Three Alumnae Receive NSF Fellowships

The National Science Foundation has awarded Graduate Research Fellowships to Jessica Counihan ’10, Anna Eisenstein ’13, and Maria Liberti ’13.

Counihan, who received a chemistry/interdisciplinary (architecture) degree, is a Ph.D. candidate in metabolic biology at UC–Berkeley. Her research is focused on discovering new therapeutic strategies to treat human diseases by developing and applying innovative chemoproteomic and metabolomic platforms to map metabolic and chemical drivers. The goal is to find pharmacological solutions for cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and inflammation.

Eisenstein, an anthropology & sociology and government & law graduate, conducted research with Andrea Smith, associate professor of anthropology and sociology (photo above), which inspired her graduate study. She is pursuing a doctorate in anthropology at University of Virginia. “My work is an intersection of medical and linguistic anthropology. Using close semiotic analysis, I explore how medical systems configure the relationships of care—from the exchange of words to gaze to touch—privileging some modes of healing and foreclosing on others.”

Liberti is a Ph.D. candidate in biochemistry at Cornell. She is targeting glucose metabolism in cancer, known as the Warburg Effect, using therapeutic compounds. “I use metabolomics to analyze and quantify metabolite levels in cells. I am able to determine changes in response to perturbations in various steps of cancer cell glucose metabolism,” says Liberti, a biology graduate.