Natural sciences students headed to competitive graduate schools and internships – Caldwell University

Students take top prizes in research competitions

Students in the School of Natural Sciences have been accepted into competitive graduate schools and prestigious internships.  They have also been top winners in research symposiums over the past academic year.  

Many of the students attribute their successes to Caldwell biology and chemistry faculty members who mentor, support and challenge their students in classrooms and labs, and help make opportunities available to them through programs, symposiums and internships. 

Samuel Annan ’24 and Abbas Wafa ’24, biology majors, were grand slam winners taking the top prizes at prestigious science symposiums including the poster presentation at the Senior Academy at the 68th New Jersey Academy of Science annual meeting in May. They also received first-place awards in nanochemistry at the William Paterson University Undergraduate Research Symposium and the Independent Colleges and Universities of New Jersey Undergraduate Symposium,  as well as the top poster award at Caldwell Research and Creative Arts Day.   The title of their poster was “Green Synthesis of Gold Nanoparticles (GNPs) and Its Application: A Modern Tale of the Magical Golden Eggs”. Natural Sciences faculty member  Xiaolei Gao, Ph.D. is their faculty advisor.  

Annan has been accepted into the competitive Novartis summer internship program in  Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Bibek Dhungel ’23, (B.S. in chemistry) will be attending NYU to study for a Ph.D. in chemistry. 

Azia McKenzie ’23, (B.A. in biology)  will be pursuing her Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology on a full scholarship at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. 

Paige Silvia ’23, (B.A. in biology with a chemistry minor) will begin an organic chemistry Ph.D. program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. She has been selected for the prestigious NSF NRT Cedar Fellow program which includes comprehensive traineeship in high-priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas. In the summer of 2022, Silvia was a  Caldwell  STEM Advance summer research intern. STEM Advance was made possible by a U.S. Department of Education grant. During her college career, Silvia was a student-athlete on the women’s softball team. 

Ishaq Ansari ’25, a double major in biology and computer science, and Bibhuti Shah ’26, a biology major, have been accepted into SURI (Summer Undergraduate Research Institute) internships at Rutgers University. 

Mariam Haroun ’25, a biology major, was accepted into RISE (Research Intensive Summer Experience) internship at Rutgers University. 

Temiloluwa Ogunyamoju ’25, a biology major,  will be a summer scholar at SENS Research Foundation studying aging and age-related diseases.
Adam Zaki ’25 and Shiv Desai ’25, biology majors, were the second place winners at the Undergraduate Research Symposium for the Independent Colleges and Universities of New Jersey for research on “The Effect of Copper, Nystatin, and Gramicidin Combinations on Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus”.