Student News

October 2023

Congratulations to all the students who received awards at the annual Microbiology & Immunology retreat:

  • Abrahams Award for Outstanding Achievement:  Todd Benziger and Alicia Mendoza
  • Teresa Haire Memorial Award:  Lia Parkin and Hoi Tong Wong
  • Distinguished Service Award:  Betty Du
  • Outstanding Poster Award: Tete Obot, Grace Himmler, Anika Zaman
August 2023 Congratulations to Microbiology & Immunology graduate student Arshia Arasappan for being selected as a trainee in the Scholars in Biomedical Sciences Program 2023 - 2024.
August 2023 The Department welcomed incoming students into the Microbiology & Immunology PhD Program at a BBQ at beautiful Cedar Beach in Mount Sinai.
September 2020 A paper co-authored by graduate students Stephen Gaudino, Cody Kempen, Hoi Tong Wong and their colleagues was selected as a Cutting Edge paper by the Journal of Immunology.
October 2019 Dr. John Psonis, a student in Dr. David Thanassi's lab, is the recipient of the 2019 Irving Abrahams Award for Oustanding Scientific Achievement. The Abrahams Award is the highest honor bestowed by the Department of Microbiology and Immunology to a graduate student. Dr. Psonis graduated in August.
May 2019

Undergraduate researcher Gabrielle Paniccia graduates with Honors in Biochemistry. Gabrielle worked three and a half semesters in Dr. Laurie Krug's laboratory on the development of a CRISPR-Cas9 system to block gammaherpesvirus replication. She received numerous awards including a National Science Foundation Fellowship, the Irwin Oster Award in Genetics, and the Provost Award for Academic Excellence and was a member of the SBU chapter of Women in Science and Education (WISE). Gabrielle is continuing her studies as a graduate student at Rockefeller University this coming fall.

Research performed by Matthew Simons, a graduate student in Erich Mackow's laboratory, on the regulation of interferon β production by the Andes virus nucleocapsid protein and published in the May 2019 issue of the Journal of Virology was selected as an article of significant interest by the editors.

June 2018 Erika Orner received a Medical Mycology Society of the Americas Travel Award to attend the 2018 American Society for Microbiology Microbe meeting, June 7-11, Atlanta, GA.
March 2018 The discovery of a novel gene involved in Cryptococcus neoformans pathogenesis, and potential drug target, by Genetics graduate student Mansa Munshi was the subject of an article published in Long Island Newsday on March 11. Mansa, a student in the MGM laboratory of Dr. Maurizio Del Poeta, will defend her dissertation on April 12.
 
February 2018 Arielle Bryan is the recipient of a travel award to attend the Gordon Research Conference in Glycolipid and Sphingolipid Biology, February 11-16, Galveston, TX.
March 2017 Erika Orner has received the Young Investigator Award at the 10th International Conference on Cryptococcus and Cryptococcosis for her outstanding poster entitled "Serial Passaging Provides Insight into Host-Pathogen Interactions and the Direct Effect on Replicative Life Span and Fitness". Erika is a PhD candidate in the laboratory of Bettina Fries.
 
January 2017 Erik Kopping, a PhD candidate in David Thanassi's group, has received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award for Individual Predoctoral Fellows (F31) from the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases