2024 BCMB Retreat

Our BCMB community kicked off the Fall season with its annual program retreat. This year we explored a new location, Crystal Springs Resort located in Hamburg, New Jersey, where the energy was just as amazing as the grounds themselves. 

The first day started with talks by faculty and students sharing current scientific works and new research taking place in the lab, followed by lunch and free time to engage in golfing, swimming, nature trails and explore the many attractions offered at the resort.

That evening included a “meet and greet the first-year students” and a lively poster session where students competed for best “faculty-judged” poster and “people’s choice” award. Students and faculty then gathered in the Big Sky Pavilion for dinner and entertainment.

Entertainment begin with a crowd-pleasing performance by one of our wonderful faculty members, Eric Lai, and ended with karaoke and dancing hosted by DJ Adam from Skuba Entertainment.

 The next day concluded the retreat with more scientific talks from faculty and students, a group picture and a sit-down lunch right before departure.

Poster Prize Winners

The poster session was robust with 34 poster presenters competing for prizes for the “Best Faculty-Judged Poster” and “People’s Choice Award”. 

Congrats to Victoria Miller-Browne (Xiaolan Zhao Lab) who was selected as the recipient of the “Best Faculty-Judged Poster.”

Congrats to Abraham Shim (John Maciejowski Lab) selected as the recipient of the “People’s Choice Award.”

Welcoming New BCMB Faculty

The BCMB community has expanded and continues to grow. We welcomed 6 new impressive faculty into the program this past year: Kojo Elenitoba-Johnson, Chunjun Guo, Daylon James, Antonio Marzio, Mara Sherman, and Asmin Tulpule.

After a long-awaited three years, the BCMB community gathered together in September 2022 for another amazing in-person BCMB Allied graduate program retreat. The retreat was held at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY where students and faculty had the opportunity to reconnect over two days of sharing their research and exciting science taking place in their labs along with their experiences as part of the Weill Cornell graduate school.

The second-year BCMB students did a fantastic job in selecting all speakers and assembling the program, including planning and hosting all of the entertainment. The first morning of the retreat was filled with adventures. Attendees enjoyed listening to plenary talks from a selection of students and faculty, followed by an introduction to the incoming class of BCMB students and one-minute poster teasers to intrigue us before the poster session that evening.

One of the highlights, and new addition to the retreat this year, was a Keynote talk by BCMB Alum Maria Barna, who is now an Associate Professor at Stanford.

The Interactive Trivia Quiz was a blast, and included a faculty roast. This was followed by a talent show and the popular return of Karaoke. Another plenary session of student and faculty talks on the second morning was followed by a free afternoon to enjoy hiking, kayaking and the amazing scenery of the mountain top resort.

Poster Prize Winners

The poster session was vibrant again with 46 poster presenters competing for prizes for the “Best Faculty-Judged Poster” and “People’s Choice Award”. 

Congrats to Ron Baik (Agnel Sfeir Lab) and Jinnie Kim(Xuejun Jiang Lab), who were selected as the recipients of the “Best Faculty-Judged Posters.”

Congrats to Victoria Miller-Browne (Xiaolan Zhao Lab) selected as the recipient of the “People’s Choice Award.”

Welcoming New BCMB Faculty

The BCMB community continues to grow. We welcomed 9 new truly impressive faculty into the program this past year: Lorenzo Galluzi, Michael Harrison, Yicheng Long, Seung Ha (Anna) Nam, Hasin Outtz Reed, Shannon Reilly, Michael Roehrl, Laura Santambrigio, and Despina Siolas.

The coronavirus did not stop the BCMB program from holding yet another amazing annual scientific retreat. The retreat kicked off with a virtual Art Show to showcase the creativity of our students. Student were asked to submit art from 3 categories: Scientific Art, Non-scientific Art and BCMB logo / BCMB design. The art was voted on by BCMB graduate students and faculty with the winners of the 3 categories receiving a $400 prize. The BCMB logo that received the most votes, design was also printed on the BCMB swag (face mask) that was given to all attendees of the BCMB virtual Retreat. 

The 3-day event consisted of over 100 attendees including BCMB faculty, students and applicants and included a virtual poster session via Zoom breakout rooms with 18 poster presenters competing for a poster prize, followed by student-led virtual games and a Versus comedy show featuring two amazing faculty debating the relative advantages of in vivo research versus in vitro research. They were so good that even the comedians were cracking up laughing.

The virtual retreat concluded with scientific talks by BCMB students, postdocs, and an alumni keynote speaker followed by an announcement of the poster session winners.

Poster Prize Winners

Congrats to Avital Shulman (Bryan Tsou’s lab) and Bjoern Perder (Jingli Cao's lab), the recipients of the 2020 Best Posters Award!

New Faculty

We’re excited to welcome all the new faculty members who joined the BCMB community in 2020! Please welcome, Maria, Diaz-Meco, Laura Kirkman, Benjamin Kleaveland, James Lo, Jorge Moscat, Alban Ordureau and Agnel Sfeir to the BCMB program!

Another year, another excellent retreat! In September 2019, the BCMB community gathered at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY for two days of friendship, science, and a bit of the outdoors. The BCMB retreat is an annual tradition that brings together students and faculty from across the breadth of the BCMB Allied Program. New students are welcomed by upper-class BCMB-ers who are eager to share their experiences; and faculty (from assistants to full professors) get a chance to mingle, interact, and learn about the exciting science taking place in labs throughout Weill Cornell.

This year, we had 16 trainees presenting one-minute poster teasers in the morning plenary session to entice attendees to their posters that evening(Josh Weiss, Amanda Acosta, Carol Zapater I Morales, Alyna Katti, Tapo Das,  Jon Pai, Alyssa Bagadion, Christopher Noetzel, Sylvia Zohrabian, Lissenya Argueta, Seyeon Bae, Carolyn Maskin, Peggy Huang, Rhiannon Aguilar, Abood Abuhashem, and Emily Costa).  Over 28 students presented posters this year! 15 faculty and 5 trainees (Tanya Schild, Reeti Sanghrajka, Bryan Ngo, Yujie Fan, Vidur Garg) gave talks.

One of the highlights of the retreat included a presentation of the coveted “People’s Choice” award and the “Best Poster” award.

Poster Prize Winners

Congrats to Sylvia Zohrabian (Intlekofer lab) who was selected by the entire BCMB community as the recipient of the 2019 People’s Choice Award!

Congrats to Alexandra Dananberg (Maciejowski lab) who was selected by a group of BCMB Faculty as the recipient for the 2019 Best Poster Award!

Welcoming New BCMB Faculty

The BCMB program represents the largest umbrella group of affiliated research programs at WCGS. As such, BCMB continues to offer students new and exciting research opportunities, while providing a supportive, community-oriented academic experience. We’re thrilled to welcome 10 new faculty members who joined the BCMB community in 2019! Please join us in welcoming David Simon, Ekta Khurana, Kristian Helin, Jingli Cao, Matthias Stadtfeld, Qiao (Joe) Zhou, Simon Scheuring, Samuel Bakhoum, David Rickman, and Marcus Gonclaves to the BCMB Program!

Special Thanks This Year to

Amanda Acosta for her outstanding retreat T-shirt design with its amazing “Cell-fie” design,

Angela Park for being our photographer,

The second-year class for their planning and organization,

Kirk Deitsch for the awesome interactive survey,

The First-year class for bravely leading off in the Karaoke session after dinner

And to our Program coordinators, Vanessa Dodson and Denise Jenkins, for making the retreat work!

BCMB students and faculty had another wonderful academic year at the 2018 BCMB Allied Program Retreat in beautiful New Paltz, NY.

The BCMB Annual Program Retreat took place this September at the Mohonk Mountain House, a Victorian castle resort located just an hour and a half north of NYC. The retreat provides an amazing experience for new students to interact with both faculty and upper-class lab pros, to gain a sense of what adventures lie ahead as their graduate school careers progress. For upper-class students, the Retreat provides a chance to sharpen mentoring skills and practice presenting their work via short talks and poster presentations, all while mingling with faculty and learning more about their classmates’ research.

Some highlights from this year’s Retreat include:

People's Choice Poster Prize Winners

We had over 40 outstanding posters from BCMB graduate students, covering topics ranging from embryonic stems cell differentiation to new cancer therapies to structures of channel proteins.

This year two awards were handed out:  a “People’s Choice” award and a “Best Poster” award.

“People’s Choice” Award (selected by the entire BCMB community present at the retreat)

Jossie Yashinskie (Lydia Finley Lab)

“Best Poster” Award (selected by a group of Faculty)

Maria Falzone (Alessio Accardi Lab)

Meeting and Greeting First-Year Students

This year we hosted a new event called “Meet and Greet the First-Year Students.” Current students and faculty gathered with the new incoming class at the Pavilion to discuss their specific scientific interests.

Welcoming New BCMB Faculty

Several new Faculty attended our retreat this year, adding to the scientific discussion and participating in our Trivia Night. These faculty include Andrew Intlekofer, Renat Shaykhiev, and Tuomas Tammela.

BCMB students and faculty kicked off another stellar academic year with a celebration of friends, fun, and science at the 2017 BCMB Allied Program Retreat in beautiful New Paltz, NY.

Held annually, the BCMB Program Retreat took place this September at the Mohonk Mountain House, a Victorian castle resort located just an hour and a half north of NYC. The retreat provides a forum for new students to interact with both faculty and upper-class lab pros, and to really get a sense of what adventures lie ahead as their graduate school careers progress. For upper-class BCMBers, the annual Retreat provides a chance to hone mentoring skills and to practice presenting their work (many upper-class students give short talks and poster presentations at the Retreat), all while mingling with faculty and learning more about their classmates’ research.

Some highlights from this year’s Retreat include:

People's Choice Poster Prize Winners

We had over 30 outstanding posters from BCMB graduate students, covering topics from embryonic stems cells to cancer therapies to structures of channel proteins.

• Two “People’s Choice” awards were handed out.  
• 1st place – Angela Park (Richard Hite Lab)
• 2nd place – Alex Minikes (Xuejun Jiang Lab)

Welcoming New BCMB Faculty

Several new faculty attended our retreat this year, adding to the scientific discussion and participating in our Trivia Night. These faculty include Richard Hite, Lydia Finley, John Maciejowski, and Elena Piskounova.