Where Our Trainees Go

Detailed alumni placements with current positions, thesis or postdoctoral focus, fellowships and awards, and trajectory notes. Update annually.

Quantitative Summary

Every graduate student trained in the B.I.O.N.I.C. Lab has secured external fellowship or scholarship funding during their PhD, a 100 % rate.

Fellowships and scholarships have included NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), NIH F31 individual predoctoral awards, NIH F99/K00 transition awards, NIH T32 institutional training program slots, ARCS Foundation Scholarships, Pitt-internal awards including the Bevier Dissertation Fellowship, and foundation-specific awards. Postdoctoral trainees have secured NIH F32, NIH K99/R00, and foundation postdoctoral awards.

Lab alumni have placed in academic faculty positions, industry research positions at neural interface and medical device companies, and policy and translational roles. The training program is designed to support both academic and industry trajectories, with the choice of track made by the trainee.

Selected Graduate Alumni

Steven M. Wellman, PhD

•         Fellowships during PhD, NIH F99/K00 (1st percentile), URM scholar

•         Current position, Postdoctoral Fellow, Chris Dulla Lab, Tufts University School of Medicine 

•         Thesis focus, oligodendrocyte and OPC biology in chronic neural interfaces, including FusOLcKO genetic experiments

Kevin C. Stieger, PhD

•         Fellowships during PhD, NIH F31 (2nd percentile), ARCS Foundation Scholarship

•         Current position, Postdoctoral Fellow, Z. He Lab, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School

•         Thesis focus, ICMS mechanism and parametric stimulation

Keying Chen, PhD

•         Fellowships during PhD, Pitt Bevier Dissertation Fellowship

•         Current position, Postdoctoral Fellow, B. Stefanovic Lab, Sunnybrook Research Institute and University of Toronto

•         Thesis focus, oligodendrocyte and lysosomal biology around chronic implants, pharmacological repositioning of clemastine

Christopher L. Hughes, PhD

•         Fellowships during PhD, NIH T32, NIH F32 NINDS Postdoctoral Fellowship

•         Current position, Senior Engineer at Blackrock Neurotech

•         Thesis focus, ICMS biomimetic stimulation, with continued joint authorship through 2026

Naofumi Suematsu, PhD

•         Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab

•         Current position, Assistant Professor of Molecular Cell Physiology, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine

•         Postdoctoral focus, chronic ICMS hemodynamics

Jazlyn Gallego, MS

•         Fellowships during MS, NSF GRFP, URM scholar

•         Current position, PhD Student, C. McClung Lab, University of Pittsburgh

Kaylene C. Stocking

•         Awards as undergraduate, Emma W. Locke Award, Goldwater Scholarship Honorable Mention

•         Current position, PhD Student, C. Tomlin Lab, UC Berkeley

•         Undergraduate focus, ultrasmall carbon fiber electrodes for photoelectric stimulation

Selected Current Trainees with Pending or Recent Awards

•         Camila Garcia (PhD, URM, female), NIH Diversity Supplement Awardee, F31 17th percentile (fundable), ARCS Scholar

•         Theresa Thai (PhD), F31 7th percentile (fundable)

•         Vanshika Singh (PhD), NSF GRFP awardee