Congratulations to David Cooper on his successful thesis defense on July 15, 2021! The title of his thesis was "Functional and Potentially Adaptive Role of Polyglutamine in S. cerevisiae Med15." David is a PhD student in the Integrated Biology (iBio) Graduate Program. His mentor is Dr. Jan Fassler in the Department of Biology.

Congratulations to Liping Liu on her successful thesis defense on July 12, 2021! The title of her thesis was "A Challenging Journey for Break-Induced Replication Through Various Obstacles." Liping is a PhD student in the Integrated Biology (iBio) Graduate Program. Her mentor is Dr. Anna Malkova in the Department of Biology. Liping will be a postdoctoral fellow in the Malkova Lab.

Congratulations to Yishuo Jiang on his successful thesis defense on July 8, 2021! The title of his thesis was "Phenotypic Characterization of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Mediator Subunit Med15 in Fermentation and the Role of Glutamine Bias in Med15 Orthologs." Yishuo is a Master's student in the Integrated Biology (iBio) Graduate Program. His mentor is Dr. Jan Fassler in the Department of Biology. Yishuo will be pursuing his PhD in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign beginning in the fall.

Congratulations to Tyler Atagozli on his successful thesis defense on July 7, 2021! The title of his thesis was "Characterizing Nucleophosmin (Npm1) and heterologous aggregates in the budding yeast S. cerevisiae." Tyler is a Master's student in the Integrated Biology (iBio) Graduate Program. His mentor is Dr. Jan Fassler in the Department of Biology. Tyler will be a medical student in the UI Carver College of Medicine in the fall.

Congratulations to Stacey Peek on her successful thesis defense on Wednesday, July 7, 2021! The title of her thesis was "Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Akirin2 Function in Maturing Neurons." Stacey is a PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience. Her mentor is Dr. Joshua Weiner in the Department of Biology.

Congratulations to Sofia Sheikh on her successful thesis defense on Friday, July 2, 2021! The title of her thesis was "Cryptic diversity and evolution in a genus of oak gall associated parasitoids." Sofia is a Master's student in the Integrated Biology (iBio) Graduate Program. Her mentor is Dr. Andrew Forbes in the Department of Biology. Sofia will be pursuing her PhD in the Department of Ecology & Evolution at the University of Chicago beginning in the fall.