Student Profiles
Shannon Reilly
Doctoral student, Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases
In the seventh grade Shannon Reilly decided to school herself at home. Her goal was modest: “I wanted to learn everything about how the human body works.” Shannon’s childhood fascination with science and health was partly inspired by her mother, a physical therapist and nutrition “fanatic.” Her affinity for quantitative analysis came from her father, a mathematician. These interests coalesced at college, where Shannon double majored in chemistry and biochemistry at Mount Holyoke and the University of Mass achusetts, Amherst: “I was a zeolite soaking up information like water.” Shannon spent every summer during college doing research, including two summers in a University of Massachusetts laboratory working on the T7 RNA polymerase, “an ideal system for studying transcription.” She applied to the doctoral program at HSPH because she wanted to apply a molecular point of view to illuminate the links between metabolic diseases and nutrition. Shannon says, “I chose the program rather than the school, but now I find that public health is the way to make a difference.” For her dissertation, Shannon is investigating the importance of transcriptional repression in regulating muscle function and obesity. Outside the lab she “maintains her sanity” through graphic design, yoga, and (weather permitting) swims across Doug Pond. In the future she sees herself as an academic researcher: “I am always so curious to see the results of my latest experiments.”
Prerna Bhargava
Ph.D. student, Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases
In applying to graduate programs, Prerna knew that she wanted to focus on clinically based research, looking at disease pathways and how they might be modified to restore homeostasis. She chose the HSPH program because it is one of the few that centers on the disease itself and enables students to gain different perspectives from field to lab. Prerna was drawn to the lab of Professor Chih-Hao Lee, where the research concentrates on metabolic diseases. She enjoys the atmosphere of the lab and the freedom to pursue her own interests, particularly outcomes of infections in relation to metabolic diseases and aging. Understanding how immune cells incorporate metabolic cues to kill bacteria allows her to examine host pathways that can be manipulated to strengthen the immune response to pathogens. Ultimately, Prerna hopes to comprehend how traditional herbal remedies from various cultures can help alter the host’s metabolic system to bring about positive outcomes during infection.
Christian Dibble
Doctoral student, Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases
Christian Dibble has always been interested in science, but over the years his focus has shifted from environmental sciences to molecular biology. After graduating from Cornell, where he majored in plant molecular biology, Christian was drawn to Boston and its mix of universities and biotech companies. Christian first landed a job as a research assistant in a neurobiology lab at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center. Next he spent over five years in the oncology group at Curis, Inc., researching drugs that could be used to block the Hedgehog signaling pathway, involved in the progression of some cancers. (One of these drugs is now being tested clinically.) By then Christian was sure he wanted to make cancer the focus of his career. “Unfortunately, during our lifetime we all know someone who develops cancer,” he observes. “And cancer is a fascinating context in which to study cell biology.” As a doctoral student Christian is working with Assistant Professor Brendan Manning in the Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases on another signaling pathway, TSC1/2-mTOR, key to the development of certain metabolic diseases and cancers. “I feel very motivated and excited by the research I am doing,” he says. His other main enthusiasm is music—Christian collects classic soul and does a weekly broadcast on an internet radio station.