Graduates from each division of the Department of BioMolecular Sciences have found employment in a variety of fields in both the public and private sectors. We have included a list of our graduates from the past 8 years below. Please contact us if you note any omissions or items that need to be corrected!
Environmental Toxicology (ETRP)
- Dennis Carty, Ph.D., 2017
Characterizing the Developmental and Reproductive Toxicities of Cannabidiol and Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol
Dissertation Director, Dr. Kristie Willett - Faisal Albaqami, Ph.D., 2015
Saffron Extract and Its Active Constituents as Preventative and/or Treatment Agent for Prostate Cancer
Dissertation Director, Dr. Kristie Willett - Adam Hawkins, Ph.D., 2014
Effects of nanosilver and silver nitrate exposure on fathead minnows (Pimephales Promelas) and zebrafish (Danio Rerio)
Dissertation Director, Dr. Kristie Willett - Mindi Ansley, M.S., 2014
Thesis Title: “Characterizing innate immunity in the Hawaiian coral Montipora capitata”
Advisor, Dr. Deborah Gochfeld - Cole Easson, Ph.D., 2013
Thesis Title: “Individual and Population Responses of a Common Caribbean Sponge, Aplysina cauliformis, to Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Stressors”
Advisor, Dr. Marc Slattery - Frank Booc, M.S., 2013
Thesis Title: “Benzo[a]pyrene Effects on Fundulus heteroclitus Reproductive Endpoints”
Advisor, Dr. Kristie Willett - Kimberly Foster, M.S., 2013
Thesis Title: “Synthesis and evaluation of naturally occurring halogenated bipyrroles in a relevant marine species, Fundulus heteroclitus” - Sylvester Lee, M.S., 2012
Thesis Title: “Adaptive Tolerance to Ocean Acidification in the Marine Sponge Chondrilla nucula” - Meghan Dailey, M.S., 2012
Thesis Title: “Temporal and Spatial Assessment of PAHs in Water, Sediment, and Oysters as a result of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill” - Suzanne Childress Seale, M.S., 2010
Thesis Title: “Behavioral and transcriptional effects of acrylamide in rat pups” - Lindsay Krentz O’Donahue, M.S., 2010
Thesis Title: “The effect of ethynylestradiol, benzo(a)pyrene and a mixture of the two on the sex change event in the hermaphroditic bridled goby, Coryphopterus glaucofraenum” - Kelley Ivey Ezell, M.S., 2010
Thesis Title: “Real time drug abuse by measurement of influent wastewater in sewage treatment plants”
Medicinal Chemistry
- Munia Sowaileh, Ph.D., 2018
Fluorinated Organic Molecules for Medicinal Applications
Dissertation Director, Dr. David Colby - Kelsey McPherson, Ph.D., 2018
Synthesis and Evaluation of Dual-Acting Ligands for Mu Opioid and Neuropeptide FF Receptors
Dissertation Director, Dr. Christopher McCurdy - Michael Cunningham, Ph.D., 2018
Synthetic Investigation of Natural Products Causing Dopaminergic Neurodegeneration
Dissertation Director, Dr. John Rimoldi - Mohammed Jihan, Ph.D., 2017
Synthesis, Chemistry, Biological Evaluation and Structure-Activity Relationships of rac- and Chiral 6-Desmethyl-5β-Hydroxy-D-secoartemisinin
Dissertation director, Dr. John Rimoldi - Veda Gogineni, Ph.D., 2017
Phytochemical Investigation of Psychoactive Medicinal Plants for the Treatment of Neurological Disorders
Dissertation director, Dr. John Rimoldi - Manal Nael, Ph.D., 2016
Targeting Protein Kinases to Manage or Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease
Dissertation director, Dr. Robert J. Doerksen - Walid Alsharif, Ph.D., 2015
Design, Synthesis, and Biological Evaluation of Sigma Receptors (sRS) Ligands as Potential Pharmacotherapy for Cancer, and Drug Addiction
Dissertation director, Dr. Christopher R. McCurdy - Eric Bow, Ph.D., 2015
Design, Synthesis and Cannabinoid Receptor Activity of Benzofuran Ligands
Dissertation director, Dr. John M. Rimoldi - Pankaj Pandey, Ph.D., 2015
Protein-Ligand Interaction Studies and Identification of New Drug-Like Hits as Cannabinoid Receptor Modulators
Dissertation director, Dr. Robert Doerksen - Shuneize E. Slater, Ph.D., 2015
The Discovery of Novel Inhibitors of Plasmodium falciparum ATPase 6 Obtained Via A Mechanistic Study of Artemisinin
Dissertation director, Dr.Robert Doerksen - Amer H. Tarawneh, Ph.D., 2015
Evaluation of Novel Ligands for Opioid Receptors
Dissertation director, Dr.Stephen Cutler - Arindam Chatterjee, Ph.D., 2013
- Khaled Elokely, Ph.D., 2013
- Yushan Wu, Ph.D., 2013
- Shivangi Awasthi, Ph.D., 2013
- Afeef Husni, Ph.D., 2013
- Gang Fu, Ph.D., 2013
- Zarana Chauhan, Ph.D., 2013
- David Watson, Ph.D., 2012
- Xiaoning Wang, Ph.D., 2012
- Jessica Mankus, Ph.D., 2012
- Sarah Chajkowski Scarry, Ph.D., 2012
Dissertation director, Dr. John M. Rimoldi - Marco Arribas, Ph.D., 2011
Synthesis of Analogues Based on the Opioid Alkaloid Mitragynine
Dissertation director, Dr. Christopher R. McCurdy - Rohit Bhat, Ph.D., 2011
Design, Synthesis, Biological Evaluatiohn and Metabolic Stability Studies of Sigma Receptor Ligands
Dissertation director, Dr. Christopher R. McCurdy - Vanildo Braga, Ph.D., 2011
Approaches Towards the Synthesis of Bradyoxetin
Dissertation director, Dr. John M. Rimoldi - Jiangtao Gao, Ph.D., 2011
Fungi Derived Natural Products with Binding Affinities for Human Opiod Receptors or Cannabinoid Receptors
Dissertation director, Dr. Stephen J. Cutler - Swapnil Kulkarni, Ph.D., 2011
Part A: Studies Towards the Total Synthesis of an Anticancer and Antifugal Natural Products: Pseudolaric Acid B, Part B: Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Berkeleyamid
Dissertation director, Dr. Mitchell A. Avery - Rob Smith, Ph.D., 2011
Design and Synthesis of Novel Agrofungicides Based on Naturally Occurring PBDEs
Dissertation director, Dr. John M. Rimoldi - Falgun Shah, Ph.D., 2011
Use of Structure and Ligand-Based Drug Design Tools for the Discovery of Small Molecule Inhibitors of Cysteine Proteases for the Treatment of Malaria and SARS Infection
Dissertation director, Dr. Mitchell A. Avery - Mohamed Helal, Ph.D., 2010
Melanin Concentrating Hormone Receptor-1 Antagonists: Discovery, Optimization, and Biological Evaluation
Dissertation director, Dr. Mitchell A. Avery - Eman Habib, Ph.D., 2010
Isolation and Structure Elucidation of Biologically Active Compounds from Terrestrial and Fungal Organisms
Dissertation director, Dr. Stephen J. Cutler - Velvet Journigan, Ph.D., 2010
Part I. Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Ligands for Neuropeptide FF1 and FF2 Receptors. Part II. Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Ligands for the K Opioid Receptor
Dissertation director, Dr. Christopher R. McCurdy - Pankaj Daga, Ph.D., 2010
Combating Hepatitis B Virus by Targeting DNA Polymerase. Computational Insights into Resistance Development and Search for Novel Inhibitors by Virtual Screening
Dissertation director, Dr. Robert J. Doerksen - Tammy Nolan, Ph.D., 2010
Molecular Recognition Studies for the Kappa Opioid and Sigma Receptors using Virtual Screening, Pharmacophore Modeling and Semi-Synthesis
Dissertation director, Dr. Christopher R. McCurdy
Pharmacognosy
- Mohamed Albadry, Ph.D., 2018
Isolation, Structure Elucidation and Synthesis of Some Natural Products From Marine and Plant Sources
Dissertation director, Dr. Ikhlas A. Khan - Najla Alzaid, M.S., 2018
Thesis Title: “Exploring novel botanical ingredients for cosmetics – Efficacy and Safety of Triterpenes”
Advisor, Dr. Ikhlas Khan - Adam Keasling, Ph.D., 2017
Molecular Characterization of the Opioid Receptors: Design, Development, and Preclinical Evaluation of Salvinorin A-Based Molecular Probes
Dissertation director, Dr. Ikhlas Khan - Surendra Jain, Ph.D., 2017
Development of Phenotypic Drug Discovery Models for Tropical Parasitic Diseases
Dissertation director, Dr. Babu Tekwani - Jagrati Jain, Ph.D., 2017
Biochemical and Molecular Assessment of Toxicity of Primaquine Metabolites on Erythrocytes
Dissertation director, Dr. Babu Tekwani - Yelkaira Vasquez, Ph.D., 2016
Biological and Chemical Investigation of Panamanian Plants for Potential Utility Against Metabolic Syndrome
Dissertation director, Dr. Ikhlas A. Khan - Chinni Yalamanchili, Ph.D., 2016
Exploring New Chemical Entities from Traditional Medicine: Synthesis and Specific Bioactivities
Dissertation director, Dr. Ikhlas A. Khan - Michael Chan, Ph.D., 2015
Ethnobotanical- and Chemometric-Guided Investigation of Phytolacca americana L
Dissertation director, Dr. Iklas Khan - Joonseok Oh, Ph.D., 2015
Endangered Plant Species for Potential Drug Lead and Anticancer Prototypes for Treatment of Breast and Pancreatic Cancers
Dissertation director, Dr. Mark Hamann - Michael James, M.S., 2014
Dissertation director, Dr. Mark Hamann - Amanda Waters, Ph.D., 2014
Dissertation director, Dr. Mark Hamann - Christina Coleman, Ph.D., 2014
- Michael Cunningham, M.S., 2013
- Kimberly Auker, M.S., 2013
- Samul Abbas, M.S., 2013
- Kevin Llewellyn, Ph.D., 2013
Dissertation director, Dr. Mark Hamann - John Bowling, Ph.D., 2012
- Sandipan Datta, Ph.D., 2012
- Xiang Fu, Ph.D., 2012, St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital
- Mallika Kumarihamy, Ph.D., 2012
- Bin Wang, Ph.D., 2012
- Mohamed Ibrahim, Ph.D., 2011
- Damaris Meujo, Ph.D., 2011
- Amir Wahba, Ph.D., 2011
- Jing Li, Ph.D., 2010
Pharmacology
- Trisha Dhawan, Ph.D., 2018
Developing Zebrafish as an In vivo Model to Screen Compounds for Anti-cancer Activity in Human Breast Cancer
Dissertation director, Dr. Kristie Willett - Santu Singha, Ph.D., 2018
A Mechanistic Study of the Teratogenic Potential of 4-O-methylhonokiol (MH) on Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes)
Dissertation director, Dr. Zia Shariat-Madar - Taisen Hao, Ph.D., 2017
Transcriptional Downregulation of MYC Through Nucleic Acid Clamp-mediated Stabilization of the Promoter G-quadruplex
Dissertation director, Dr. Kristie Willett - Harshul Batra, Ph.D., 2017
Binding and Function of Regulatory Proteins to the kRAS Promoter: A Role in Pancreatic Cancer
Dissertation director, Dr. Kristie Willett - Rhianna Morgan, Ph.D., 2017
G-quadruplexes as Molecular Targets for Transcriptional Control
Dissertation director, Dr. Kristie Willett - Khalid Alharthy, PhD., 2015
Dissertation director, Dr. Kristie Willett - Hassan Madkhali, Ph.D., 2015
Dissertation Director, Dr. Zia Shariat-Madar - Surabhi Shukla, Ph.D., 2015
Dissertation Director, Dr. Babu Tekwani - Tahmineh Tabrizian, Ph.D., 2015
Dissertation Director, Dr. Zia Shariat-Madar - Jingjing Wang, Ph.D., 2014
Dissertation Director, Dr. Zia Shariat-Madary - Pranapda Aumsuwan, Ph.D., 2013
Dissertation Director, Dr. Asok Dasmahapatra - Monica Gole, Ph.D., 2013
Dissertation Director, Dr. David Murray - Mona Haron, Ph.D., 2013
Dissertation Director, Dr. Asok Dasmahapatra - Krishna Nagalla, Ph.D., 2013
Dissertation Director, Dr. David Murray - Mengmeng Wu, M.S., 2013
Dissertation Director, Dr. Asok Dasmahapatra - Xiefan Fang, Ph.D., 2011
Dissertation director, Dr. Kristie Willett - Dhaval Kolte, Ph.D., 2011
Dissertation Director, Dr. Zia Shariat-Madar - Mohamed Hammad, Ph.D., 2010
- Minghui Wu, Ph.D., 2010
- Monica Gole, M.S., 2010