Frances Velay Fellows - Summer 2025
Meet the students who participated in the Frances Velay Women in Science Fellowship
Program - Summer 2025!
The Frances Velay Women and Science Research Fellowship program at Stony Brook is
administered by URECA in collaboration with Dr. Maria Nagan (Department of Chemistry)
and the College of Arts & Sciences.
Jillian Daneshwar
Physics major
Mentor: Dr. Will Farr (Physics)
Project: An Analysis of the Detectability of Ringdown Modes in Black Hole Mergers
Rebeca Diaz
Chemistry major
Mentor: Dr. Maria Nagan (Chemistry)
Project: NMR Structural Refinement for RNA in Amber
Abbie Gao
Chemistry major
Mentor: Dr. Dale Drueckhammer (Chemistry)
Project: Development of Nickel-Pincer Complexes for Catalysis of the Nitrile Aldol Reaction
Loy Hashimoto
Biology major
Mentor: Dr. Eugene Serebryany (Physiology & Biophysics)
Project: The Mechanism of Human γD-Crystallin Aggregation Suppression by Myo-Inositol
Alexandria Lewkowski
Biocheistry & Applied Math-Statistics majors
Mentor: Dr. Lina Carlini (Biochemistry & Cell Biology)
Project: Understanding Transport Across Dense Cytoskeletal Networks: Diffusion Within the Anaphase Spindle
Faria Lorin
Environmental Studies major
Mentor: Dr. Marine Frouin (Geosciences)
Project: Unravelling the Depositional History of Marilaleng Pan using Luminescence Dating Techniques
Elaine Mei
Biochemistry & psychology majors
Mentor: Dr. Galadriel Hovel-Miner (Microbiology & Immunology)
Project: Identification of Putative Drug Resistance Genes in the African Trypanosome
Mariya Shalashova
Physics major
Mentor: Dr. Tom Allison (Chemistry, Physics)
Project: Preparation and Characterization of Monolayers for Exciton Dynamics Studies
Amber Wilson
Biology majors
Mentor: Dr. Prerana Shrestha (Neurobiology & Behavior)
Project: Investigation of Prefrontal Cortex Protein Synthesis in Differential Signal Active Avoidance
Sirou (Serena) Zhang
Chemistry major
Mentor: Dr. Peter Tonge (Chemistry)
Project: Design and Synthesis of BTK PROTACs to Study the Role of Kinetics in Targeted Protein Degradation
Roheyatou "Roro" Ceesay
Graduate Student
Group: Dr. Marine Frouin (Geosciences)
Project: Mineralogical Analysis of East Turkana (Kenya) Sediments for Luminescence Dating and Provenance Study