Candidacy Ceremony 2020 version

“Preparedness”
Kizzmekia S. Corbett, PhD
Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Candidacy Ceremony
dictionary.com
a career in biomedical sciences.

Preparedness for War
a Career in Biomedical Sciences
1. Start with the basics.
2. Assemble your allies.
3. Arm yourself.
4. FIGHT.

Habib Alrashedi
Undergrad Institution: University of Hail
Hometown: San Antonio, Texas
Graduate Program: Nursing Science
Mentor Name: Azizeh Sowan, Ph.D., RN
"My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can
only be human together."
– Desmond Tutu

Alyssa Alvarez
Undergrad Institution: St. Mary’s University
Hometown: El Paso, Texas
Graduate Program: Doctorate of Medical Physics
Track: Therapy
Mentor Name: Pamela Myers, Ph.D.
”Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination,
your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in
the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can
with it and make it the life you want to live."
– Mae Jemison

Ellen Apple
Undergrad Institution: University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham
Hometown: Collierville, Tennessee
Graduate Program: Integrated Biomedical Sciences
Discipline: Neuroscience
Mentor Name: Lizhen Chen, Ph.D.
"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of
truth upon them."
– Ida B. Wells

Amber M. Asher
Undergrad Institution: University of Texas at San Antonio
Master’s Institution: Trinity University
Hometown: Pampa, Texas
Mentor Name: David A. Morilak, Ph.D.
“Seek patience and passion in equal amounts.
Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion
alone will destroy its walls.”
– Maya Angelou

Sandra C. Becerra
Undergrad Institution: Texas State University-San Marcos
Graduate Program: Translational Science
Mentor Name: Barbara Christy, Ph.D.
“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the
courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston S. Churchill

Ashley Braddom
Undergrad Institution: The Ohio State University
Hometown: Huntsville, Alabama
Discipline: Molecular Immunology and Microbiology
Mentor Name: Evelien Bunnik, Ph.D.
“Not one of us can rest, be happy, be at home, be at
peace with ourselves, until we end hatred and
division."
– John Lewis

Kevin Chiem
Undergrad Institution: California State University, Fullerton
Hometown: El Monte, California
Discipline: Cell Biology, Genetics, and Molecular Medicine
Mentor Name: Luis Martinez-Sobrido, Ph.D.
“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who
wander are lost; the old that is strong does not
wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost"
– J.R.R. Tolkien

Allison Crawford
Graduate Institution: UT Health San Antonio
Mentor Name: Lisa Cleveland, Ph.D., APRN, CPNP, IBCLC, FAAN
"I don't want a Black history month. Black history
is American history."
– Morgan Freeman

“Live in the moment and make the most of every
single hour that you're alive. Like it says on the sign
outside the drop zone in front of the school: No
Idling."
– Conrad Anker
Thomas Cuthbert
Undergrad Institution: Texas A&M University
Hometown: The Woodlands, Texas
Mentor Name: Sotorios Stathakis, Ph.D.

Umber Darilek
Undergrad Institution: UT Health, San Antonio
Hometown: Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Mentor Name: Sara Gill, Ph.D.
“The most important thing is not to stop
questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for
existence."
– Albert Einstein

Hannah Elam
Undergrad Institution: University of Texas
Hometown: Seguin, Texas
Mentor Name: Dan Lodge, Ph.D.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere."
– Martin Luther King Jr.

Kenneth Fan
Undergrad Institution: University of California, San Diego
Hometown: Oakland, California
Mentor Name: Nu Zhang, Ph.D.
“Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to
be."
– Alice Walker

Kun Fang
Undergrad Institution: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
”Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be
understood. Now is the time to understand more,
so that we my fear less."
– Marie Curie

Stephanie Fedorchak
Undergrad Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Hometown: Ashland, Massachusetts
Mentor Names: Carie Boychuk, Ph.D. and Teppei Fujikawa, Ph.D.
Ph.D.
“What a world this will be when human
possibilities are freed, when we discover each
other, when the stranger is no longer the potential
criminal and the certain inferior!”
– W.E.B. Du Bois

Itzel Flores
Hometown: Mission, Texas
Undergrad Institution: The University of Texas- Rio Grande
Valley
Mentor Name: Luke Norton, Ph.D.
”The only true wisdom is in knowing you
know nothing."
– Socrates

Chase Foreman
Hometown: Schertz, Texas
Mentor Name: Jessica Nute, Ph.D. and Andrew Sampson, Ph.D.
Ph.D.
“The good thing about science is that it’s true
whether or not you believe in it.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

Myrna Garcia
Undergrad Institution: University of Houston
Hometown: Monterrey, NL
Mentor Name: Tyler Curiel, MD, MPH.
“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be
unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be
lived again"
–Maya Angelou

Hema Manogna Gudlavalleti
Undergrad Institution: Jawaharlal Nehru Technological
University
Master’s Institution: University of Texas at Arlington
Hometown: Hyderabad, India
Mentor Name: James Lechleiter, Ph.D.
“We must accept finite disappointment but never
lose infinite hope."

Jason Hadley
Undergrad Institution: Purdue University
Hometown: Norwich, Vermont
Discipline: Biology of Aging
Mentor Name: Lily Dong, Ph.D.
“We are all connected; To each other, biologically.
To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe
atomically.”
– Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Sam Harrison
Undergrad Institution: Angelo State University
Hometown: Abilene, Texas
Mentor Name: Erzsebet Kokovay, Ph.D.
"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our
inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those
differences."
– Audre Lorde

Nisi Jiang
Undergrad Institution: Beijing Institute of Technology
Hometown: Shuangyashan, China
Mentor Name: James F. Nelson, Ph.D.
"It always seems impossible until it’s done."
– Nelson Mandela

Kevin Kanda
Undergrad Institution: Old Dominion University
Hometown: Virginia Beach, Virginia
Discipline: Cancer Biology
Mentor Name: Alexander Bishop, D. Phil.
"Without courage we cannot practice any other
virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true,
merciful, generous, or honest."
– Maya Angelou

Subash Khadka
Undergrad Institution: Tribhuvan University
Hometown: Okhaldhunga, Nepal
Mentor Name: Thomas Boyer, Ph.D.
"We may have all come on different ships, but we
are in the same boat now."
-Martin Luther King Jr

Thomas Klender
Undergrad Institution: University of Arkansas
Hometown: Kansas City, Missouri
Graduate Program: Doctorate in Medical Physics
Track: Therapy
Mentor Name: Karl Rasmussen, Ph.D. DABR
“I love to think of nature as an unlimited
broadcasting station, through which God speaks to
us every hour, if we will only tune in.”
– George Washington Carver

Ruiqi Li
Undergrad Institution: Shandong University
Hometown: Jinan, China
Graduate Program: Radiological Science
Mentor Name: Nikos Papanikolaou, Ph.D., MBA
"The first principle is that you must not fool
yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
– Richard Feynman

Katherine Lillis
Undergrad Institution: University of Iowa
Hometown: Buffalo Grove, Illinois
Mentor Name: Anibal Diogenes, D.D.S., M.S., Ph.D.
“You are no better than anyone else, and no one is
better than you.”
– Katherine Johnson

Alexandra McCoy
Undergrad Institution: Western Washington University
Hometown: Longview, Washington
Mentor Name: Alan Frazer, Ph.D.
“White feelings should never be held in higher
regard than black lives.”
– Rachel Cargle

Henry Miller
Undergrad Institution: Christopher Newport University
Hometown: Fairfax, Virginia
“The scientist only imposes two things, namely
truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself
and upon other scientists.”
– Erwin Schrödinger

Meghan Monney
Undergrad Institution: UT Health San Antonio / Texas A&M University
“No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger
than its weakest people, and as long as you keep a
person down, some part of you has to be down
there to hold him down, so it means you cannot
soar as you might otherwise."
– Marian Anderson

Alexander Moody
Undergrad Institution: University of Colorado – Boulder
Master’s Institution: Oregon Health & Science University
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Graduate Program: Radiological Sciences
Track: Medical Physics
Mentor Name: Geoffrey D. Clarke, Ph.D.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other
person, or if we wait for some other time. We are
the ones we've been waiting for. We are the
change that we seek.”
― Barack Obama

Desarey Morales Vasquez
Undergrad Institution: Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los
Angeles
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Mentor Name: Luis Martinez-Sobrido, Ph.D.
“Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination,
your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in
the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can
with it and make it the life you want to live."
– Dr. Mae Jeminson

Pramiti Mukhopadhyay
Undergrad Institution: St. Xavier’s College (Kolkata)
Hometown: Kolkata, India
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then
when you know better, do better.”
– Maya Angelou

Francisco Neal
Undergrad Institution: Austin College
Hometown: Memphis, Tennessee
Mentor Name: Patrick Sung, Ph.D.
“People fail to get along because they fear each
other; they fear each other because they don’t
know each other; they don’t know each other
because they have not communicated with each
other.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Michael Nipper
Mentor Name: Pei Wang, Ph.D.
“To succeed in science, you need a lot more than luck.
And it's not enough to be smart — lots of people are
very bright and get nowhere in life. In my view, you
have to combine intelligence with a willingness not to
follow conventions when they block your path
forward."
– James Watson

Raksha Parthasarathy
Hometown: Bangalore, India
Undergrad Institution: Ramaiah Institute of Technology, India
India
Mentor Name: Elizabeth Leadbetter, Ph.D.
“What people see as fearlessness is actually
persistence"
– Wangari Maathai

Shan Qi
Undergrad Institution: Tongji University
Hometown: Tianjin, China
Discipline: Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
Mentor Name: Yogesh K. Gupta, Ph.D.
“We must trust to nothing but facts: These are
presented to us by Nature and cannot deceive. We
ought, in every instance, to submit out reasoning to
the test of experiment, and never to search for
truth but by the natural road of experiment and
observation”
– Antoine Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry

Yusheng Qian
Hometown: Guangzhou, China
Undergrad Institution: University of Arizona
Mentor Name: Maria Gaczynska, Ph.D.
“Welcome to science. You are gonna like it here."
– Phil Plait

Paulino Ramirez
Hometown: Pharr, Texas
Mentor Name: Bess Frost, Ph.D.
"Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be
optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a
day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of
a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some
noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."
– Rep. John Lewis

Raphael Reyes
Undergrad Institution: University of California, Riverside
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Mentor Name: Evelien Bunnik, Ph.D.
“A minority is always compelled to think. That is
the blessing of being in the minority"
– Leo Baeck

Jessica L. Scheirer
Undergrad Institution: Albright College
Hometown: Douglassville, Pennsylvania
Discipline: Cell Biology, Genetics & Molecular Medicine
Mentor Name: Kexin Xu, Ph.D.
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always
remember, you have within you the strengths, the
patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to
change the world.”
― Harriet Tubman

Pragya Singh
Undergrad Institution: University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Hometown: Kathmandu, Nepal
Mentor Name: Kumar Sharma, M.D.
“True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize
how little we understand about life, ourselves, and
the world around us.”
– Socrates

Meilinn Tram
Undergrad Institution: University of New Mexico
Master’s Institution: University of New Mexico
Hometown: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Discipline: Physiology and Pharmacology
Mentor Name: Kenneth Hargreaves, D.D.S, Ph.D.
"Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some
enchanted garden perched high on a distant
plateau where we can finally sit down and rest.
Freedom is the continuous action we all must take,
and each generation must do its part to create an
even more fair, more just society.”
– John Robert Lewis

Rathipriya Viswanathan
Undergrad Institution: SRM University
Master’s Institution: University at Buffalo, NY
Hometown: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Mentor Name: James D. Lechleiter, Ph.D.
“The ultimate measure of a person is not where
one stands in moments of comfort and
convenience, but where one stands in times of
challenge and controversy."

Jessica Wickline
Undergrad Institution: Illinois State University
Hometown: Clinton, Illinois
Discipline: Physiology and Pharmacology
Mentor Name: Sarah Hopp, Ph.D.
“As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a
little before you think "
– Toni Morrison

Yijiang Xu
Undergrad Institution: Lanzhou University
Hometown: Zhengzhou, China
Mentor Name: Paolo Casali, M.D.
“The most important scientific revolutions all
include, as their only common feature, the
dethronement of human arrogance from one
pedestal after another of previous convictions
about our centrality in the cosmos."
– Stephen Jay Gould

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Candidacy Ceremony 2020 version

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