GSA is pleased to announce the recipients of the DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics for Fall 2021! Given twice a year to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, DeLill Nasser Awards support attendance at meetings and laboratory courses.
The award is named in honor of DeLill Nasser, a long-time GSA supporter and National Science Foundation Program Director in Eukaryotic Genetics. Nasser was regarded by some as the “patron saint of real genetics,” shaping the field through more than two decades of leadership. She was especially supportive of young scientists, people who were beginning their careers, and those trying to open new areas of genetic inquiry. For more about Nasser, please see the tribute from Scott Hawley, published in the August 2001 issue of GENETICS.
Neftaly Cruz Mireles
PhD Student, The Sainsbury Laboratory
“My research aims to understand how the blast fungus causes disease in rice.”
Melissa Drown
PhD Candidate, University of Miami
“I am using a combination of physiology and genomics to investigate rapid evolution in fish.”
Hayden Hatch
MD/PhD Candidate, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
“My thesis work utilizes Drosophila to better understand how mutations in the transcriptional regulator KDM5C, contribute to neuronal, transcriptional, and cognitive deficits associated with intellectual disability.”
Dianiris Luciano-Rosario
PhD Student, University of Wisconsin–Madison
“My research focuses on studying a protein family responsible for providing hydrophobicity to Penicillium expansum, a fungus that causes blue mold disease of apples.”
Joaquin Nunez
Postdoc, University of Virginia
“My research seeks to understand how species evolve and adapt in highly fluctuating environments.”
Joseph Uche Ogbede
PhD Student, University of British Columbia
“I use brewer’s yeast to understand how drugs and chemical toxins interact with genes.”
Anton Suvorov
Postdoc, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“My research is focused on understanding evolutionary histories of model as well as non-model systems, and development of novel approaches in phylogenetics using machine learning.”
Valeria Velasquez Zapata
Postdoc Researcher, Iowa State University
“I develop mathematical models and methods for understanding interactions between hosts and pathogens.”
Vikas Yadav
Postdoc Associate, Duke University School of Medicine
“My research explores the evolutionary and pathogenic aspects of the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans with a focus on genome dynamics, (pseudo) sexual reproduction, and calcineurin signaling.”
Wenyu Zhang
Postdoc Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology
“My current research focuses on the dissection of the genetic basis of environmental adaptations in animals, mainly using Drosophila and house mouse as model organisms.”
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