Tanvi is a fourth-year MD/PhD student in the Immunobiology Dept. She is conducting her thesis work on macrophage immunometabolic mechanisms of inflammation in diabetes in the lab of Kathryn Miller-Jensen in the Dept of Biomedical Engineering. She is originally from New Jersey and graduated from Rutgers University in 2022 with a degree in Cell Biology and Neuroscience and a minor in Linguistics. During undergrad, she worked in the lab of Dr. Debra Laskin, investigating inflammation in models of mustard gas-induced pulmonary injury and characterizing lung inflammation in a model of NASH liver injury.
Peer Advising by Senior Students
Program Goals
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The goal of the PASS Program is to facilitate peer-to-peer mentoring in which senior students pass down program specific (i.e. based on PhD department or clinical interest) information to junior students.
Additionally, the PASS Program aims to provide junior students with an easily accessible academic support system that remains pertinent as they progress through different stages of training, but is also flexible and adaptable to accommodate those who have changed their PhD departments or clinical interests.
For more information, please contact PASS Coordinators Sydney Green, Max Greenwald, Ruchi Gupta, or Emily Kessler.
Activities
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Fall meeting:
This event will be held in a “speed dating” format. Student Mentor(s) representing different departments will be seated at different tables, and junior students will rotate through tables associated with departments they are potentially interested in joining. In addition to meeting their Student Mentor(s), the Mentees will learn:
- Department-specific requirements (i.e. when to qualify, which classes to take)
- Recommendations regarding PIs to rotate with, or to have on their thesis committees
- Information and tips about longitudinal clinical activities
Spring meeting:
This event will also be held in a “speed dating” format but in a more casual setting. This event will allow Mentors to “check-in” with their Mentees, as well as allow junior students who have changed departments to connect with a new Mentor.
Mentor training dinner:
This mandatory training session will occur once a year prior to the fall meeting. It will cover topics including:
- Debrief: The survey results will be presented (see Metrics and Analytics below) and a selection of the “challenging cases” will be presented as teaching points.
- Feedback: Mentors will be asked to give feedback and share general thoughts about the program.
- Mentoring guidelines: How often to contact Mentees, what to do if they ask questions you cannot answer, etc.
- Effective mentoring strategies: How to encourage Mentee participation, how to provide guidance without being discouraging, etc. “
- Above my pay-grade”: Discuss situations in which Student Mentors should consult with the Faculty Supervisor, or situations in which they should recommend their Mentees contact a faculty member (i.e. MD/PhD Academic Advisor, Dean Angoff, etc).
PASS Student Mentors
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Academic department: Neuroscience
Research interests: Systems neuroscience, reward learning, cortical plasticity, substance use disorders
Clinical interests: Psychiatry, substance use disorders
Other interests: Baking, snuggling my two cats, thrift shopping/fashion, music, traveling, self-care, antiracism and DEI efforts, mentorship, Wednesday Evening Clinic, leadership/community building.
Academic department: Cellular and Molecular Physiology
Research interests: Chronic kidney disease, podocyte biology
Clinical interests: Nephrology
Other interests: Birding, house plants, freshwater aquarium, cooking for friends, sending postcards
Academic department: Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program
Research interests: Interoception, Neuroimmune, and *my specialty* Peripheral Nervous System x Reproductive Sciences! (Before PhD, dabbled in behavioral neuro / addiction).
Clinical interests: OBGYN (naturally), Internal Medicine-Cardiology (specifically), Ophtho (maybe)
Other interests: I've got two spoiled cats that don't listen to me - One with a fickle pylorus and another who cost me $7000 in emergency surgery expenses while I was on vacation. I still love them, I think.
Academic Department: Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests: Medical Image Processing, Clinical Decision Support
Clinical Interests: Undecided
Other Interests: Cooking, Learning languages, Haven Free Clinic, Crocheting, Reading, Horror Movies, Paleontology and Archaeology
James is an MD-PhD student interested in immunology, infectious diseases, and vaccine development. During his undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, James worked with Dr. Geoffrey Hart on understanding the immune response to malaria. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development in 2021. After graduation, James spent two years working as a postbaccalaureate fellow at the NIH's Vaccine Research Center with Dr. Robert Seder to develop better tuberculosis vaccines. He hopes to continue working on vaccine development for infectious diseases that disproportionately afflict developing countries.
Born and raised in London, UK, Kerri came to the United States in 2015 to pursue further education. She graduated from Princeton University in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and certificate in Global Health Policy. After college, she spent two years as a Research Technician in the lab of Dr. Susan Parkhurst at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer research center where she studied the mechanism of Nuclear Envelope Budding using the Drosophila system.
Academic department:
Research interests:
Clinical interests:
Other interests:
Academic Department: Microbiology
Research Interests: Host-pathogen interactions, innate immunity, biochemistry
Clinical Interests: Infectious diseases, Rheumatology, Internal medicine
Other interests: Running, hiking, spending time with my cat, board games, ranking every pizza place in New Haven
Academic Department: Interdepartmental Neuroscience
Academic Interests: Systems neuroscience, Visual circuits
Clinical Interests: Internal medicine, Ophthalmology
Other Interests: Penny boarding, Saint Bernards, Musicals, Making paper airplanes
Academic Program: InterdepartmentalNeuroscience
Academic Interests: Brain development, neuroscience, genetics, zebrafish, neurodevelopmental disorders
Clinical Interests: Internal medicine, psychiatry, neurology
Other Interests: Salsa dancing, biking everywhere, hiking, dinner parties, theater, cuddling my dog, fermenting foods and beverages, MakeHaven, Wednesday Evening Clinic
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Jaime A. González-Hernández graduated from Pomona College in 2021 with a B.A. in Molecular Biology and a minor in Media Studies. Currently in his third year as an MD-PhD student, Jaime joined the Goodman lab to investigate the clinically impactful interactions between the gut microbiome and medical drugs for the development of more effective, personalized therapies.
Outside of academic medicine, Jaime has enjoyed volunteering in HAVEN Free Clinic as an interpreter to serve underrepresented patients, watching both kinds of football (American football and soccer), and analyzing films and other forms of visual storytelling to broaden his perspective.
Academic department: History of Medicine
Research interest: history of medicine; hospital-based intimate partner violence response programs, anti-carceral feminism, health activism
Clinical interest: undecided
Other interests: knitting, live music, all things South Florida!
Max Greenwald is an MD/PhD Student interested in neuropsychiatry completing his PhD research in the lab of Albert Powers, MD. PhD.
He received a B.A. in Neuroscience from Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT in 2018. In 2016, Max completed a summer project studying the biogenesis of dense core vesicles (DCVs) using molecular biology approaches in Michael Ailion’s lab at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA -- Max's hometown. He spent the next two years in Glen Ernstrom’s lab at Middlebury College studying interactions and mechanisms of synaptic vesicles proteins involved in neurotransmitter loading, completing a senior thesis which earned him High Honors in Neuroscience. Following these experiences, Max became interested in human neuroscience and clinical research and was awarded a research fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). After a year spent backpacking in South & Central America, he worked for two years at NIMH in the Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch (ETPB) clinical research lab under Carlos Zarate researching ketamine’s psychoactive and rapid-acting antidepressant effects. Max remains extremely interested in translational psychiatry research working with human subjects, with a special interest in pro-neuroplastic psychoactive therapeutics (eg. serotonergic psychedelics) and non-ordinary states of consciousness. Outside of medicine, Max is an avid lover of traveling and the outdoors, and he tries to spend as much time as humanly possible outside of work hiking, running, eating, talking with friends, and spotting critters in the woods.
Academic Department: Immunobiology
Academic Interests: Cancer immunology, immune signaling pathways, malignant B-cell tumors
Clinical Interests: Internal Medicine/Pediatrics (most likely heme/onc!)
Other Interests: Taking care of my obscene number of houseplants, running, baking, curating the perfect Spotify playlist, watching hours of seal videos on end
Department: Neuroscience, Cellular & Molecular Physiology
Academic interests: Brain-body interactions, interoception & autonomic regulation, mathematical models in neuroscience
Clinical: Interested in cardiology, ophthalmology, anesthesiology & neurology - to be decided!
Other interests: Hiking, cats, double bass and classical music
Academic department: Genetics
Research interests: Vascular biology, cardiovascular pathophysiology, vascular smooth muscle cells
Clinical interests: Cardiology, vascular medicine
Other interests: Soccer (Yale Med FC and Arsenal FC), Philly sports teams, reading, comedy, HAVEN Free Clinic, APSA
Academic department: Immunobiology
Research interests: Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy
Clinical interests: Heme/Onc, Internal Medicine
Other interests: Cooking and hosting dinner parties, my two siamese cats Lola and Nala, working out and spending as much time outside as possible
Jaspreet grew up along the Maine coast in the town of Falmouth, before attending Cornell University, where he graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Biological Sciences in 2020. As an undergraduate, he elucidated a novel microRNA linked with the onset and progression of equine common variable immunodeficiency, and completed summer undergraduate research fellowships at the Maine Medical Center, and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Following his undergraduate training, he worked with the Elowitz group at the California Institute of Technology to help design and implement synthetic circuitry that could rewire T cell homeostasis to tackle specific problems, such as T cell exhaustion seen in CAR-T therapy for solid tumors. Current, he is working on investigating various avenues of how ELF-family transcription factors lead to the onset, progression, and temporal resolution of colitis, using mouse models in the laboratory of Dr. Carrie Lucas.
Outside of the classroom, Jaspreet enjoys spending time with his rescue puppy, Leo, and is an avid jazz trombonist, and tennis player. He works with the AAAS to advocate for the needs of students and professionals with disabilities in STEM, having been a part of the advisory board for the relevant AAAS ERN Conference Working Group.