June 6, 2025
This week The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology welcomed the arrival of more than a dozen undergraduate students from colleges around the United States and Puerto Rico.
The students will spend their summer internships gathering data and learning new scientific skills while working alongside graduate student and postdoctoral research mentors within labs across campus, in departments including chemistry, neuroscience, molecular medicine and the High-Throughput Molecular Screening Center. Things move quickly during the summer. After learning basic lab safety skills on Monday, they moved right into their assigned labs, where they were given new research projects and direction on how to start conducting experiments.
No pressure! Well, perhaps a bit. Their summer work will lead to a juried poster session and reception on August 8, where they’ll be expected to discuss their research project and the data they created to anyone who visits.
The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows program is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Research Experieces for Undergraduates program. This year saw enormous interest in the institute’s undergraduate internships, with nearly 600 applicants for 10 slots, said Rosie Albarran Zeckler, Ph.D., the institute’s education outreach coordinator.
In addition to their lab work, the students participate in seminars and training sessions all summer long, she said.
“They meet twice a week to hear about research here, and there’s also a program to help them prepare to apply to graduate schools,” Albarran Zeckler said. “These interns are really, really good, there’s an energy and excitement that’s great to see.”
Congratulations to The Wertheim UF Scripps 2025 Summer Undergraduate Interns:
- Victoria Arinella, from Suffolk University, interning in the High Throughput Molecular Screening Center with Timothy Spicer, Ph.D., and Louis Scampavia, Ph.D.
- Nathan Azimov, from Purdue University, interning with neurosientist Sathya Puthanveettil, Ph.D.
- Emilie Beers, from Grove City College, interning with Immunology & Microbiology Associate Professor Laura Solt, Ph.D.
- Bianca Delia, from California State University San Marcos, interning with Molecular Medicine Associate Professor Ezgi Hacisuleyman, Ph.D.
- Sara Desai, from Case Western Reserve University, interning with Immunology & Microbiology Department Chair Susana Valente, Ph.D.
- Erik Fernandez, from the University of Miami, interning with Ryoma Hattori, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience.
- Kinlie Gililland, from the University of Tulsa, interning with Kirill Martemyanov, Ph.D., who chairs the Department of Neuroscience
- Zachary Hooper, from the University of New Hampshire, who is interning with cancer biologist Michalina Janiszewska, Ph.D., in the Department of Molecular Medicine
- Ajay Inampudi, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, interning in the lab of Professor and Scientific Director Patrick Griffin, Ph.D.
- Zachary Locoff, from Colorado State University, interning with neuroscientist Sathya Puthanveettil, Ph.D.
- Haley Maury, from Syracuse University, interning in the lab of chemist Ciaran Seath, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry.
- Eunice Park, from the University of Central Florida, interning in the lab of neuroscientist Baoji Xu, Ph.D.
- Marimel Rolón Rivera from the University of Puerto Rico Ponce, interning with the medicinal chemistry lab under Research Professor Thomas Bannister, Ph.D.