Applied Science honors its high-achieving graduates
The Department of Applied Science would like to congratulate a cohort of undergraduate Honors students who have successfully defended their Honors theses.
(pictured from left to right)
Daniel Borrus. Neuroscience honors thesis: Plateau potential fluctuations and intrinsic membrane noise.
John Marken. Mathematics honors thesis: Absolute fluctuation robustness in chemical reaction networks.
Francis Pham. Neuroscience honors thesis: Optogenetic studies of the preBötzinger complex: support for the Dbx1 core hypothesis.
Carly Martin. Neuroscience honors thesis: Unraveling the cellular origins of breathing: Dbx1-derived neurons in the preBötzinger complex of neonatal mice.
Sonia Dermer. Neuroscience honors thesis: The sodium channel NaV 1.6 in respiration.
Kaitlyn Dorst. Neuroscience honors thesis: The neural basis of breathing rhythm: TRPM4 and TRPC3 ion channels contribute to inspiratory burst generation in Dbx1-derived interneurons of the preBötzinger Complex in mice.
The Class of 2017 Applied Science Honors students accomplished a lot during their William and Mary tenure. John Marken was participant in W&M team that won the 2015 International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition and he led the iGEM team in 2016. In addition, John Marken is a W&M 1693 Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa with one published paper and another under review. Francis Pham and Carly Martin both published peer-reviewed manuscripts in 2016 and 2017. Kaitlyn Dorst, along with Francis Pham and Carly Martin, presented papers at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) meeting in Copenhagen Denmark in 2016. Kaitlyn Dorst has a manuscript in preparation for publication on the material first presented at the FENS meeting. Sonia Dermer also has a manuscript in preparation. As for future plans, Francis Pham will attend medical school at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS); Kaitlyn Dorst will matriculate in the Neuroscience Ph.D. program at Boston University; Carly Martin will begin work on next-generation RNA-sequencing technology at the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University; and Sonia Dermer is heading toward a career in scientific publishing. Daniel Borrus will matriculate in the Applied Science Ph.D. program at William & Mary, and John Marken will enter the Systems Biology Ph.D. program at Caltech. We are very proud of our students and wish them well in their future professional and academic endeavors.
