Kristeena Wright of Richmond, Virginia, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate at Marshall University, is one of 19 young scientists from colleges and universities across the United States who arrived on Capitol Hill Thursday to meet with senators and representatives about the value of biomedical research.
Now in its seventh year, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s (ASBMB) Hill Day gave Wright and 18 other young researchers the chance to participate in up to 90 meetings with lawmakers and congressional staff about the work they are doing.
Diana Maue, Graduate Recruitment and Communication Coordinator in Marshall’s Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, said Wright is someone she trusts to represent the university’s Biomedical Sciences, Ph.D. program and its students in any setting.
“She is kind, approachable, intelligent, professional and hard-working,” Maue said. “Kristeena has shown considerable growth as a person and scientist over the last five years, and continues to demonstrate perseverance through the challenges of such a demanding doctoral program. I am proud of who Kristeena has become, and look forward to seeing how she chooses to use her many talents in the future.”
Undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral scholars participating in the program hail from academic institutions across America. They collaborated with members of the ASBMB’s Public Affairs Advisory Committee to highlight the critical role that federal investments in research play in supporting the nation’s scientific enterprise and how those investments will lead to improvements in the quality of life and well-being of Americans.
“We are thrilled to be bringing such an enthusiastic team of scientists to be advocates on behalf of all of the biomedical research community,” said ASBMB Public Affairs Director Benjamin Corb. “During these challenging fiscal times, scientists must engage in the policy debates that are shaping investments in research and must make the case for why such congressional support is needed.”
The young researchers joining Corb’s team articulated these concerns to lawmakers and presented their own research.
The 2015 Hill Day student participants were:
- Tara Gonzalez of Howell, New Jersey, a graduate student at the University of Delaware
- Jackie Thompson of Paola, Kansas, a graduate student at the University of Kansas Medical Center
- Melanie Alvarado of Anchorage, Alaska, a graduate student at the University of Alaska Anchorage
- Torrey Truszkowski of Providence, Rhode Island, a graduate student at Brown University
- Kristeena Wright of Richmond, Virginia, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate at Marshall University
- Kimberly Sauls of Beaufort, South Carolina, a fifth-year Ph.D. student at the Medical University of South Carolina
- Jeannette Osterloh of Orinda, California, a postdoctoral fellow at the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco
- Dakota Pouncey, an undergraduate student at Hendrix College in Arkansas
- Taylor Fuselier, a graduate student at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans
- Ryan Kelley of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
- Aminul Islam of Bethesda, Maryland, a postdoctoral fellow at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland
- Chistopher Yarosh of Scranton, Pennsylvania, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania
- Joshua Mieher, a graduate student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham
- Amy Hawkins of Sterling, Virginia, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City
- Megan Sheridan of Lake St. Louis, Missouri, a graduate student at the University of Missouri–Columbia
- Lynn Ulatowski of South Euclid, Ohio, a postdoctoral fellow at Case Western Reserve University
- Jarod Rollins, a postdoctoral fellow at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Maine
- Tyler Stanage, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Kelli Lytle, an Oregon State University graduate student
