2026 Biological Sciences Newsletter
Message From the Chair
Greetings to all of our alumni from the George Washington University Department of Biological Sciences!
The 2025-26 academic year was challenging and exciting year for biology students, faculty and staff. During the summer of 2025, we moved out of our home in Bell Hall to let construction workers perform major renovations to our space. The whole building received brand new windows, flooring and wall finishes, in addition to some HVAC upgrades. These upgrades were very well received by all and it was really worth the disruption!
Our students—both BS majors in biology and neuroscience and PhDs—continue to thrive and we now offer two new non-thesis concentrations within the MS in biological science that launched last fall. Students looking to enhance their knowledge of a specific area of biology while gaining additional quantitative analysis and laboratory skills through applied courses may apply to either the biodiversity science concentration or the cellular and molecular biology concentration. We are excited to be recruiting our second cohort this fall!
In this newsletter, you will read about the cutting-edge research of two of our faculty, Jimmy Saw, an assistant professor who was awarded a prestigious NSF-CAREER grant, and Keryn Gedan, an associate professor with a well-funded research program in the Chesapeake Bay. Both spend significant time in the field to study their particular ecosystems, collecting data and samples for study.
Thank you so much for your support and involvement. Please stay in touch.
Guillermo Ortí
Louis Weintraub Professor and Chair
Department Spotlights
Marshes and Microbes: Exploring Ecosystem Evolution
From the Chesapeake Bay coastal bays along the mid-Atlantic to extreme environments like hydrothermal vents near volcanoes and along the ocean floor, biology faculty perform field work on nature’s frontlines.
In a science-focused conversation hosted by CCAS Dean Paul Wahlbeck, faculty members including Associate Professor Keryn Gedan and Assistant Professor of Biology Jimmy Saw discussed some of their research in environmental hotspots.
Gedan specializes in tidal wetland ecology and conservation biology, working primarily along the Chesapeake Bay. She investigates how climate change factors, particularly sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion, are altering natural coastlines. “People depend on those ecosystems and the change is happening right now before our eyes,” she said, noting that “We all depend on the same ecosystems—there is no planet B.”
Saw explores the diversity, ecology and evolution of microbes in extreme habitats. Often traveling to volcanic sites in Hawaii and terrestrial hot springs across the western United States, he collects microbes that exist in conditions resembling Earth at the dawn of life. Extreme-environment microbes serve as evolutionary models for modern habitats that are increasingly subject to harsh conditions.
The dean’s conversation event was covered in the CCAS Spotlight newsmagazine.
Think Fast: Biology Student Sprints to Speed-Thesis Win
Biology PhD candidate Ashley Bastin condensed years of research into 180 seconds to win the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition.
Every year at GW, we celebrate the research conducted by PhD students. Developed by The University of Queensland, 3MT enhances presentation and research communication skills by challenging students to effectively explain their research in three minutes, in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience.
For her project, “Trained to Destroy: Uncovering the Causes of HIV-Associated Dementias,” Bastin received $1,000 in prize money and will have the opportunity to compete in the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools regional tournament.
“Being able to present on this research at...Three Minute Thesis helps bring attention to a condition that is widely unknown, yet impacts so many people,” said Bastin, who hopes that her work will translate into treatments and preventative measures that help to better the lives of those living with the disorder around the world.
The 3MT Contest was featured in the CCAS Spotlight newsmagazine.
Department Kudos
- Yair Ben-Dor, BA ’25, won best student poster and a $500 prize at the Annual Meeting of the Lepidopterists’ Society for his research on host-associated differentiation in the oak dagger moth.
- PhD candidate Christina N. Garvey Griffith and Leon Grayfer were co-authors on the article “The contribution of amphibian macrophage subsets to scarless regeneration of skin wounds” in Frontiers in Immunology.
- Keryn Gedan received a $44,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study climate drivers and ecosystem state change in a coastal barrier landscape.
- Aleksandar Jeremic was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to support his sabbatical leave in spring 2026. He specializes in the biology of the human pancreatic hormone amylin, one of the causes of type-2 diabetes mellitus and will devote his sabbatical at the University of Belgrade to acquire new training in plant biology, polymer chemistry and statistics. His goal is to uncover potential solutions by applying advances in the rapidly developing areas of macro and supramolecular chemistry and spectroscopy.
- Arnaud Martin received a $320,000 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research-MURI program to study cellular mechanics in butterfly wing scales.
- Damien O’Halloran received a $444,125 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study cross-class selection for anthelmintic resistance in the hookworm Ancylostoma caninum, with co-PI J.M. Hawdon (GWU, MITM).
- Alexander Pyron and Linyi Zhang published “The species problem evolving in the Anthropocene” in Nature Reviews Biodiversity.
- Postdoctoral Fellow Aintzane Santaquitería and Guillermo Ortí were co-authors on the article “Ecological and genomic signatures of the convergent evolution of planktivory in fossil and living reef fishes over deep time” in Nature Communications.
Alumni Class Notes
- Allec Allee-Munoz, BS ’18, is a practicing resident physician in the Bay Area.
- Dahiana Arcila, PhD ’17, is the curator of the Marine Vertebrate Collection and assistant professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego. Her research integrates comparative genomics, phylogenomics, phylogenetic comparative methods, paleontological data, biogeography and seascape analyses to address fundamental questions in marine biology.
- Terence Babcock, BS ’67, is a retired cardiothoracic surgeon in Texas.
- Ryan Barnette, BS ’06, is a double board-certified anesthesiologist and intensivist in Los Angeles.
- Troy Desai, BS ’98, is a neurologist in Pittsburgh, specializing in treatment of multiple sclerosis and related conditions. He also runs clinical trials and is heavily involved in teaching medical students and residents. He enjoys volunteering for Tree Pittsburgh.
- Hibah Fatteh, BS ’25, graduated from an MA program in bioethics and medical humanities from Case Western Reserve University this spring. In the fall, she will begin a PhD at the University of Wisconsin Madison in environmental toxicology.
- Kirk Fitzhugh, PhD ’88, has been the curator of polychaetes at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County for the past 35 years. His research has focused on the philosophy of science and systematics and evolution of ubiquitous marine worms called polychaetes.
- Richard Giudice, BA ’74, is a retired hematologist/oncologist living in San Diego. Richard practiced medicine for 30 years in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
- Marwa Hameed, BS ’24, discovered her love for research after joining a lab through the MITM department at the GW Medical School during her junior year. Continuing on, she is set to complete her MS in public health microbiology and emerging infectious disease at GWSPH!
- Steven Handler, BS ’86, is a staff radiologist at the 355th Medical Group at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.
- Muhammad Riadul Haque Hossainey, PhD ’24, is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cellular Immunology Lab at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, MD. His primary research focuses on immune responses and mechanisms of novel mRNA vaccines against malaria.
- Nicolas A. Hazzi, PhD ’23, is an assistant professor of biology at the Universidad Industrial de Santander in Bucaramanga, Colombia.
- Aditya Loganathan, BS ’23, is working as a research coordinator in the Emergency Department at GW while pursuing his MBA. He co-invented a new guidewire for central lines and co-founded a company to commercialize this technology.
- Naomi Naik, BS ’17, is an associate director on FGS Global’s Health team, bringing expertise in commercial and public health to client engagements.
- Cecily Phua, BS ’25, is an emergency room technician at MedStar Georgetown University.
- James Potter, BS ’65, held faculty positions at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Cincinnati before serving for 27 years as chair of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Miami School of Medicine. After retiring from academia, he embraced a new chapter running a horse farm in Kentucky, continuing his passion for management and care in a different field.
- Tahlia Price-Rivera, BS ’19, earned her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine from Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine. She is currently in her first year of anesthesiology residency at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn.
- Ronita Royster Hayes, BS ’95, is a high school biology teacher in Prince William County, VA. She recently returned from a European summer trip and visited several parts of Italy and France with her family.
- Gail Sanderson, BS ’68, worked in medical research for three years and returned to school to become a registered nurse in a critical care specialty. Gail is presently retired.
- Sanghamitra Singh, PhD ’17, is a senior public health leader serving as chief of programmes at the Population Foundation of India. She drives strategic vision and execution of transformative initiatives across national and state contexts, while shaping global thought leadership on equity, rights and gender in public health.
- Kaitlynn Slattery, BS ’22, is beginning the second year of her PhD in tumor biology through the NIH-Georgetown Graduate Partnerships Program.
- Andrew W. Thompson, PhD ’16, is an assistant professor at the Department of Biological Sciences, Western Michigan University. He is an evolutionary geneticist investigating the evolution of suspended animation and sex determination/differentiation in annual and non-annual killifishes.
- Mitchell Zeitler, BS ’76, practiced anesthesiology at Montgomery General Hospital (now Medstar Montgomery MC) in Olney, MD, followed by a move to Naples, FLA, at Cleveland Clinic Fl.