Dragons on Fire: Kudos for Student Achievement: Winter 2025

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Dragons on Fire: Kudos for Student Achievement: Winter 2025

• Student Showcases Highlight Research at Drexel University
• Heard Around Campus - April 2026
• Drexel Alumna and Mars Rover Lead Moogega Cooper to Address Class of 2026
• Researchers Identify Novel Vulnerability in Breast Cancer Brain Metastases

Here's a snapshot of awards, scholarships, publications and fellowships Drexel University students have earned in the past term, courtesy of the Office of the Provost, Pennoni Honors College and others.

Scholarships, Fellowships and Publications

Gabrielle Mollineau, PhD candidate in community health and prevention from the Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health, received the Young Caribbean Professional Network Scholarship & Award for exemplifying academic excellence, leadership, community service and cultural pride. Recipients of this award are supported not only financially, but also as part of a broader commitment to empowering future leaders and strengthening global Caribbean communities.

Taylor Young, MD '26 from the College of Medicine, presented on an analysis published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics with Urban Health Collaborative researchers about factors influencing food access among families with low incomes during the COVID-19 crisis at the American Public Health Association's Annual Meeting.

Solange Akimana, PhD candidate in biodiversity, earth and environmental science from the College of Arts and Sciences, received a $1,000 travel award from the University of California, Berkeley Essig Museum of Entomology Research, enabling her to work in their collections, present a seminar and visit additional collections in California.

Adonia Easie, BS/MS psychology '26 from the College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the American Psychology-Law Society BRIDGE Diversity Travel Award. This award will fund her travels to the upcoming AP-LS conference in Reno, Nevada.

Faith Echiejile, PhD candidate in environmental science from the College of Arts and Sciences, was selected as a 2026 Sea Grant Knauss Marine Policy Fellow. Sea Grant's Knauss Fellowship places early-career professionals in legislative and executive branch offices in the Washington, D.C., area, where they contribute scientific and technical expertise to the federal policymaking process for critical marine, coastal and Great Lakes issues.

Alessandra Cabrera, BS materials science and engineering '26, and Evelyn Carpenter, BS materials science and engineering '26, both from the College of Engineering, were selected to join the MateriAlZ Winter School at Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. Carpenter won the Best Poster Award for her work on MXenes, and Cabrera received the 2026 Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award.

Emily Clark, PhD candidate in education from the School of Education, co-published a paper titled "Resilience in Early Head Start: The Changing Role of Teacher Well-Being and Structural Features in Interaction Quality Across the COVID-19 Divide." The article, co-written with Michael Haslip, PhD, associate professor of early childhood education from the School of Education, was published in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education.

Madison-Jade Bishop, fashion industry and merchandising '26, and Emme Serafino, fashion industry and merchandising '26, both from the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, were top five national finalists for the 2026 NRF Foundation Next Generation Scholarship, one of the most prestigious undergraduate awards in the retail and fashion industry.

Varvara "Bobby" Diakonenkova, fashion design '25 from the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, is Drexel's fourth-ever winner of the 2025 Supima Design Compeition, one of the most respected showcases for emerging designers. Her eveningwear collection, which explored themes of identity and resilience through intricate manipulation of Supima cotton, earned her a $10,000 prize and significant visibility within the fashion industry at the first-ever Supima Design Lab event in New York City.

Nick Ranellone, a second-year MD student in the College of Medicine, gave a podium presentation titled "An Anatomical Study of the 12th Intercostal Nerve as a Novel Autograft for DIEP Flap Neurotization" at the 2026 American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery Annual Meeting, held in Chula Vista, California.

Students, faculty, professional staff, guests and alumni from the College of Medicine gathered on Jan. 24 at Drexel University's Main Building auditorium for the 32^nd Annual Pediatric AIDS Benefit Concert, a student-run evening of musical performances. All proceeds from the event go to the Dorothy Mann Center for Pediatric and Adolescent HIV at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children; to date, the event has raised more than $780,000 for children and families affected by HIV/AIDS.

Olivia Chiarini, physics '27; Jaden Drumm, biological sciences '27, Honors; Sophia Medori, biological sciences '26, Honors; and Dejenae Smith, biological sciences '27, Honors, all from the College of Arts and Sciences, were selected as Drexel's nominees for the 2026 Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation for top undergraduates in science, math, and engineering fields who are planning to pursue research careers. Smith was selected as a 2026 Goldwater Scholar and plans to pursue a PhD in ecology, focusing on urban landscapes.

Sanjana Bandi, biomedical engineering '27, Honors, from the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, and Dejenae Smith, biological sciences '27, Honors, from the College of Arts and Sciences, were selected as Drexel's nominees for the 2026 Truman Scholarship. Smith was selected as one of 198 finalists who advanced to the final round of selection, out of 781 total applicants.

Sarah Biedka, PhD candidate in creative arts therapy from the College of Nursing and Health Professions, was awarded a $5,000 General Research Project Award from the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Music Therapy Association. The award will fund research expenses for Biedka's dissertation titled, "Young Adult Cancer Survivors' and Music Therapists' Perspectives on Addressing Relationship Challenges Through Music Therapy: A Qualitative Inquiry Using Reflexive Thematic Analysis."

Greeva Yava, BS computer science '29 from the College of Computing & Informatics, won the Fast Pitch Competition in the annual Startup Fest held by the Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship and Baiada Institute, for Green-Prompts, an AI sustainability tool.

Tavin Staber and Alexa Parker, both BA entrepreneurship and innovation '26 from the Close School of Entrepreneurship, were awarded seed funding through the Drexel Startups Fund Competition at Startup Fest.

Kai Doron, environmental science '28 from the College of Arts and Sciences, will be conducting research in Munich this summer through DAAD Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE), which is sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service to connect undergraduate students in STEM with research groups at universities and top research institutions across Germany. Doron will be researching fossil Pentastomatids using advanced imaging techniques. Doron was also awarded a partner scholarship co-funded by DAAD and Drexel's Research Fellowship Supplement Program (RFSP), to support this opportunity while fulfilling co-op requirements.

The Undergraduate Research & Enrichment Programs in the Pennoni Honors College has awarded 10 undergraduate research mini-grants of $1,000 each to Drexel faculty and student pairs for spring 2026 to fund research materials, student pay and other expenses.

• Mohd Apurbo, mechanical engineering '29, and Arvin Ebrahimkhanlou, PhD, assistant professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering, both from the College of Engineering, will evaluate building materials recovered from old buildings to find the best ways to repair and reuse them.
• Gabrielle Baar, psychology '27, Honors, from the College of Arts and Sciences, and Kristal Lyn Brown, PhD, assistant professor of creative arts therapies from the College of Nursing and Health Professions, will conduct a multi-method study on better understanding loneliness across the adult lifespan.
• Karan Bindal, data science '29, Honors, and Shadi Rezapour, PhD, assistant professor of information science, both from the College of Computing & Informatics, will develop a multi-level computational framework to detect and analyze secual violence stigma in online narratives.
• Kate Buskirk, custom designed major '28, Honors, from the Pennoni Honors College, and Jose Tapia, PhD, professor of politics in the College of Arts and Sciences, will study the interaction between cash transfer welfare policies and the rates of maternal deaths in countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
• Kody Cheung, architecture '26, Honors, and Kelly Vresilovic, adjunct professor of architecture, both from the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, will research decolonized spatial structures to create spaces that will serve security, safety, pride and justice to individuals with intersectional identities of being Asian and queer in the American landscape.
• Shekinah Dorceus, health sciences '28, Honors, and Meghan Smith, PhD, assistant teaching professor of health sciences, both from the College of Nursing and Health Professions, will study how exercise influences vascular perfusion across pre-, peri- and post-menopausal women.
• Rainon Feroze, architectural engineering '30, and Ebrahimkhanlou, both from the College of Engineering, will do a research project proposing using a small robotic system to simulate repeated handling of reclaimed building materials to measure how surface wear and finish degradation occur over reuse cycles.
• Keilan Makosi, mechanical engineering '28 from the College of Engineering, and Christina Love, PhD, associate teaching professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, will conduct a project testing whether naturally occurring cosmic radiation can generate detectable muons in low-atmosphere environments on high-altitude balloons.
• Nguyen Phan, biological sciences '29, and Nianli Sang, PhD, associate professor of biology, both from the College of Arts and Sciences, will study the possible intrinsic cellular mechanisms behind the adaptation of neuronal cells to ammonia neurotoxicity.
• Brian Poon, mechanical engineering '30, and Lifeng Zhou, PhD, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, both from the College of Engineering, will explore the use of robotics, computer vision and AI to automate garlic processing in agriculture.

Maven Mercado, environmental science '26 from the College of Arts and Sciences, was recently awarded the 2026 GeoCUR Award for Excellence in Student Research by the Council on Undergraduate Research's Geoscience Division. Mercado, a Liberty Scholar and a recipient of a Fulbright Study/Research Grant to Canada, has participated in numerous undergraduate research programs at Drexel and beyond, including the SuperNova Undergraduate Research Fellows Program, DAAD-RISE, the NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship and more research at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University.