The BSD Chicago Fellows Program is an internationally competitive postdoctoral fellowship program supporting the career advancement of exceptional and creative postdoctoral scientists. We are pleased to announce that five fellowships have been awarded to the following early-career researchers from our most recent competition:
- Todd Chou joined the Department of Molecular Genetics & Cellular Biology (MGCB) in September after completing his Ph.D. in Biology from UC San Diego in 2025. As a graduate student, Todd showed that bacteria actively regulate nitrogen metabolism and use this temporal oscillation to spatially organize cell types in a bacterial community. Under the mentorship of Mike Rust (MGCB), Todd will investigate how cyanobacteria undergo oscillations of nitrogen starvation, even under constant nitrogen supply, in order to produce glycogen.
- Regina Fairbanks will join the Department of Ecology and Evolution (E&E) this fall, after completing their PhD in Population Biology at UC Davis. Regina’s graduate research uses modern population genomic data to explore adaptive and demographic histories in maize. Under the mentorship of Julia Kreiner (E&E) and Matthias Steinruecken (E&E) Regina will compare selective and demographic histories of domesticated, weedy, and feral Amaranthus lineages to understand how plant species adapt to human-modified, agricultural landscapes.
- Elizabeth Kitto will join the Department of Medicine this spring after receiving her PhD in Molecular and Integrative Physiology from University of Michigan in August 2025. Her graduate research focus was on how sensory perception and neural circuits influence longevity, health, and behavior using C. elegans as a model organism. Elizabeth will complete her proposed postdoctoral project in Margo Emont’s lab. Her research plan is to test the hypothesis that glutamate signaling in adipocytes increases inflammation and insulin resistance, and that this pathway is partially responsible for the metabolic dysfunction seen in obesity.
- Yiyan Lin will join the Department of Molecular Genetics & Cellular Biology (MGCB) this fall after completing her PhD in Biological Chemistry from Johns Hopkins. As a graduate student, Yiyan focuses on how signaling networks shape cell morphology and migration, and how these behaviors emerge from the interplay between biochemical reactions, cytoskeletal architecture, and mechanical properties. As a postdoctoral fellow in Ed Munro’s lab, Yiyan proposes to test the hypothesis that the endoplasmic reticulum, and possibly other endomembrane systems, mediates the dynamic, reciprocal coupling between cortical and cytoplasmic organization and polarity.
- Koroush Maboudi will join the Department of Neurology this spring after completing his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee in 2022. His graduate work established offline hippocampal processing as an active, foresightful mechanism, rather than a passive recapitulation of past experience, as was previously thought. Under the mentorship of Joel Voss (Neurology), Koroush will develop the first non-invasive, closed-loop optimization framework for human memory enhancement and test the hypothesis that hippocampal pro-memory states can be identified from iEEG and used as real-time objectives to improve memory behavior.
