Career Options

Following her 2020 defense, Dr. Cierra Singh has remained at Columbia Univeristy as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the department of Pathology & Cell Biology. Dr. Singh's thesis, Aging Actin' Up: A novel aging determinant regulates the actin cytoskeleton, nutrient sensing, and lifespan in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, was completed under the mentorship of Liza Pon, PhD.

Dr. Abdelaziz currently holds the position of Director of Research and Development with NYC based Life Sciences Company, MEND.  Her thesis, Genetic and Environmental Determinants of Alopecia Areata, was done under the mentorship of Angela Christiano, PhD.

Dr. Ethan Edwin is an Associate Scientist with Cygnal Therapeutics, a Massachusetts based company building a platform to develop drugs in the novel field of exoneural biology.  Dr. Edwin completed his thesis, Homeostasis of adipose tissue macrophages, under the guidance of mentor Anthony W. Ferrante, MD, PhD.

Dr. Bryan Gonzalez is a Scientist for Cell Engineering and Cellular Biology with Fork and Goode, an NYC based food production company aiming to produce meat in a sustainable manner, without the need to kill animals, without polluting the environment and at the fraction of natural resources (such as land, water, etc.) used by the traditional meat industry. Dr. Gonzalez completed his thesis, HNF1A deficiency impairs β-cell fate, granule maturation and function, was completed under the guidance of co-mentors: Rudolph Leibel, MD and Dieter Egli, PhD.

Dr. Christian Garcia-So is a Field Application Scientist with Medical Devices, a California based company that provides customers with innovative bioanalytical solutions for protein and cell biology in life science research, pharmaceutical and biotherapeutic development. Dr. Garcia-so completed his thesis, Regulation of Mitochondria Complex I Biogenesis in Drosophila Flight Muscles​,  under the guidance of mentor Edward Owusu-Ansah, PhD.

Dr. Zhu is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. At the 2019 IHN Annual Wu Lecture and Retreat, he was awarded the Bernard F. Erlanger Award for Excellence in Research.  His thesis, Hepatocyte Notch in Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH)-Associated Liver Fibrosis and Cancer, was done under the mentorship for Utpal Pajvani, MD, PhD.

Dr. Katherine Xu is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Department of Medicine, Nephrology. She completed her thesis, Cell specific response of the kidney to injury and infection,  under the guidance of mentor Cathy Mendelsohn, PhD.

Dr. Elizabeth Millings is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Emory University School of Medicine in the Department of Biochemistry. She completed her thesis, Investigating the role of the ILDR2 in hepatic lipid metabolism and beta cell function,  under the guidance of mentor Henry Ginsberg, MD.

Dr. Dominguez Gutierrez is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Regeneron. She completed her thesis: Maintenance of Beta Cell Identity and Function, under the guidance of mentor Lori Sussel, PhD. She is one of the IHN's recipients of the 2017 Bernard Erlanger Award for Excellence in Research.

Dr. Moneek Madra is an Assistant Professor of Nutrition in Pediatrics and the Institute of Human Nutrition. She teaches Physiology and Nutrition Through the Lifecycle and Introduction to Epidemiology for Nutritionists. Her thesis Interactions of Early Life Stressors and Bdnf Val66Met in a Novel Mouse Model of Anorexia Nervosa , was completed under the mentorship of Lori Zeltser, PhD. Her current research focuses on anorexia nervosa, specializing on neuroendocrine and early postnatal stress outcomes associated with adolescent abnormal feeding behavior. Her work encompasses several integrative areas including neuroscience, physiology, and psychiatry.

Dr. Dianne Dapito is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health in Eth, Zurich, working on cachexia, an irreversible wasting syndrome often seen in cancer patients. She was the recipient of the 2015 Bernard Erlanger Award for Excellence in Research for her research that culminated in her PhD thesis Contributions of Activated Hepatic Stellate Cells to Hepatocarcinogenesis. Her research was completed under the guidance of Robert Schwabe, MD.

Dr. Katherine Wert is an Assistant Professor of Opthomology and Melecular Biology at UT Southwester. Medical Center. Prior to this, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Mahajan lab at Standford University and a Fellow at the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she worked in Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch's laboratory on pluripotent stem cells and genome engineering to model human diseases. Dr. Wert's thesis, Long-term Gene Therapy in a Pre-clinical Model of Retinitis Pigmentosa, was done with mentor Stephen Tsang, MD, PhD. She received the 2012 Bernard Erlanger Award for Excellence in Research at the Wu Lecture and Retreat. In 2016, Dr. Wert was awarded the Junior Faculty Award at the Annual FASEB meeting.