SPARK Alumni
We are proud to show off some of our SPARK trainee alumni and where they have traveled in their scientific journeys. See what our SPARK alumni are up to now.
2019
Shalini Nair – completed her MPH at the University of Florida and is now a public health analyst at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. She supports a diverse portfolio of infectious disease projects addressing viral hepatitis, STIs, COVID-19, and vaccine equity.
2018
Francisco Pascual - a member of the 2017 and 2018 SPARK cohorts and graduated from USF with a BS in Biomedical Science in 2019. He will graduate from the USF Morsani College of Medicine in May 2023 and continue as an internal medicine resident at USF.
KayLee Steiner - a second-year Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt University in the Cancer Biology program. She works in the laboratory of Jeff Rathmell researching immunometabolism in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells with its relevance in cancer models.
2016
Doniya Milani — completed her M.S. degree in pharmaceutical nanotechnology at the University of South Florida in 2020 and is scheduled to graduate with her M.D. from the USF Morsani College of Medicine in May 2024.
Connor M. Forsyth- graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor's degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology and from Northwestern University with a Master's of Biotechnology. He is currently an MD/PhD candidate at Northwestern University studying the development of nanotechnology-based immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer.
Yuliya Marusyk - After participating in the SPARK program, she completed her degree in chemistry at USF. She returned to Moffitt, working as a research associate in the Lawrence lab where she worked for two years. She is currently pursuing her PhD in organic chemistry at Northeastern University, working on natural product total synthesis, within the Manetsch research group.
2015
Kelsey Johnson - a Ph.D. candidate in biology at Baylor University. Kelsey will defend her doctoral dissertation titled "CCCTC-binding factor CTCF modulates epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity" on Nov. 22, 2021.
Jason Rivera - completed his MD at Florida State University and is now a resident at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, in Denver.
2014
Bradley Maller - completed medical school at the University of South Florida and internal medicine residency at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He will be a member of VCU’s hematology/oncology fellowship class of 2026, and is interested in lung cancer and immunotherapy.