Women in Science

Ana Maldonado-Contreras, PhD, studies the gut microbiome and chronic disease, in particular inflammatory bowel disease, and is now working to understand how gut microbes can predispose patients to severe COVID complications.

Minjin Kim is dedicating her career to addressing cross-cultural differences among Asian American women that may account for health disparities, such as low rates of vaccination against human papilloma virus.

Melissa Fischer, MD, MEd, is as passionate about teaching medicine as she is about practicing it. At UMass Medical School, she is shaping how generations of physicians are trained.

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences student Kellianne Alexander has been awarded a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Graduate Fellowship. Learn more about her research in this Women in Science video.

Biomedical sciences career development expert Cynthia Fuhrmann, PhD, discusses her own pioneering career in this latest Women in Science video.

The Graduate School of Nursing’s Jill Terrien, PhD, advances interprofessional learning and health care as an education leader at UMass Medical School. Learn more in this Women in Science video.

As the diabetes epidemic continues to grow, researchers are redoubling their efforts to understand the mechanisms that cause the disease. Learn about how MD/PhD candidate Rachel Stamateris is studying the disease in this Women in Science video.

Susanne Muehlschlegel, MD, MPH, explains her research into improving goals-of-care decisions for severe acute brain-injured patients, in this Women in Science video.

The single-minded goal of cardiologist and scientist Jane Freedman, MD, is to seek insights that will help heal patients with heart disease. Learn about her research and career in the latest Women in Science video.

Tessa Simone, PhD, a postdoc in the lab of Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, is focused on identifying ways to teach the immune system to attack cancerous tumors without harming healthy tissue. Learn about her research  in the latest Women in Science video.

Raziel Rojas-Rodriguez, a PhD candidate in the Program in Molecular Medicine, is studying how adipose tissue expansion during pregnancy is related to metabolic health. Learn more about her research in this Women in Science video. 

Ishani Dasgupta, PhD, a postdoc in the lab of Dannel McCollum, PhD, is a cell biologist interested in how cells communicate with each other. Learn more about her research in this Women in Science video.

As senior director of clinical affairs at MassBiologics of UMass Medical School, Heidi Smith, MD, PhD, is focused on developing products that address unmet medical needs and diseases of public health concern. Learn more in this Women in Science video.

In this Women in Science video, Clare M. Smith, PhD, a postdoc in the Sassetti lab, talks about her research into the genetic basis for susceptibility to the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. 

In this Women in Science video, PhD candidate Yvonne Chan talks about her exploration of how proteins fold and maintain their three-dimensional structure.

Zhiping Weng, PhD, director of the Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology Program, has received $7.2 million from the NIH to continue an international effort to catalog all the genes and regulatory elements in the human genome. She talks about her research in this Women in Science video.

Jill A. Zitzewitz, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry & molecular pharmacology, is working to decipher the molecular basis of protein misfolding diseases, such as ALS and Alzheimer’s. Hear more about her research and mentoring in this Women in Science video.

Shlomit Schaal, MD, PhD, professor and chair ophthalmology, featured in the latest Women in Science video, studies diabetic retinopathy disease. Learn about her research and career.

In this Women in Science video, Molly Waring, PhD, assistant professor of quantitative health sciences and obstetrics & gynecology, talks about her research exploring how technology and social media can help mothers maintain a healthy weight.

Katherine A. Fitzgerald, PhD, is recognized as an international leader in the field of innate immunity. Her long career studying the molecular basis of host defense and the inflammatory process was launched when, as a teen growing up in Ireland, she enrolled in a summer research internship at a local hospital. Learn about her research and career in this Women in Science video.

In this Women In Science video, MD/PhD student Miriam Goldberg talks about her PhD project  to develop technologies that improve quality of life and bolster independence for people with temporary or chronic physical and neurodevelopmental disabilities.