Graduate School University Scholars

Year of Matriculation: 2017

Jonathan Choi

• Hometown: Glenview, Illinois
• PhD Candidate in Marine Science and Conservation
• Jon Choi is a PhD candidate in Marine Science and Conservation through the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, housed within the Nicholas School of the Environment. He also earned his JD from Duke Law in 2021. His work focuses on the challenges posed by wind energy development to the conservation of marine migratory animals, particularly birds. When he is not working, he spends his time birdwatching, climbing, hiking, and cooking. He anticipates working in the government or non-profit sectors after graduation.

Joshua Stivers

• Hometown:  Winnabow, North Carolina
• PhD Candidate in Psychology and Neuroscience
• Joshua Stivers received his Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience and a minor in German from Duke University. After graduating, he worked as a lab research assistant at the University of California-San Diego in the De Sa lab before returning to Duke as a PhD candidate in Neuroscience. Joshua was co-author along with several other graduate students of a study led by principal investigator Kevin LaBar, PhD, on how the brain responds short-term and long-term to close threats and the implications for treating PTSD.

Year of Matriculation: 2018

Sam Hunnicutt

• Hometown:  Fresno, California
• PhD Candidate in Romance Studies
• Sam Hunnicutt majored in Latin American Literatures and Spanish as an undergraduate at the University of California-Berkeley.  He joined the Department of Romance Studies at Duke as a PhD candidate focusing on Latin American Cultural Studies. He won a 2019-2020 FLAS Fellowship award from Duke University’s Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies for K’iche’ Maya language studies. He received a research fellowship from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke in 2023 for his research on Indigenous Revision: Media Technologies and Representation in Late-20th Century Mesoamerica.

Year of Matriculation: 2019

Devon Carter

• Hometown: Belmont, Massachusetts
• PhD Candidate in Musicology
• Devon Carter is a PhD candidate in musicology at Duke University who studies the history of the voice. His in-progress dissertation discusses developments in vocal technique and aesthetics in Europe from roughly 1825 to 1850, focusing on the history and invention of the voice as metaphor for the liberal political self, as well as shifting gender norms and expectations around new methods of vocalization in opera singing. Prior to coming to Duke, Devon studied music and comparative literature (with a focus in literary translation) at Brown University as an undergraduate.

Clara Howell

• Hometown: Morrison, Colorado
• PhD Candidate in Biology
• Clara is a PhD student in the Biology department. Her research focuses on sexually selected traits and their relationship with immune function in songbirds. Before arriving at Duke, Clara received her master’s degree in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, and her bachelor’s degrees in English and Neuroscience at Tulane University in New Orleans. She is originally from Morrison, Colorado.

Alexandra Masgras

• Hometown: Iași, Romania
• PhD Candidate in Art History
• Alexandra Masgras is a PhD candidate in Art History. Under the supervision of Professor Paul Jaskot, Alexandra is researching the relationship between architecture, fascism, and public health in interwar Romania. Her dissertation proposes a more nuanced understanding of how the state instrumentalized architecture in order to enforce public health standards, along with normative conceptions of productivity, reproduction, gender roles, and ability. Furthermore, her research foregrounds Romania’s increasingly racialized public health agenda, responding to the state’s progressive turn towards fascism and closer ties to Nazi Germany. In line with her dissertation, Alexandra’s broader research interests include the relationship between architecture and politics, as well as the interplay between architectural and medical discourses in the twentieth century. Alexandra received a first-class honours degree in Art History from the University of Glasgow, Scotland in 2018. In 2023-2024, Alexandra is pursuing a research fellowship at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

Matthew Reale-Hatem

• PhD Candidate in Environmental Policy
• Matthew Reale-Hatem is a PhD candidate in the University Program in Environmental Policy. Their research interests are in the economics of natural resources, and currently include projects exploring disease management in aquaculture and ecosystem restoration programs. Prior to Duke, Matthew received a BA in Mathematics with a minor in Economics from Pomona College, and has worked as an educator in elementary schools, including a term of service with AmeriCorps.

Grayson Rice

• Hometown: Greensboro, North Carolina
• PhD Candidate in Biomedical Engineering
• Grayson Rice is a PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering. He works in the Gersbach Lab, where he uses high-throughput CRISPR screening to identify genes and regulatory elements involved in neuronal differentiation. He currently serves as the co-chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee in the Biomedical Engineering department. In his free time, he enjoys playing tennis, soccer, and piano.

Adriana Stohn

• Hometown:  Phoenix, Arizona
• PhD Candidate in Electrical & Computer Engineering
• Adriana Stohn is a PhD candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering. As an undergrad in electrical engineering at the University of Arizona, she was the lead facilitator for Girls Who Code, which inspired her to go into academia to become a professor. Currently advised by Professor Michael Gehm, she has been exploring optical engineering, imaging science, and imaging through complex media. Her particular research involves manipulating scatter in optical imaging tasks. Outside of the lab, she enjoys fitness, yoga, sewing, painting.

Year of Matriculation: 2020

Evon Debose-Scarlett

• Hometown:  Gainesville, Florida
• PhD Candidate in Molecular Genetics & Microbiology
• Evon Debose-Scarlett is a Molecular Genetics & Microbiology PhD candidate in the Sullivan lab at Duke University.
• Evon graduated from the University of Florida in 2018 with a bachelor of science in Microbiology and Cell Science and a minor in Sociology.  Her research for her undergraduate thesis, “Effects of Buleberry Phytophenols on Reducing Metabolic Syndrom via the mTOR Pathway” led to several publications.  As a PhD candidate in Molecular Genetics & Microbiology at Duke, Evon joined the Sullivan Lab where she is working with a team on a research grant from the National Institutes of Health on Genomic Analysis of Centromere Assembly and Function.

Ashleigh Harlow

• Hometown: Madison, Alabama
• PhD Candidate in Nursing
• Ashleigh Harlow obtained her BSN from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2008. She has worked in pediatric ICUs and pediatric cardiac ICUs at several children’s hospitals in the US and abroad, including in Morocco and Uganda. Her dissertation research is focused on the mechanisms by which social determinants of health affect parents’ ability to participate in their child’s hospital care, and the way participation in their child’s hospital care affects parent and child outcomes. Her goal is to reduce health inequities for seriously ill children and their families. She is the mother to 3 small children and 2 large golden retrievers and enjoys cooking, snowboarding (not well), and an opportunity for an uninterrupted cup of hot coffee.

Mike Kleynman

• Hometown: Pilesgrove, New Jersey
• PhD Candidate in English
• Mike Kleynman is currently a PhD candidate specializing in contemporary fiction at Duke University, where he’s written on a wide range of topics—Jane Eyre, the films of Jean-Luc Godard, and military training programs.

Nikki Locklear

• PhD Candidate in History
• Nikki Locklear (Lumbee) is a doctoral student whose research interests center on 18th and 19th century Native American histories in what is currently the U.S. South. Within these broad categories, her areas of inquiry include community coalescence and belonging as well as the historical racialization of Native and Afro-Native peoples in the Upper South during the early republic and removal periods. Her primary advisor is Juliana Barr. She is also a member of the University Scholars Program and the Society of Duke Fellows. She graduated with a BA in History from Brown University in 2020. Her undergraduate honors thesis, initiated as a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow project, explored Lumbee political struggles in the 20th century and received a departmental prize.

Gabriela Nagle Alverio

• Hometown: Woodstock, Maryland
• PhD Candidate in Environmental Policy
• Gabriela Nagle Alverio is a J.D. – Ph.D. Candidate in Environmental Policy with a concentration in Political Science at Duke University. Her research interests broadly include the impacts of climate change on human rights and the policy solutions therein. At Duke, she serves as the Executive Director of the Duke Immigrant and Refugee Project, a Staff Editor on the Duke Law Journal, and the Vice President of Academia and Public Interest for the Duke Latin American Law Students Association. She holds a B.A. in International Relations, a B.A. in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and an M.A. in Environmental Communications from Stanford University.

Ben Neubert

• Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• PhD Candidate in Computational Biology & Bioinformatics
• Ben Neubert is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and graduated with a BS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia in 2020. He is a member of Lawrence David’s lab where he develops statistical methods to improve our understanding of how diet shapes the gut microbiome and host health. Outside of the lab, Ben enjoys spending time with friends and family, hiking, reading, and playing video games.

Matthew Slayton

• Hometown: West Windsor, New Jersey
• PhD Candidate in Psychology & Neuroscience
• Matthew Slayton is a PhD Student in the Psychology and Neuroscience program where his advisors are Simon Davis and Jenni Groh. He studies neural representation of concepts, memory, and Alzheimer’s Disease. His current project involves using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to ‘boost’ memory in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and then measuring the changes in brain network activity using fMRI.

Year of Matriculation: 2022

Hannah Kania

• Hometown: Toledo, Ohio
• PhD Candidate in Biology
• Hannah Kania, a PhD candidate in Biology, is inspired by evolutionary genomics and speciation. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2021 and majored in developmental genetics. As an undergraduate, Hannah worked on biological systems in mice models (regeneration biology) and endangered amphibians (conservation genomics). After college, Hannah worked as a research tech in the Wittkopp Lab at the University of Michigan to investigate evolutionary genetics in yeast models. Hannah’s PhD research in the Yoder Lab will focus on understanding the process and patterns of speciation in cryptic mouse lemurs. She is also very passionate about science communication and volunteers with groups in the Triangle Area, including SciREN. Her hobbies include pottery, reading, and exploring local restaurants and coffeeshops.

Kasyoka Mwanzia

• Hometown: Nairobi, Kenya
• PhD Candidate in Cultural Anthropology
• Kasyoka is a PhD student in the department of Cultural Anthropology. She is examining the techno-cultures of youth in Kenya by focusing on the playing and designing of video games. By engaging with the societal and structural dynamics surrounding consumption and production she is interested in thinking about the place specific cultural encounters with contemporary digital technologies within a networked and globalized system. Kasyoka holds a B.A. Graphic Design from Concordia University, Wisconsin and Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design; and an M.A. in Media Arts Cultures from the Erasmus Mundus joint consortium of Danube University, Austria; Aalborg University, Denmark; and City University, Hong Kong. Kasyoka’s interests prioritise work from and of the global south and is a co-convener of an FHI grad working group on African Thought and Media.

Rukimani PV

• Hometown: Omaha, Nebraska
• PhD Candidate in Literature and Critical Theory; Certificates in African and African American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies; Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Rukimani is a PhD student in the program in literature. Their research lies at the intersection between critical race studies and computer science, looking at technology and media’s capacity to be a performative methodological strategy within the notion of resistance. They seek to explore and broaden the intellectual dimensions of critical race theory by examining how racial subjectivities shift with respect to technology and modernity, with a focus on migrant communities in the US.

Year of Matriculation: 2023

Christian Gibson

• Hometown: Oviedo, Florida
• PhD Candidate in Medical Physics
• Christian Gibson is a Ph.D. student in the Medical Physics program at the Duke School of Medicine, specializing in radiotherapy. He received a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and Physics from the University of Miami in 2023. While at the University of Miami, he was involved in two research labs. One of the labs investigated fluid flow around sea star larvae and the other investigated factors related to hidden hearing loss. Currently at Duke, he is researching the implementation and testing of quality assurance-related software in radiation devices. Upon completion of his studies at Duke, he plans to attend an accredited medical physics residency program and become a licensed medical physicist.

Gabriel Mesa

• Hometown: Miami, Florida
• PhD Candidate in Cell & Molecular Biology
• Gabriel Mesa graduated from Wofford College in 2017 and then worked as a research associate at the Broad Institute for 2 years before joining the Cell and Molecular Biology program here at Duke. He likes soccer, baking, and rock climbing and is passionate about helping undergraduates figure out their career goals. 

Kira Meyer

• Hometown: Oldenburg, Germany
• PhD Candidate in Ecology
• Kira graduated from the University of Bayreuth in Germany where she was enrolled in the Master’s programme in Biodiversity and Ecology. She is always looking for possibilities to actively take part in the fight against climate change impacts and also wants to establish interdisciplinary approaches that animate people to join her in this endeavour. In her PhD she is hoping to incorporate this approach in order to tackle climate change related challenges with a specific focus on savanna and forest ecosystems. Kira enjoys travelling to remote and not so remote places and meeting new people along the way. She is looking forward to having engaged discussions about ecology and societal transformations.
  

Chelsea Middleton

• Hometown: Greensboro, North Carolina
• PhD Candidate in Civil & Environmental Engineering
• Chelsea graduated with a bachelor of science in civil engineering and a minor in engineering management from Vanderbilt University. She is a PhD candidate in Civil & Environmental Engineering with a specialization in Engineering Environmental Geomechanics and Geophysics focusing on drinking water. In addition to being named a University Scholar, Chelsea is a Sloan Scholar and a Dean’s Graduate Fellow.

Siobhan O’Muirtcheartaigh

• Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
• PhD Candidate in Public Policy
• Siobhan is a Ph.D. student in Public Policy at the Sanford School, concentrating in Psychology. Broadly, she is interested in social influences on decision-making and behavior, among both policymakers and the public. Her research interests include behavioral public policy, long-lasting behavioral interventions (including in early childhood), and the policy process. Before coming to Duke, Siobhan worked in education research at the American Institutes for Research in Washington DC, and in survey methodology as a project manager at the European Social Survey in London, UK. Originally from Chicago, Siobhan holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.Sc. in Public Policy and Administration from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Year of Matriculation: 2024

Ethan Barrett

• • Hometown: Stowe, Vermont
  • PhD in English, Certificates in African and African American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
  • Bio:

 

Esteban Ortiz

• Hometown: El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
• PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology
• Esteban is from the border town of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. He attended Washington University in St. Louis, followed by a post-bacc role at Brown University. At Duke, Esteban is interested in intervention research with youth and adolescents from marginalized groups (specifically Spanish speaking populations) that focuses on mitigating the impacts of early childhood trauma. Outside of school, Esteban enjoys playing music, finding people to play D&D with, and learning origami patterns.

Leo Ramírez

• Hometown: Austin, Texas
• PhD candidate in History
• Leo Ramirez is a first year history PhD Student with research interests in race, state, and intellectual history in Mexico and Latin America. He graduated with a bachelor’s in Humanities and History from the University of Texas at Austin, with projects exploring indigenismo in late 19th-early 20th Mexico and early colonial Afro-Peruvians.

Kiana Sabugo

• Hometown: Santa Barbara, California
• PhD candidate in Psychology and Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience Admitting Program
• My research explores the influence of cognitive experiences such as mind wandering, meditation, and metacognition on beliefs related to free will and self-control. I am largely interested in how individuals’ perceptions of cognitive control may impact both intrapersonal domains— such as emotion regulation skills, and interpersonal domains— such as moral judgments and decision making. Prior to coming to Duke, I received my B.S. in Psychological & Brain Sciences and B.A. in Philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara. There, I worked as a research assistant on a project examining the neural bases of emotion-facilitated movement in Parkinson’s patients.  In addition to research, I enjoy singing with my ukulele, being in nature, exercising, and playing with my 1-year-old cat, Marsha.

Sierra Smith

• Hometown: Bel Air, Maryland
• PhD candidate in Toxicology and Environmental Health
• Sierra earned her B.A. in Neuroscience with a concentration in Environmental Studies from Kenyon College in 2022. As an undergraduate, she conducted research on how the extracellular environment of a nerve influences peripheral nervous system patterning. After graduation, Sierra joined the Duke cell biology department as a research technician where she studied tissue morphogenesis using the semicircular canals of zebrafish as a model. Sierra is now a first year student in the Integrated Toxicology and Environmental Health PhD program interested in studying the environmental and human health impacts of heavy metal and PFAS chemical exposure. Outside of lab, you can find her painting, backpacking, or enjoying a good book!

Elizabeth Weyl

• Hometown: Owasso, Oklahoma
• PhD candidate in Environment
• Elizabeth Weyl is a first-year PhD student at the Nicholas School of Environment. She has a Bachelor of Science in Geological Engineering, focused on geotechnical and groundwater modeling. Elizabeth is broadly interested in hydrology, data sovereignty, and indigenous-based research. She is a proud member of the Osage and Cherokee tribes based in Oklahoma. She is passionate about equitable access to clean water, accessible scientific communication, and creating community. In her spare time, Elizabeth enjoys reading, crocheting, hiking, and camping with her dog.