2015 - 2016 Academic Year PREP Participants

Corey Aguilar, BS

Corey earned a BS in Biology from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2015. Prior to enrolling in the Pathway to Graduate Study Program, he worked in the Neuroendocrinology and Epigenetics lab of Dr. Richard Hunter at UMass Boston. Here he focused on mining gene expression microarray data. Previously, he worked on genetic studies as a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Fellow at UMass Boston in Dr. Richard Kesseli’s Comparative Genomics and Molecular Evolution lab with a particular focus on epigenetics. Corey was also a Fellow of the UMass Boston Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) while doing research in Dr. Kesseli’s lab.

Kellianne Alexander, BS        

Kellianne earned her BS in Biology from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2015. As an undergraduate she worked in Dr. Susan Zup’s neuroendocrinology lab, where she studied prenatal developmental pathways in female rats. She was also a McNair Scholar, which provided opportunities to present her research at conferences and expand her networking skills. During the summer of 2014 she interned at UMass Chan in the Combined Summer Research Program, where she worked under Dr. Amy Wachholtz studying the impact of depression and anxiety on pain in the opioid addicted population.

Ganga Bey, BA, MPH

Ganga earned a BA in Anthropology from Princeton University in 2009, with a certificate in African American Studies. As an undergraduate, her research focused on understanding the social and cultural factors that impact health outcomes in minority communities.  Ganga then received a Master’s degree in Public Health with a focus on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Her master's thesis research explored the impact of the built environment on decision-making in health behaviors for Latina and Black women living in the underserved community of the South Bronx, New York. 

Kayleigh Gallagher, BS

Kayleigh earned a BS in Biology in 2015 from the University of Connecticut. Prior to the Pathway to Graduate Study Program she gained research experience as an intern in the lab of Dr. Jennifer Benanti in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology at UMass Chan where she studied the function of the condensin complex. 

Andrea Lopez-Cepero, BS, MHSN

Andrea earned her BS in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras where as a MARC fellow she studied the structure of MHCII proteins and their transcriptional regulation. She completed her Master’s in Health Sciences and Nutrition at the University of Puerto Rico-Medical Sciences campus. Andrea’s master’s thesis, studied the diet quality in Puerto Ricans living on the island and in Massachusetts. Her current research focuses on eating behaviors and Latino health disparities, in particular, nutrition related chronic diseases.