Ashley Abel

Ashley Abel is a Ph.D. candidate in Genetics at Yale University, having joined the laboratory of Professor Berna Sozen at the Yale School of Medicine in March 2021. Her doctoral research utilizes human embryonic stem cells to model early developmental processes, with the goal of identifying the underlying causes of early pregnancy loss that occur around the time of implantation. During her graduate tenure, Ashley has earned prestigious awards, including the NIH T32 Fellowship in Genetics and the NIH F31 NRSA Fellowship from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Prior to attending Yale, Ashley received her Bachelor of Science degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from Seattle University. As an undergraduate researcher at the University of Washington’s Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, she contributed to projects under the supervision of Professors Charles (Chuck) Murry and Ying Zheng. Her work involved developing engineered human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte models and in vitro aneurysm models. Following her undergraduate studies, Ashley served as a research assistant in Professor Kareen Coulombe’s laboratory at Brown University, where she focused on developing bioelectric sutures to enhance the grafting efficiency of stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes onto host cardiac tissue.