled “Microbiology and Immunopathogenesis of Hidradenitis Suppurativa.” Samuel was mentored by James Krueger in The Rockefeller University.

Abood Abderhman defended his thesis titled “Dissecting the Role of RNA POL II Pausing in Early Mammalian Development.” Abood was mentored by Kat Hadjantonakis in the Sloan Kettering Institute.