Chancellor King Celebrates Leading Graduate Researchers with SUNY GREAT Awards

April 30, 2025

SUNY Accelerates the Research of 38 Distinguished Doctoral Students with Awards

Awardees' Photos and Research Bios are Available Here

Albany, NY – State University of New York Chancellor John B. King Jr. today recognized 38 outstanding graduate student researchers across the SUNY system with the 2025 SUNY Graduate Research Empowering and Accelerating Talent (GREAT) award. This year's research projects focused on areas including using AI for environmental resilience, understanding pressing illnesses like Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease, measuring gravitational waves to better understand black hole mergers, and detecting air quality with low-cost sensor technology. The awardees were honored by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

"SUNY is a nationwide leader when it comes to cutting-edge research in fields from healthcare to emerging technologies, and these awardees are stellar examples of what our students are capable of achieving," said SUNY Chancellor King. "I congratulate the distinguished graduate students selected for this year's SUNY GREAT Awards and I applaud their innovative achievements and excellence at advancing scientific research. The great minds we help cultivate through the investments we make today will help ensure that New York State, and our entire nation and planet, are better off tomorrow and for generations to come."

The SUNY Board of Trustees said, "The education and research at our SUNY campuses are fundamental to creating a better future and empowering tomorrow's leaders to achieve their full potential. We are proud to provide a launching pad that supports early-career researchers as they use their curiosity to expand the frontiers of basic knowledge on pressing issues."

SUNY GREAT incentivizes graduate students to compete for prestigious federal fellowships that support their education in SUNY's top graduate programs. Those who win publicly announced federal fellowships receive additional flexible funding for research expenses, professional development, and supplements to their stipends. The 38 awardees are enrolled in SUNY Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. programs.

Over a quarter of recipients graduated from New York State high schools and one in six of the awardees were undergraduates at a SUNY comprehensive or R1 university center before enrolling in SUNY's doctoral programs. Additionally, while national trends show women tend to be underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields, nearly 60% of this year's awardees are women and about 30% identify with groups who are ethnically or racially under-represented in science and academia. (The program is open to all students and does not provide preference based on race, ethnicity, or sex). As undergraduates, more than one in three were the first in their families to earn a bachelor's degree. This year's GREAT Award recipients are:

University at Albany

Ellie Hojeily, Atmospheric and Earth Sciences
Rachel E. Lange, Biomedical Sciences

Binghamton University

Ahshabibi Ahmed, Chemistry
Alin Alshaheri Durazo, Cognitive Neuroscience
Elana Israel, Psychology
Kailee Behunin, Biological Anthropology
Sage Sanders, Chemistry
Sophia Zaslow, Ecology

University at Buffalo

Ariel M. Lighty, Chemical Engineering
Brian G. Morreale, Immunology
David Goich, Microbiology and Immunology
Dayron M. Leyva Rodriguez, Oral Biology
Leah Maykish, Engineering Education
Mary D'Angelo, Microbiology and Immunology
Riley Blasiak, Engineering
Sarah MacDougall, Psychology
Steven Taddei Jr., Microbiology & Immunology
Verenice Ascencio Gutierrez, Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience
Zahid Manzar, Biomedical Engineering

Stony Brook University

Adebayo Braimah, Computer Science
Allison George, Neuroscience
Amy Wang, Social Psychology
Benjamin Levine, Physics and Astronomy
Brandon Feole, Marine Sciences
Ian Outhwaite, Biochemistry, MSTP
Ivy Huang, Quantum Physics
Isabel Sakarin, Microbiology and Immunology, MSTP
Jadyn Trayvick, Psychology
Logan Swanson, Linguistics
Nicole Khusid, Physics and Astronomy
Santiago Espinosa de los Reyes, Genetics, MSTP

SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Jeremiah Tennant, Environmental Biology

Upstate Medical

Allysa Preya Kemraj, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Aya Kobeissi, Psychiatry and Neuroscience
Joseph Mauro, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Jennifer Messina, Pharmacology
Nathan McKean, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Tatiana Mikhailova, Psychiatry and Neuroscience

Awardees' photos and descriptions of their research are available here.

About the State University of New York
The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States, and more than 95 percent of all New Yorkers live within 30 miles of any one of SUNY’s 64 colleges and universities. Across the system, SUNY has four academic health centers, five hospitals, four medical schools, two dental schools, a law school, the country’s oldest school of maritime, the state's only college of optometry, and manages one US Department of Energy National Laboratory. In total, SUNY serves about 1.4 million students amongst its entire portfolio of credit- and non-credit-bearing courses and programs, continuing education, and community outreach programs. SUNY oversees nearly a quarter of academic research in New York. Research expenditures system-wide are nearly $1.16 billion in fiscal year 2024, including significant contributions from students and faculty. There are more than three million SUNY alumni worldwide, and one in three New Yorkers with a college degree is a SUNY alum. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunities, visit suny.edu.