Trainee Spotlight 2025

Adam's interest in molecular biology originally began during my sophomore year of college in a Plant Physiology class. For a term project, he assessed phototropism (directional response to light stimulus) in cucumber seedlings following UV-C radiation. Adam was fascinated by how stationary plants could distinguish and respond to both “bad” and “good” light stimuli. This curiosity led him to realize that understanding these responses required a strong foundation in molecular biology. After graduating from Trinity University in 2013, he spent two years as a research assistant in a microRNA cancer laboratory, where he learned a wide range of molecular biology techniques and explored the relationship between RNA-binding proteins and small RNAs. These interests became the focus of his dissertation at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where he was twice honored with the Barbara H. Bowman Student of the Year Award. His research on neuronal differentiation therapies sparked a new interest in how highly polarized cells, such as neurons, manage distant compartments far from the nucleus.

Adam subsequently began his postdoctoral training in the Fall of 2021 under the mentorship of Dr. Gary Bassell, with the goal of shifting from Cancer Biology to Neuroscience. In the first few months of joining the lab, he was able to leverage his genomics background and mined public datasets resulting in a FRAXA Foundation Fellowship in the Spring of 2022. He then expanded upon this project by being awarded a National Institute of Mental Health F32 Fellowship to study how microRNAs and RNA-binding proteins, like FMRP, could influence neuron function. His work on FMRP led to co-authorship on a recent paper in iScience (Shi et al. 2025).  Over the last few years, spurred by Dr. Bassell’s encouragement, he has expanded his focus from microRNAs to other types of small RNAs like tRNAs. Adam's recent postdoctoral work inspired him to pursue an independent research program exploring the importance of tRNA biology in the central nervous system, as evidenced by a first-author commentary he recently authored for Molecular Cell on the topic of proteome diversity (Kosti and Bassell, 2025).

Hadassah's academic career and passion for research began while working as a caregiver for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, where she developed a deep desire to understand the neurobiological changes that erode memory and personality. She completed a B.S. in Neuroscience at Colorado State University, where she worked with Dr. Seonil Kim investigating how prenatal pharmaceutical exposure contributes to synaptic alterations in early development, resulting in a co-first-author publication (Roh et al., Neuropharmacology). She went on to complete an M.S. in Biomedical Sciences investigating genetic, autism-related synaptic dysfunction, which culminated in a co-first-author publication (Mendez-Vazquez et al., PNAS). She elected to pursue my doctoral education in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Emory University and joined the lab of Dr. Victor Faundez and Dr. Erica Werner in 2024. In her thesis research, she uses multiple model systems, -omics, and molecular biology approaches to investigate how environmental toxicants disrupt mitochondrial function to drive the onset of neurodegeneration and neurological disease. This work was recognized with the John B. Lyon Memorial Scholarship Award and contributed to a preprint currently under submission (Gokhale et al., bioRxiv). Hadassah's early doctoral training has been supported by a T32 fellowship and the Centennial Scholars Fellowship, after which she received the HHMI Gilliam Fellowship and the ARCS Foundation Scholar Award. Hadassah is passionate about fostering inclusive excellence in science and scientific training and currently serve as Co-Chair of AXON (Advancing eXperiences and Opportunities in NGP), a student-led program focused on advancing equity and wellness in doctoral education.

Betty moved from Ethiopia to the United States in 2015 to pursue a career in scientific research and earned my B.A. in Neuroscience and Biology from Wesleyan University, where she first discovered her passion for translational research. She later spent two years in the lab of Dr. Gary Rudnick at the Yale School of Medicine where she contributed to the discovery of conformationally selective inhibitors of the serotonin transporter (Singh et al. 2023 Cell) and investigated the role of Chloride ions in serotonin transport (Hung et al., 2025 Biorxiv). She is now a Ph.D. candidate in the Emory Neuroscience Graduate Program in the lab of Dr. Gary Bassell where she is developing a novel mouse model to investigate the molecular and behavioral consequences of toxic RNA in the brain of myotonic dystrophy type 1(DM1). In 2023, Betty was awarded a two-year pre-doctoral fellowship from the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation to support my dissertation work. Supported by MDF and internal grants from Emory, such as the Kun Lin Memorial and Win Sale Travel Awards, she has presented her work at international and national conferences, including IDMC-14 in the Netherlands (2024), the MDF Annual Conference in Indiana (2025), Society for Neuroscience Conferences (2024, 2025) and the Winter Conference for Brain Research (2025), where she received both a travel award and Outstanding Poster Award. Beyond research, Betty is committed to leadership and mentorship: she co-founded and co-leads the GDBBS Bridge International Network (GBIN) for international graduate students, served as Alumni Relations Officer and journal editor for the Neuroscience program, and directs a mentorship program with Black in Neuro for which she has received the Community Trailblazer Award. Betty has also served as a journal reviewer and conference organizer and continues to seek opportunities that help her advance her skills in neuroscience research and professional development.

After ending her competitive volleyball career in high school, Ruorong became curious about the sensory and motor systems that had guided my movement on the court. At Emory, she joined Dr. Alan Emanuel’s lab in her first year as one of his first students, where she began studying how the brain encodes touch. She helped demonstrate that the mouse primary somatosensory cortex (S1) is required for the perception of tactile motion direction using precise tactile stimulation, behavioral tracking, and optogenetic silencing. After establishing this link to perception, Ruorong set out to understand how sensory processing changes in disease. Using anatomical methods and multielectrode array recordings in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease, she found that progressive dopamine alters the sensitivity and responsivity of S1 neurons. Because sensory and motor systems are closely linked, her work may yield an avenue for treatment of sensorimotor diseases. Ruorong will present my work at the 2025 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, which was supported by a Petit Lanier Scholarship, Lanier Scholarship, Larry J. Young Memorial Symposium Poster Award, and Emory Conference Presentation Grant. 

Beyond research, Ruorong is fortunate to learn from generous mentors and motivated to give back through teaching and advocacy. She served as a teaching assistant for three courses across six semesters, contributed to efforts supporting access to Nusinersen at the Meier Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Center, and assisted with athlete education and doping control at the Paris and Beijing Olympics. In the coming years, she is excited to pursue PhD training to further understand sensory and motor processing in health and disease, and looks forward to discovering new passions, curiosities, and questions as she prepares for a career in academia.