Alumni Ambassador Academy | Office of Research and Graduation Education

Danielle Doll, PhD

Current Location: Morgantown, WV
Home Town: West Union, WV
Award or Recognition: Sanofi Genzyme - Fast Start Award
Fun Fact: In my free time I enjoy surfing on Cheat Lake and playing with my new puppy Balboa.

Danielle Doll received her PhD in Neuroscience from WVU in 2015. Danielle worked in Dr. Jim Simpkins lab and her work focused on the role of mitochondria in TNF-alpha neurotoxicity in stroke. After graduating, she worked at Mylan Pharmaceuticals for 2 years as a research and development scientist, where she developed cell-based assays and release test methods. Then she transitioned into her current role as a medical science liaison. She currently lives in West Virginia and covers the northern part of West Virginia and western part of the Pennsylvania as an MSL with Sanofi Genzyme. Her therapeutic area of interest is neurology.

Bryan Gall, PhD

Current Location: Salt Lake City, UT
Home Town: Cleveland, OH
Organization or Affilation: American Society of Clinical Pathologists (ASCP)
Fun Fact: In 2019, I lived in all 4 US time zones within the lower 48 states in one year.

I’m a 2016 graduate of the Cellular and Integrative Physiology program with a focus in immunogenetics, and completed my post-doc at Oregon Health & Sciences University with a focus on the genetics of vaccine responses and developing vaccines to emerging alphaviruses like Zika and Dengue viruses. I currently work as a variant curator for Natera, which involves evaluating genetic variants and reporting their clinical significance to genetic counselors and their patients.

Carey Hwang, MD / PhD

Current Location: Skillman, NJ
Home Town: Morgantown, WV
Organizations or Affilations: Member of Infectious Disease Society of America; Board Member of the Greater Princeton Youth Orchestra
Awards or Recognition: Tinsley Randolph Harrison Society Scholar (Vanderbilt University); Guest speaker for 2019 WVU Research Induction Ceremony
Fun Fact: Sight read Beethoven's Sixth Symphony with my daughter under the direction of Maestro Gustavo Dudamel at the Princeton University Chamber Jam

Carey is currently the Senior Vice President, Clinical Research, Head of Chronic Infection at Vir Biotechnology, Inc. Carey earned his bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology at Princeton University in 1995 studying protein transport with Dr. Elizabeth Sztul. He matriculated in the MD/PhD program at West Virginia University and performed his graduate work under the guidance of Dr. Vinay Pathak studying retroviral recombination in a murine leukemia virus system. Following completion of his MD/PhD in 2003, Carey trained in the physician scientist training program (internal medicine and infectious diseases) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, studying the latent reservoir of HIV under the mentorship of Dr. Richard D’Aquila . In 2009, Carey joined the Exploratory Clinical and Translational Medicine -Virology group at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He was involved in the Phase 1 and 2 development of HIV and HCV compounds including fostemsavir (HIV attachment inhibitor) and daclatasvir (HCV NS5A inhibitor) that later became approved. In 2016, Carey joined Merck Research Laboratories, leading the clinical development and subsequent approval of doravirine (HIV non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor) and is currently the development team lead for the combination of doravirine and islatravir that is currently in Phase 3 trials for the treatment of HIV-1.

Carrie Long, PhD

Current Location: Corvallis, MT
Home Town: Franklin, NC
Organizations or Affilations: American Society for Rickettsiology; American Association for the Advancement of Science; American Society for Microbiology; Society of Toxicology
Awards or Recognition: Independent Research Scholar Award (NIH; NIH Merit Award
Fun Fact: I was a pole vaulter for WVU’s track and field team in my first year of graduate school.

Dr. Long graduated summa cum laude from Gardner-Webb University with a B.S. in 2011. She received her Ph.D. in immunology and microbial pathogenesis from West Virginia University in 2016. Here, she studied the role of regulatory T cells and microRNAs in chemical allergy at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (CDC). After earning her doctorate, Dr. Long moved to Hamilton, Montana, to join Dr. Robert Heinzen’s group at the National Institutes of Health to work as an Intramural Research Training Award postdoctoral fellow. During this time, Dr. Long worked in the biosafety level (BSL)-3 laboratory researching the causative agent of Q fever, Coxiella burnetii. In 2019, Dr. Long received an Independent Research Scholar Award from NIH, allowing her to form an autonomous research group to continue her work on Coxiella burnetii.

Kelly Miller, PhD

Current Location: Magnolia, DE
Home Town: Middleburg, PA
Organizations or Affilations: ASM; Phi Kappa Phi

After graduating from WVU, I completed a postdoc at UB SUNY. I worked in the lab of Chunhao (Chris) Li in the dental school. In addition to working on 3 research projects, I taught medical microbiology and trained the technician in our lab as well as served as her research mentor. After my postdoc, I spent 6 years as a faculty member first as a lecturer and later on the tenure track. As a faculty member I taught a variety of undergraduate courses and supervised undergraduate research. In January 2020, I joined the FDA as a product quality microbiology reviewer in CDER, OPQ (Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Office of Pharmaceutical Quality). As a reviewer, I play a key role in ensuring drugs are safe from microbiological quality standpoint. We presently live in Dover, DE, which is approximately 45 minutes from DE beaches. We enjoy taking our kids to the beach and state parks. Our son Kodiak is 9, and our daughter Eden is 22 months.

Cody Peer, PhD

Current Location: Bethesda, MD
Home Town: North Huntingdon, PA
Organizations or Affilations: American College of Clinical Pharmacology (ACCP); American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT); American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS); National Cancer Institute (NCI) Drug Development Collaborative; NCI Molecular Targets Steering Committee
Awards or Recognition: Sept 2019: NCI Center for Cancer Research (CCR) Clinical Excellence Award; Oct 2017: NCI Drug Development Collaborative Recognition of Contribution

Cody Peer is a Staff Scientist within the Clinical Pharmacology Program of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD. Dr. Peer earned his BS in Chemistry in 2005 from Dickinson College, a PhD in Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2009 from West Virginia University School of Pharmacy, and a MS in Pharmacometrics in 2015 from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. His specialties include pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) modeling and simulation of anticancer agents, as well as the bioanalysis involving mass spectrometry. Within the NCI Clinical Pharmacology Program, Dr. Peer manages a team of chemists and a state-of-the-art mass spectrometry facility as well as modeling capabilities involving classic noncompartmental analyses, population PK/PD analyses, exposure-response analyses, and clinical trial design and simulation.

Ashley Russell, PhD

Current Location: Erie, PA
Home Town: Erie, PA
Organizations or Affilations: 2010 – 2012 Penn State Behrend Psi Chi National Honors Society in Psychology; 2010 – 2012 National Society for Leadership and Success; 2010 – 2012 American Psychological Association; 2010 – 2012 Association for Psychological Science; 2011 – 2012 Omicron Delta Kappa National Honors Society; 2012 – 2013 Society for Psychophysiological Research; 2014 – 2015 Society of Toxicology; 2014 – 2018 Society for Neuroscience; 2016 – 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science; 2017 – 2018 American Society for Exosomes and Microvesicles; 2017 – 2020 International Society for Extracellular Vesicles; 2019 – 2020 International Society for NeuroVirology
Awards or Recognition: 2012—First Place Award, out of eight undergraduate oral presentations at the Penn State Behrend Sigma Xi Research and Creative Accomplishment Conference; 2013—First Runner-up Award, out of undergraduate poster session at the Penn State Behrend Sigma Xi Research and Creative Accomplishment Conference; 2016—American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of six students awarded a one-year student membership awarded for excellence within the Biomedical Sciences/Neuroscience program; 2017—First Place Award, out of four graduate student/post-doc oral presentations at the 2017 Appalachian Regional Cell Conference; 2018—Second Place Award, out of six graduate student oral presentations at the 2018 E.J. Van Liere Memorial Convocation & HSC Research Day; 2018—Travel Award Recipient, Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI) Trainee Travel Grant, one of five graduate students awarded $1000 to help offset conference travel costs; 2018—First Place Award, out of six graduate student oral presentations at the 2018 Stroke & Comorbidities 1st Annual Symposium; 2018—First Place Award, for graduate poster session at the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute Annual Meeting; 2019—Travel Award Recipient, Johns Hopkins IBBS Turock Travel Award, one of four trainees awarded $750 to help offset conference travel costs
Fun Fact: Several years ago, one of my best friends convinced me to run the Pittsburgh Half Marathon with her. Neither of us even remotely tried to train for the event, but we made it through the entire 13.1 miles, despite finishing at about the same time as full marathon runners!

Ashley Russell obtained a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Biology from Penn State Behrend. As an undergraduate, she became heavily involved in cognitive neuroscience faculty research projects, examining the electrophysiological responses of the brain to non-literal language (e.g. sarcasm and metaphor). Through these experiences, she realized she wanted to continue conducting research to better understand the brain. Ashley then went on to join the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program at West Virginia University to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience in the laboratory of Dr. Jim Simpkins. Here, her research focused on the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) and non-coding RNAs in the neuropathology of stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. After earning her PhD, she then went on to do a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she studied how cigarette smoke affects EV release and extracellular RNA expression within the central nervous system. Ashley is currently preparing to begin her first faculty position as an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at her alma mater, Penn State Behrend. Here, she will have dual responsibilities for teaching undergraduates, and conducting research. Ashley’s work will examine the effects of chronic psychological stress during pregnancy on EVs and non-coding RNAs, and how changes in these biomolecules may influence prenatal development.

Stephanie Shumar, PhD

Current Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Home Town: Uniontown, PA
Organization or Affilation: Beta Beta Beta Biology Honor Society
Award or Recognition: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship
Fun Fact: During her time at WVU, Stephanie was a member of the Morgantown Roller Vixens, WVU’s roller derby team. Stephanie is currently a defensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Passion women’s tackle football team.

As a regulatory scientist with R&Q Solutions, Stephanie helps to provide clients in the medical device industry with industry-leading regulatory and quality consulting and engineering services. Stephanie authors clinical evaluation reports, develops search strategies, and analyzes, weighs, and summarizes data from literature searches. Stephanie, a first-generation college student, obtained her B.S. in biology with a minor in chemistry at California University of Pennsylvania. During her senior year of undergraduate studies, she completed a semester-long independent research project as part of the requirement of being a member of university’s Beta Beta Beta biology honor society. Completing this project introduced the enjoyment of conducting scientific research and motivated her to pursue a Ph.D. She was accepted into the Biomedical Sciences graduate program in 2013 and joined the lab of Dr. Roberta Leonardi in the biochemistry department. During her time in Dr. Leonardi’s lab, Stephanie was awarded an F31 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Health and authored four publications (three first author and one second author). Stephanie completed her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the spring of 2019 and accepted her position at R&Q Solutions soon after defending her dissertation.

Anton Sobinov, PhD

Current Location: Chicago, IL
Home Town: Volgograd, Russia
Organization or Affilation: 2015-Present: Society for Neuroscience
Awards or Recognition: 2012 - 2013: Alexandrov Scholarship, Kurchatov Institute. $300/mo; 2014: February: Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov Student Award. $600; 2016, 2017: West Virginia University Health Sciences Center Research and Graduate Education Office Travel Award. $400; 2018: WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute Trainee Travel Award. $1000; 2018: Neuroscience Graduate Student Research Award, WVU RNI. $500
Fun Fact: When I was in college, I had to take a required course on web network programming, which I tried to get out of, because I thought that I would never need to write a server myself - I was going to be a researcher! During grad school and postdoc I have written numerous programs for communication between computers, servers, clients and sockets, because no one else knows how to do it.

I was born in 1992 in Volgograd in Russian steppes, where temperature ranges from -30 C in winter to 40 C in summer. In high school I became interested in understanding how people think, so I decided to study mathematics as it represents the logical thought process. After a few years of studies at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, I lost interest in pure theoretical math, and my bachelor’s research project was in modelling of biological neural networks. In 2015 I got a MSc in Applied Mathematics and Informatics from the same university. A year before that, in 2014, I joined the graduate school at WVU, and started studying neuroscience of motor control and biomechanics. In Dr. Yakovenko’s lab I worked on DARPA HAPTIX project, which focused on development of next-gen controllers for hand prosthetics. Working for DARPA is fun and challenging, because you need to report on progress every week or two, and the funding can be cut at any moment. After five years and many sleepless nights, I defended my dissertation and moved on to become a postdoc at UChicago. Here I study stereognosis – perception of shape, that integrates tactile and proprioceptive information to give rise to a vivid understanding of the object that you are interacting with. I am also helping with the brain-computer interface project that aims to provide such sense to a paralyzed human participant.