2000’s Graduates

Bindu Abraham, PhD in Chemistry ’06

Bindu completed her doctoral research work in the pursuit of photochemical initiation protein modification. After her Ph.D., she worked at the Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry Facility at the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disorders, NIH and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), FDA, investigating post translational modifications on proteins using mass spectrometry. After a brief break, she transitioned into teaching and currently teaches undergraduate chemistry at UMBC.

Kathleen Davies, MS in Chemistry ’04
Kathleen is currently employed at the Food and Drug Administration, Office of New Drugs.

Behzad Farivar, MS in Chemistry ’04
Medical Student at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. MD expected May 2008.

Stacy Gelhaus, PhD in Chemistry ’05
Stacy is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Cancer Pharmacology in the School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. She received an NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Fall of 2007 from the NIEHS for her work on environmental carcinogen metabolism, specifically PAHs.

Kenneth Gibbs Jr. BS Biochemistry; ’05) named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Ivy Hamill MS in Chemistry ’09
Ivy spent the last 8 years working on inhaled product development through phase IIB at Merck. While she had a scientific background, she quickly realized that she was much more interested in and fulfilled by her experiences working on teams to tackle a new initiative or providing technical training to a group of colleagues. She has recently started a position in the Stability group at Celgene.

Luke Higgins, BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology ’00
Luke graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Ph.D. in Chemistry. Luke’s Ph.D. thesis research was performed in the laboratory of Dr. Catherine L. Drennan in the Department of Chemistry. The title of Luke’s thesis was “Structural Analysis of Hydroxypropylphosphonic Acid Epoxidase: A Fosfomycin Biosynthetic Enzyme.” Luke’s thesis work was published in the journal Nature. After his Ph.D. Luke pursued post-doctoral study at Harvard/Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the laboratory of Richard T. Lee. Luke then earned a M.D. degree from Stanford University School of Medicine in 2010 pursuing research in molecular imaging and radiology. Currently Luke is a transitional resident and will be starting a Radiology Residency (Research Track) at Johns Hopkins Hospital working in the laboratory of Dr. Martin G. Pomper M.D., Ph.D..

Anna Korovina, BS in Chemistry ’05
After working at a pharmaceutical company for over a year, Anna is now pursuing her PhD at the George Washington University; concurrently, she works at the Naval Research Laboratory continuing research to finish her dissertation.

Chrysa Latrick, BS in Biochemistry ’03
Chrysa joined the graduate program in Biochemistry at the University of Colorado where she is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Tom Cech.

Matthew Loftus, BS in Chemistry ’07
Matt has received the prestigious Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholarship. Only 34 students in the nation received this year’s scholarship, which honors high achieving students with financial need. Considered one of the most generous U.S. academic awards, it provides up to $50,000 per year for up to six years of graduate or professional study in any field. Now in his first year at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Loftus came to UMBC on a Jack Kent Cooke Transfer Scholarship. He spent summers doing volunteer work in Africa and was vice president of Students Taking Action Now in Darfur (STAND). He received the William Donald Schaefer Award for the best applicant to the Maryland International Education Association scholarship when he studied abroad in Cairo, Egypt.

Ronita Marple, PhD in Chemistry ’05
Ronita is now employed with the Procter & Gamble Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. She holds the position of scientist in the beauty analytical sciences division of the company, specifically in the hair care franchise. Ronita recently returned from a business trip including stops in Sweden, Russia, England, and Belgium to consult in collaborations at Lund University (Lund, Sweden) and the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg, Russia). Ronita has numerous publications in various scientific journals and has given several presentations at international conferences.

Jaime Miller, BS in Biochemistry ’06
Jaime has applied and was accepted into the MD/PhD program at UVA.

Sylvester Mosley, PhD Organic Chemistry ’06
After graduation, Sylvester spent almost 10 years at the US FDA working on food additive safety. Following this, Sylvester joined The Coca-Cola Company to manage Food Contact Material Safety for the global market. Currently, as a Senior Manager, Sylvester leads the Food Safety function for Coca-Cola North America’s Scientific and Regulatory Affairs.

Stephanie Nunez, BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology ’06
UMBC’s 2006 Valedictorian, Stephanie is persuing a combined D.D.S./Ph.D. at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry.

Olubukola Ojewoye, BS in Chemistry ’08
Olubukola was awarded the Pfizer Minority Medical Scholarship, attended the Meharry Medical College and is now practicing medicine in Nashville, Tennessee.

Joy Rogers, PhD in Chemistry ’01
Joy has been working as a research scientist for the past five years at the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, OH. She is studying structure-property relationships of chromophores for use in nonlinear optical applications.

Meera Shah, BS in Chemistry ’01; MS Chemistry ’02
Meera graduated from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine with a Doctorate of.Osteopathy. She then obtained an MBA in Healthcare Administration from St. Joseph’s University.

Adjoa Smalls-Mantey, BS in Biochemistry ’07
Adjoa is currently a first year student in Columbia’s MSTP program in conjunction with the NIH/Oxford/Cambridge Graduate Partnership Program.

Kristie Stone, BS in Chemistry ’03
After graduating with a MA in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University, Kristie accepted a position with the Baltimore City Police to be a part of their Mobile Crime Scene Unit.

Steven Stone, BS in Chemistry ’06
After obtaining a B.S. in chemistry from UMBC, Steve went on to graduate with an M.S. in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Washington. He am currently working as a Forensic Scientist with the Washington State Patrol.

Olusegun Williams, BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology ’05
Olusegun is a former United Negro College Fund-Merck fellow and is now an NSF pre-doctoral fellow in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, San Francisco.

Jing Zhou, PhD in Chemistry ’05
Jing is a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. She is currently a member of the DANSE (Distributed Data Analysis for Neutron Scattering Experiments) project. The goals of the DANSE project are to build a software system that 1) enables new and more sophisticated science to be performed with neutron scattering experiments, 2) makes the analysis of data easier for all scientists, and 3) provides a robust software infrastructure that can be maintained in the future.