RISE Participants

M’Kayla Alston

Amarachi Eijawiko

Undergraduate student majoring in Biology joined RISE Program in 2015 and graduated in 2016 from Department of Biology, Claflin University. She is currently a graduate student in the Masters of Public Health studying Epidemiology and Biostatistics at University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

Monica Thapaliya

Undergraduate student majoring in Biochemistry joined RISE Program in 2015 and graduated in 2016 from Department of Chemistry, Claflin University. She is currently a Ph.D student studying Pharmacology at Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

Kiana Ballard

Undergraduate student majoring in Biotechnology joined RISE Program in 2015 as a junior student and is currently enrolled in the RISE program as a senior in Department of Biology, Claflin University. She is currently working on improving the conversion of peanut somatic embryos to plants, , identify a correlation between plant conversion capacity and morphology of the somatic embryo, and the development of DNA markers by comparing DNA profiles of zygotic embryos with different morphology somatic embryos, under the supervision of Dr. Kamal Chowdhury (Mentor: RISE NIH-NIGMS).

Saidah Whack

Undergraduate student majoring in Biology joined RISE Program in 2015 and graduated in 2016 from Department of Biology, Claflin University. She is currently a graduate student in the Masters of Biotechnology Program at Claflin University, Orangeburg, SC.

Stephanie Wyche

Undergraduate student majoring in Computer Science joined RISE Program in 2015 and graduated in 2016 from Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Claflin University. She is currently a UI Developer/Application Developer at Business Transformation Group in Washington, DC.

Adia Louden

Undergraduate student majoring in Biology joined RISE Program in 2015 as a junior student and is currently enrolled in the RISE program as a senior in Department of Biology, Claflin University. She is currently working on studying the expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) and two oncogenes, E6 and E7, in keratinocytes transfected with Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) types -16 and -18, under the supervision of Dr. Samina N. Assanie-Shivji (Co-I: RISE NIH-NIGMS) and Dr. Gloria S. McCutcheon (PI: RISE NIH-NIGMS).