A huge congratulations to CMB student Katie Mueller, who was inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society for 2021! Katie’s research focuses on developing next-generation cell and gene therapies across broad applications, including brain cancer and retinal disease. She developed a strategy to efficiently generate therapeutic immune cells that are trained to recognize and kill cancer cells. Katie is also interested in creating tools to track and model the behavior of these gene edited cells, to better understand and predict the ways that they behave inside the human body. She played a leadership role with the NSF Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies, including a year as Student Leadership Council Chair, serving over 100 trainees across the institution. Katie holds a traineeship with the NIH Biotechnology Training Program and is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Katie is a passionate advocate for an intersectional understanding of mental health concerns in academia. She co-founded an organization focused on peer support and skill building to address social and environmental challenges in grad school. Through this group, she designed a climate survey for her institute in partnership with the LEAD Center, and she has co-developed over 20 case studies tackling topics ranging from racism and sexism in STEM labs to mentor/mentee relationships. She is a committed mentor to a dozen mentees ranging from high school research interns to junior graduate students, with a particular focus on supporting her fellow queer scientists. She plans to defend a DELTA certificate in teaching and learning this spring.
You can read more and watch the virtual induction ceremony here.