Scholar to Faculty Pathway Program Scholars
Meet the current scholars of NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Scholar to Faculty Pathway Program.
Oluwaseun (Seun) Adeyemi, PhD, MBChB, MSurg
Mentor: Joshua Chodosh, MD
Seun is a postdoctoral fellow at NYU Langone’s Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine. His research focuses on geriatric trauma with special interests in injury prevention and care, trauma spatial and spatiotemporal epidemiology, and healthcare access and disparity. Seun completed his surgical residency training (MWACS) in Nigeria and obtained an MPH at the University of Roehampton, a master’s in trauma and orthopedics at the University of Edinburgh, and a PhD in public health at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is a recipient of several research awards including the American Public Health Association Presidential Road Safety Award, Lifesavers Traffic Scholar Award, and the Burroughs Wellcome STEM Fellowship Award. Aside from research-related tasks, Seun enjoys teaching, listening to music, traveling, and spending time with his family.
Ismail Ahmed, PhD
Mentor: Robert C. Froemke, PhD
Ismail is a postdoctoral fellow at NYU Langone’s Neuroscience Institute with an interest in cell biology–molecular neurobiology.
Ariel Edward Hight, PhD
Mentors: Robert C. Froemke, PhD, and Mario A. Svirsky, PhD
As a postdoctoral fellow at NYU Langone’s Neuroscience Institute and Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Ariel focuses on basic studies of neuroplasticity while leveraging clinical neuroprostheses such as cochlear implants. During the past 16 years, Ariel has been trained in biomedical engineering, medical device engineering, and auditory neuroscience. His training has taken him from the Midwest (St. Louis) to the West Coast (Los Angeles) and ending up on the East Coast (Boston and New York), and his breadth of training provides him the expertise and creativity for bridging basic science and engineering disciplines. Ariel is also Deaf/hard of hearing and is committed to continuing efforts on ensuring inclusion, equity, and diversity in science to maximize talent in the scientific workforce and to promote a healthy scientific community.
Kim Cajachagua Torres, MD, PhD
Mentors: Akhgar Ghassabian, MD, PhD, and Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP
Kim is a medical doctor who also holds a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology and a second specialty in healthcare management. A postdoctoral fellow at NYU Langone’s Departments of Pediatrics and Population Health, her research focuses on identifying the role of environmental exposures in sensitive periods of neurodevelopment. Kim has been researching the influence of prenatal exposure to tobacco and cannabis smoking on offspring (neuro) development as part of her PhD research, and she also enjoys collaborating internationally with multidisciplinary organizations. Kim's hobbies are trekking activities, listening to music, and writing poems.
Carmen Vallin, PhD
Mentor: Evgeny A. Nudler, PhD
Carmen is fascinated by the intersections of DNA repair systems, mutations, and stress that highlight the delicate balance life maintains between genome integrity and mutation-driven evolution. Specifically, she is interested in stress-induced evolvable cellular subpopulations and their implications for human health. Studying hypermutable subpopulations is vital as this phenomenon is likely widespread and leads to antibiotic resistance and the evolution of intratumor heterogeneity. A postdoctoral fellow at NYU Langone’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Carmen is a first-generation college student and a previous National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program and American Society for Microbiology Watkins Graduate Research Fellow. She completed her doctorate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she elucidated novel factors contributing to stress-induced mutagenesis. Outside of the lab, Carmen participates in community outreach and service programs that seek to inspire, recruit, and support underrepresented groups to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. She is committed to making science more diverse and inclusive.