BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT
After a year’s hiatus, the Biology
Department returned to the renovated Thompson Biology Laboratory in
late June. The renovated building complements the new lab space and
facilities in the Morley Science Center, and will benefit faculty and
students in Biology for years to come.
Each year at graduation, the Biology
Department awards prizes to five outstanding majors. We are pleased
to announce that this year’s recipients were Andrew Werbrock,
who received the Conant-Harrington Prize for exemplary performance in
the biology major; Erin Davies and Randall Lindquist, who were
awarded the First and Second Benedict Prize, respectively for
excellence in biology; Aya Reiss, who received the Dwight Prize as
the ranking student in botany; and Josh Goldstein, who was awarded
the Grant Prize for the student demonstrating excellence in a broad
range of areas in biology. Fifteen seniors were nominated for
induction into Sigma Xi, the national research society. Veena Mandava
and Erin Davies received Beckman Foundation Scholarships during their
senior year. Jillian Pesin received a Fulbright award to study in
Russia, and an NSF pre-doctoral fellowship to support her graduate
studies after her year abroad.
Several changes in the faculty ranks are in
progress. Associate Professor Nancy Roseman will serve as Dean of the
College beginning in July of 2000. Two visiting faculty will be
joining the department. Lois Banta, currently in Leiden on a
Fulbright Fellowship, will be starting as a visiting associate
professor, and Ken Schmidt from the University of Memphis will be
starting as a visiting assistant professor. We are pleased to welcome
them to Williams. Jennifer Pogoriler ’99 served as a part-time
instructor during the fall semester before moving on to begin her
combined Ph.D./MD studies. Jenna MacIntire joined the department as a
part-time instructor in the spring semester and will continue in this
position in 2000-2001.
This past year Professor Adler continued her
research on long term regulation of molecules important to synaptic
transmission and neuronal communication, using PC12 cells, a
secondary cell line that's a model for sympathetic neurons. Last
summer, assisted by Kevin Stephans ’00, Sara Grote ’01
and Paul Schwartz, she worked on two main projects. The first project
demonstrated that Neuropeptide Y, a signaling molecule that's been
postulated to play a role as an endogenous anticonvulsant, is
susceptible to regulation by extracellular zinc (which reaches very
high levels during seizures). This is the first indication that zinc
might play such a role, and could have significant implications with
regard to epilepsy. The second project was concerned with regulation
of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, which terminates the action of
the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, by calcium influx through a
specific class of calcium channels.
In the fall of 1999, Professor Adler, in
conjunction with Professor Zimmerberg of the Psychology Department
taught BIOL 212/NSCI 201/PSYC 212
Introduction to
Neuroscience. Professor Adler put together a new website for the
course
(
www.williams.edu/imput/home.html,),
and Professor Zimmerberg presented wonderful animations developed
through the NSF-supported Multimedia Neuroscience Education
Pr
oject. In
the spring, Professor Adler taught BIOL 304,
Neurobiology
,
adding a research proposal component to both the synaptic
physiology and cellular neurobiology sections of the laboratory. For
the first time in four years, Professor Adler brought back the
Stained Glass Workshop for Winter Study. The students’
work was displayed throughout the month of February in the new Morley
Science Laboratory lobby.
In between teaching and working in the lab,
Professor Adler continued work on her book on non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
and Hodgkin's Disease, Lymphoma, A Beginner's Guide.
The end of this academic year marks the end
of Professor Dan Lynch’s term as Chair of the Department.
During this past year, Professor Lynch also taught BIOL 101,
The
Cell and BIOL 322,
Biochemistry II. He also continued his
research on plant sphingolipid biochemistry, funded by grants from
the NSF and the NIH, and supervised the Honors projects of Jillian
Pesin ’00 and Carolin Spiegel ’00. Professor Lynch also
published a chapter in
Methods in Enzymology and an article
(with others) in
Journal of Nutrition. He also delivered a
talk at the University of Texas in Austin in May. Professor Lynch
also served as a reviewer for the NSF and a number of journals.
Liana Thompson '01, Zuzana Tothova '01, Jessica Bauman '02, and
Susan Levin '02 at work in Professor Raymond’s Lab
Assistant Professor Raymond taught two
large lecture and laboratory courses in the 1999-2000 academic year,
Genetics (BIOL 202) in the fall and Immunology (BIOL
313) in the spring. With funding from Williams’ Mellon Project,
Raymond and Paul Holt ’01 developed a website for
Immunology (BIOL 313). As part of the month-long social
responsibility initiative in May, Raymond hosted a Gaudino forum
entitled “Entering the Clone Zone: Ethical and Social Dilemmas
at the Dawn of Mammalian Cloning.” In May, Raymond was named
Williams “Faculty of the Year” by College Council in its
recognition of “one member
of the faculty...who has demonstrated an ability or effort to improve
communications, relations, and interactions with students.”
Raymond’s research program continued
to probe the molecular relationships between two particular genes
important for the resolution of mitosis, SFP1 and
CDC14. She gave a talk at Hamilton College entitled, “This
Way Out: Exit from Mitosis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.”
Thesis students Kate Ramsayer ’00, Dan Richter ’00, and
Betsy Wells ’00 undertook a variety of projects to expand our
understanding of how SFP1 controls multiple aspects of cell
division. They were joined during Winter Study by Liana Thompson ’01
and Jessica Bauman ’02. Jessica and Susan Levin ’02, both
Merck fellows, began collaborative projects under the guidance of
Raymond with Chip Lovett and Joe Chihade, respectively. Aida Avdic ’00
did independent research in the lab in the spring, building on a
discovery made by Liana Thompson ’01 during Winter Study.
In collaboration with a group in Germany,
Raymond published a paper in Genes and Development, “Luc7p,
a Novel Yeast U1 snRNP Protein with a Role in 5' Splice Recognition.”
Raymond published an abstract of work done with two former thesis
students, Le Paliulis ’97 and Meghan Byrne ’98. This work
was presented by Le Paliulis ’97, currently a graduate student
at Duke University, at the American Society for Cell Biology meeting
in Washington, D.C. in December.
This past fall Professor Nancy Roseman
shared her final BIOL 101 teaching duties for some time to come with
Professor Dan Lynch. During Winter Study, she offered her popular
Outbreak: Viruses and Culture class where discussions of
smallpox and Ebola were galvanized by images of Dustin Hoffman in a
level 4 spacesuit. In the spring, Professor Roseman discussed viruses
in more depth in her Virology course. Research on the vaccinia virus
encoded dUTPase continued in the Roseman lab due to the efforts of
three honors students. Jeff Roizen ’00, a double major in
biology and chemistry, was able to definitively demonstrate that
dUTPase is a negatively cooperative enzyme. Erin Davies ’00 and
Lauren Singer ’00 both worked on projects geared to identifying
the specific amino acids that are phosphorylated in the protein; Erin
analyzed protein extracts from infected cells and Lauren developed an
in vitro system using kinases from various sources. Erin also
established the pattern of dUTPase activity during a vaccinia virus
infection and correlated that activity with dUTPase phosphorylation
levels.
This spring it was announced that Professor
Roseman would serve as the next Dean of the College, replacing Peter
Murphy in that position. She plans to maintain an active research
program during her time as Dean.
This past year, Robert Savage taught
Developmental Biology and, with Heather Williams, team-taught the
introductory biology course (BIOL 102). Professor Savage was an
honors thesis advisor for Andrew Werbrock ’00, Steph Airoldi ’00,
Kerice Pinkney ’00 and Boudhayan Sen ’00, who examined
various aspects of segmental pattern formation in annelids. Andrew
presented his thesis work at the annual Society for Integrative and
Comparative Biology meeting held in Atlanta this past January. Steph
and Kerice continued to make progress on projects funded by Professor
Savage’s NIH grant.
Professor Savage co-authored a paper with
Janet Iwasa ’99 and Daniel Suver ’99 entitled “The
Leech Hunchback Protein Is Expressed in the Epithelium and CNS, but
not in the Segmental Precursor Lineages” which appeared in
Development, Genes and Evolution. Professor Savage also served
as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation and participated in
the summer research program for local high school students funded by
the HHMI grant.
Assistant professor Steve Swoap taught
Biology of Exercise and Nutrition (BIOL 133) for non-majors in
the fall of 1999. He was the honors thesis advisor for Patrick Burton
’00, Randall Lindquist ’00, and David Seward ’00.
Previous independent study students, Heather Genovisi ’99 and
Leigh Olmsted ’99 were co-authors on a poster presentation at
the Experimental Biology meetings in San Diego, CA in April. Seward
and David Adams ’00 were co-authors on two slide presentations
at the American College of Sports Medicine meetings in Indianapolis,
Indiana in May. Swoap served as a reviewer for the American
Journal of Physiology, the Journal of
Neuroendocrinology, and the Journal of Applied Physiology.
Swoap gave two Sigma Xi lectures in the fall to the entire college
community. The titles of these talks were “Muscle Adaptation:
From Bench Press to Lab Bench”, and “IIB or Not IIB: The
Generation of Fast-Twitch Muscles”. Swoap also served on the
National Science Foundation panel for reviewing grants submitted to
the collaborative RUI program. Professor Swoap continues to maintain
an active research program as evidenced by his current grants (two
NSF and one NIH.) Swoap was recently the recipient of the New
Investigator Award for the American College of Sports Medicine.
Professor Zottoli taught BIOL 411,
Plasticity in the Nervous System, in the fall and BIOL 205,
Animal Physiology, in the spring. He served as Honors thesis
advisor for Melissa Motta, Jason Langheier and David Walfish.
Research in his laboratory focuses on the neural basis of behavior
and responses of the nervous system to injury. Professor Zottoli
continues as director of the Howard Hughes grant to Williams
College.
Professor Zottoli directed a Williams
College program at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA
during July and August 1999. Fey Akanki ’01, Nick Hiza ’02,
Melissa Motta ’00, Dwight Ho-Sang ’02, Xiao Tan ’02
and Kisha Watts ’02 participated in this program. The program
included reading papers of various scientists in residence at the
MBL, meeting with each scientist to discuss the papers and career
path issues and then conducting a laboratory exercise that related to
the scientist’s area of interest. In addition, students had the
opportunity to attend course lectures and evening lectures. Finally,
students were able to conduct original research on identified neurons
in fish. All of the students co-authored a short note entitled: “Physiological
Characterization of Supramedullary/Dorsal Neurons of the Cunner,
Tautogolabrus adspersus” published in the
Biological Bulletin
Class of 1960 Scholars in Biology
Robert Adamo
|
Margaret Cooley
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Sara Grote
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Duncan Meiklejohn
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Matthew Kim
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Caren Mintz
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Liana Thompson
|
Yang Wang
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Virginia Despard
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Maghana Gadgil
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Vickie Jo
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Andrea Lee
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Asha Mehta
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Michael Nazarian
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Adam Sischy
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Danielle Torin
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BIOLOGY COLLOQUIA
Dr. Wendy Boss
North Carolina State University
“Signal Transduction: Is There a
Difference in Couch Potatoes and Potatoes?”
Dr. Priscilla Clarkson
University of Massachusetts
“Muscle Soreness: The Consequences of
Overexertion Exercise”
“Nutritional and Pharmacological Agents for Weight Loss”
Dr. Richard Condit, 1960 Scholar
University of Florida
“Regulation of Transcription
Elongation during Vaccinia Virus Infection”
George Q. Daley, Merck Scholar
Whitehead Institute
“Stem Cells in Disease; Stem Cells in
Therapy”
Dr. Craig Hunter
Harvard University
“Translating Cellular Polarity into
Embryonic Pattern”
Dr. Nipam Patel, 1960 Scholar
University of Chicago
“The Evolution of Body Patterning”
Dr. Bruce Stillman, BIMO 1960 Scholar
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
“Controlling Genome Duplicating during
the Cell Cycle”
OFF-CAMPUS COLLOQUIA
Steven Swoap
“Implications of Muscle Fiber Type for
Performance: Myosin Type vs. Activation Properties”
Boston University in Conjunction with American College of Sports
Medicine
“IIB or not IIB: The Regulation of
Myosin Heavy Chain Gene Expression”
University of Massachusetts
Elizabeth Adler
“Can a Cold Remedy Affect Epilepsy and
Anorexia? Zinc and Neuropeptide Y”
Invited talk on the Zinc/Neuropeptide Y project at the University of
Connecticut, Department of Physiology and Neurobiology
POSTGRADUATE PLANS OF BIOLOGY MAJORS
Patrick Adair
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David Adams
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Stephanie Airoldi
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Vanessa Alvarez
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One year teaching English in China; one
year teaching Biology in NYC Public High School; applying to
medical school.
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Andrew Arbesman
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Aida Avdic
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John Berry
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Katherine Birnie
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Ann Brophy
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Lauren Buckley
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Summer ecology research in Sierra
Nevada; followed by a year working at the Ecology Center,
Missoula, Montana; then graduate school in conservation
biology
|
Patrick Burton
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Boston University graduate school
|
Jason Busch
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Working at Office of Information
Technology, Williams College for the summer.
|
Sadruddin Chandani
|
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Sheraz Choudhary
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Working as a product manager at Exeter
Educational Management Systems in Cambridge, MA.
|
Ellen Cook
|
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Erin Davies
|
Working as a lab tech for 2 years at
the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, MA then Graduate
school in molecular biology/biochemistry.
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Jared Drake
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Lily Filip
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Paul Friedmann
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Alexis Gilman
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Boston University School of Public
Health
|
Joshua Goldstein
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Research Assistant at Ecosystems Center
at Marine Biological Laboratories
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Leigh Greenwood
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Working as a tour guide in Costa Rica
for 2 years.
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Jessica Haffajee
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Christopher Hale
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Olivia Imoberdorf
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Allison Jacobs
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Teaching science in inner city Chicago
with Teach for America.
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Stephen Kim
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Rebecca Kummer
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University of Rochester School of
Medicine and Dentistry.
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Sophia Kuo
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Working at a bakery and starting a
non-profit with international philanthropists in
Seattle.
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Jason Langheier
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Thomas LaRocca
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Sara Levy
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Randall Lindquist
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Working at NIH as a Post-Baccalaureate
IRTA Fellow, applying to grad programs.
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Veena Mandava
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Cornell Tri-Institutional MD-Ph.D.
Program.
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Sarah Mandle
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Shannon Mark
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Kimberly Massimiano
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Erin Morrissette
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Working as Associate Consultant with
Bain & Co. in Boston, MA.
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Melissa Motta
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Charles Mynyon
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Farah Musani
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Toryn Nims
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Working in biotech and other technology
insurance for Chubb Group.
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Ronald Parsons
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Research Tech at Children’s
Hospital in Boston, MA. Applying to med school.
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Jillian Pesin
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Fulbright Scholar in Russia for a year
then attending a Ph.D. program at MIT.
|
Kerice Pinkney
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Consulting for Bain & Co in New
York.
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Ethan Plunkett
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Imelda Ramirez
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Kate Ramsayer
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Kathleen Reardon
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Rebecca Rehm
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Teaching life science/biology and
coaching at Oldfields School in Glencoe, MD.
|
Aya Reiss
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Teacher/environmental educator at
environmental education center in the Catskills.
|
Daniel Richter
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Working at Whitehead Institute in the
functional genomics group.
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Jeffrey Roizen
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Cristina Santiestevan
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Boudhayan Sen
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David Seward
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Jared Silverstein
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Emily Simpson
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Kathryn Simpson
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University of Utah School of
Medicine.
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Lauren Singer
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Christopher Spence
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Working with Gardenworks Ltd. in
Southborough, MA. Will pursue masters in landscape
architecture in 2-3 years.
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Carolin Spiegel
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Jacklyn Stein
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UC Berkeley
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Nicole Steinmuller
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Kevin Stephans
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Medical School
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Margaret Ting
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NYU Medical School
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David Walfish
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Nicholas Weiss
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Investment Banker with Barrington
Associates in Los Angeles.
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Elizabeth Wells
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Andrew Werbrock
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Duke University
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