Medical Student Summer Research Fellowships
The NREF has offered the Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship (MSSRF) program annually since 2008.
Next Generation Neurosurgeons
The NREF launched the MSSRF program as an investment in the future of neurosurgery. These fellowships are provided to students whose research projects are aimed at the better understanding, treatment and prevention of neurological disorders, as well as improved patient care.
Fellowships in the amount of $2,500 are awarded to medical students in the United States, Canada or Mexico who have completed one or more years of medical school and wish to spend a summer mentored by a neurosurgical investigator sponsor who is a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS).
Next Generation Neurosurgeons
The NREF launched the MSSRF program as an investment in the future of neurosurgery. These fellowships are provided to students whose research projects are aimed at the better understanding, treatment and prevention of neurological disorders, as well as improved patient care.
![](https://nref.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/NREF-Quotation.png")
I received a 2015 NREF Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship. The research supported by the Fellowship has been published in the Journal of Neurosurgeryand I’ve had the opportunity to speak at neurosurgical meetings. I want to thank the NREF for their generous support, which made this project possible. It has been a tremendous experience for me as I pursue an academic career. The Fellowship allowed me to work closely with physicians who’ve become instrumental mentors in my life and we are continuing to collaborate on new research initiatives. 
Harvard Medical School,
2015 Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship recipient
Fellowship Recipients
2023 NREF Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship:
Daniel Alber — NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Maria Bederson — Carle Illinois College of Medicine
Michael M. Covell — Georgetown University School of Medicine
Adeline Fecker — Oregon Health and Science University
Han Gil “Hans” Jeong — University of Minnesota Medical School
Karl L. Sangwon — NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Smruti Kedarnath Mahapatra — Tulane University School of Medicine
Logan Muzyka — Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin
Elsa Nico — Barrow Neurological Institute
Edwin Owolo — Duke University School of Medicine
Ruchit Patel — Harvard Medical School
Sangami Pugazenthi — Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Gabriel Trevino Verastegui — Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Eunice Yang — Columbia University
The NREF congratulates Sangami Pugazenthi, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, on being selected the 2023 NREF Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Best Abstract Award recipient.
Ms. Pugazenthi has been invited to present during the 2024 American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago, IL.
2022 NREF Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship:
Talia Wenger — Keck School of Medicine of USC
Akash Mishra — Northwell Health
Nicholas Dadario — Robert Wood Johnson Medical School / Rutgers University
Aditya Mittal — University of Pittsburgh
Jacob Sperber — Duke University
Sam Jiang — University of Illinois College of Medicine
Shreya Budhiraja — Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Andrew Hersh — Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Dara Farhadi — University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix
Matt Findlay — University of Utah Health
Emily Xu — Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Huy Dang — Baylor College of Medicine
Lilin Tong — Boston University School of Medicine
The NREF congratulates Shreya Budhiraja, Northwestern University, on being selected the 2022 NREF Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Best Abstract Award recipient.
Ms. Budhiraja has been invited to present during the 2023 American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting in Los Angeles, CA.
2021 NREF & Aaron Cohen-Gadol Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship
Tara Dalton — Duke University
Rachel Gologorsky — NYU Langone Health
Katherine Link, BS — NYU Langone
Patrick Ng, BS, BA — Massachusetts General Hospital
Alexandra J. White — Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institut
2021 NREF & Aaron Cohen-Gadol Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship
Troy Patrick Carnwath — University of Cincinnati
2021 NREF Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship
Oluwaseyi Adeuyan — The Neurological Institute at NYP/Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Jonathan Bao — Albany Medical College
Megan Bauman — Mayo Clinic
Eric Chalif, BS — University of California, San Francisco
Sung Min (Jane) Han, MS — Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California
Marita Ann John — Texas A&M College of Medicine
Aditi Kulkarni — University of Minnesota
Bennett Levy — GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences / University of Buffalo
Alice Liu — Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Ian Mandybur — The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
Danielle McAuliffe — Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University / National Institutes of Health
Anthony Piscopo, BS — University of Iowa
Je Yeong Sone, BA — University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences
Yohannes Tsehay — Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Bradley Wilhelmy — The University of Maryland School of Medicine
Daniel Yang Zhang — Rush Medical College
The NREF congratulates Megan Bauman, Mayo Clinic, on being selected the 2021 NREF Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Best Abstract Award recipient.
Ms. Bauman has been invited to present during the Young Neurosurgeons Research Forum at the 2022 American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.
Click here to learn more about this year’s award recipients and their research projects.
2020 Aaron Cohen-Gadol Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship:
Andrew Scott Emmert, BS — Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
Ashley Dunbar — Yale University
Timothy Yushin Kim, BS — The Johns Hopkins Hospital
Phillip Kubica — University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health
Sakibul Huq, BS — Johns Hopkins University
2020 NREF Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship
Seth Stravers Tigchelaar, PhD — Stanford University
Emily Fellows — University of Minnesota Medical School
Steven Willden — Barrow Neurological Institute
Oliver Young Tang — University of Pennsylvania
Olgert Bardhi — University of Florida
Meghan Price — Duke University
Adrian Rodrigues — Stanford University
Manish Paranjpe, BA — Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Stephen Ward — University of Utah School of Medicine
Nimay Kulkarni — University of Texas Southwestern Medical School
John “Jack” Butterfield — University of Minnesota
Kristie Liu, BS, MS — Keck School of Medicine – University of Southern California
Emre Kiziltug — Yale School of Medicine
Stephanie Casillo — UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
Nicholas J. Contillo — Wake Forest School of Medicine
2019 Aaron Cohen-Gadol Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Awardees
Jeff Ehresman, BS — Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Sricharan Gopakumar — MD Anderson Cancer Center
Arbaz Momin — Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute
Oluwaposi Omiwade — University of California-San Diego
Ryan Sandarage — Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
2019 NREF Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Awardees
Albert Alan — University of Arizona
Marcelle Altshuler — National Institute of Health
Omar Awan — University of Florida
Kinsey Barhorst — University of Cincinnati
Hriday Bhambhvani — Stanford University
Rahul Bussa — Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
Long Di, BS — University of Miami
Jeffrey Curran Henson, MS, BS — University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS)
Samantha Hoffman — Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Gabrielle Johnson, BA — Washington University in St. Louis
Dennis Lee — University of California Davis School of Medicine
Seung Jin Lee — David Geffen School of Medicine (UCLA)
Elliott Orloff — Keck School of Medicine-University of Southern California
Christine Park — Duke University
Shashank Patil — University of Illinois at Chicago
Keyan Alexander Peterson, MS, MBA — Wake Forest School of Medicine
Shannon Catherine Shipley — The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; The Presbyterian Medical Center of Philadelphia; The Veteran’s Administration Medical Center
Aly Al-Amyn Valliani, BA — Mount Sinai Health System
Mark Zaki, BS, BA — Massachusetts General Hospital
Mary Zhu — University of Toronto/St. Michael’s Hospital
2018 Aaron Cohen-Gadol Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Awardees
Arjun R. Adapa — University of Michigan
Ayodamola Otun — Washington University School of Medicine
Kobina Mensah-Brown — University of Pennsylvania
Alexa Semonche, BA — University of Miami
Olindi Wijesekera — Mayo Clinic Florida
2018 Rhoton Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Awardees
Sricharan Gopakumar — Baylor College of Medicine
Brian F. Jimenez — University of Tennessee
2018 NREF Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Awardees
Pranish A. Kantak, MPH — University of Texas – Southwestern Medical Center
Prasanth Romiyo — University of California, Los Angeles
Jordan Matthew Spatz, PhD — University of California, San Francisco
Sharon Abada, MPH — Washington University
Melissa Yuan — Weill Cornell Medicine
Andrew M. Miller, BS — University of California, San Francisco
Benjamin Hopkins — Northwestern University
Rohan Gupta — Emory University
Morgan Lee — University of Southern California
Shivani Baisiwala — Northwestern University
Cole Rinehart — University of Pennsylvania
Sheantel Reihl — University of California, San Francisco
Edith Yuan — University of Southern California
Hetshree Joshi (H.BSc) — University Health Network
Whi Inh Shirley Bae — University of California Los Angeles
Austin B. Carpenter, MS, MMS — Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Kendyl Carlisle — The Ohio State University
Jason Anthony Liew — Johns Hopkins University
Eli Johnson — Stanford University School of Medicine
Marissa D’Souza — Stanford Medical Center
2017 Aaron Cohen-Gadol Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Awardees
Dustin Roberts — University of California, Los Angeles
Mounica Reddy Paturu — Yale University
Jason K. Karimy — Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis
Erin Nicole D’Agostino — Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center
Ali Jamal — University of Saskatchewan
2017 Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Awardees
Akop Seksenyan — University of Illinois at Chicago
Vivek Sudhakar — University of California, San Francisco
Iyan Younus — Weill Cornell Medical College
Nicholas Goel — University of Pennsylvania
Huy Tram N. Nguyen — University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health
Yongsoo Peter Joo — University of Rochester
Ben (Jiahe) Gu — Presbyterian Medical Center of Philadelphia and Veteran’s Administration Medical Center
Ali Karim Ahmed — The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and The Johns Hopkins Hospital
Felicia Sun — Stanford University School of Medicine
Connor Berlin — Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Fabiha Rahman — Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Elliot Neal — University of South Florida
Breydan Hawkins Wright — Washington University
Faranak Dayani Dardashti — UCSF School of Medicine
David J. McCarthy — University of Miami
Samuel Daly — University of Minnesota Medical School
Brian Christian Kaszuba — Albany Medical College
Raghav Gupta — Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Harvard Medical School
John Ta-Hsiang Tsiang — Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Kenan Rajjoub — George Washington University School of Medicine
2016 Aaron Cohen-Gadol Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Awardees
Patrick M. Flanigan — University of California, San Francisco
Samuel Tomlinson — Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Rachel Kalani Greene — Washington University School of Medicine
Natalie Elizabeth Griffin — Washington University School of Medicine
Alessandra Hirsch — Columbia University Medical Center
Anadjeet Singh Khahera — New York University
Daniel Oyon — Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Weining Yang — Toronto Western Hospital
Christopher Marnell — Weill Cornell Medical College-New York Presbyterian Hospital
Luke Alan Mugge — The Ohio State University
2016 Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship Awardees
Claire Collison — Albany Medical Center
Joseph Scott Hudson — University of Iowa
Prateek Agarwal — University of Pennsylvania
Krish Suresh — Northwestern University
William Roberson Johnston — Washington University, St. Louis
Vaidehi Mahadev — Cleveland Clinic Foundation
Ankush Chandra — University of California, San Francisco
David J. Cote — Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Michael Mathison — Washington University School of Medicine
Erin Elizabeth Good — GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Tej Deepak Azad — Stanford University School of Medicine
Lawrance Chung — David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Harrison Farber — Duke University Medical Center
Sameer Farooq — New York University
André Renaldo Fernández — University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry
Megan Hermann — UT Health Science Center San Antonio
Zachary Hopkins — University of Utah
Dhruv Kumar Jain — University of Toronto
Joseph Juliano — University of Southern California
Michael Kader — NYU Langone Medical Center
Jason Kirschner — University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry
Sneha Konda — Texas A&M Health Sciences Center College of Medicine
Brandon Lucke-Wold — West Virginia University School of Medicine
Erin Patricia McCormack — The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Robert Rudy — Harvard Medical School
Adam Russak — University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry
Sanjit Shah — University of Cinncinati
Eugene Vaios — Massachusetts General Hospital
Philip Yee — Toronto Western Hospital
Jacob Stewart Young — The University of Chicago
Yin Zhao — University of Pittsburgh
Abdul-Kareem Ahmed — Brown University – Alpert Medical School
Malcolm Dombrowski — University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Sarah Dooley — University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics
Mark Ehlers — University of Wisconsin, Madison
Paul Gamble — Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis
Ranjit Ganguly — Ohio State University
Laureen Hachem — University of Toronto and Toronto Western Hospital
Sasha Halasz — Mayo Clinic
Joshua Haswell — University of Rochester
Hillary Hosier — University of Maryland School of Medicine and Medical Center
Ioan Lina — Johns Hopkins Medicine
Robert Maurer — Penn State University College of Medicine
Margaret McDougal — Emory University School of Medicine
Lauren Miller — Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
David Sawyer — Tulane University
Rajeev Sen — NYU School of Medicine
Jeffrey Treiber — University of California, San Diego
Terence Verla — Duke University
Justin Wang — Queen’s University
Michael Zhang — University School of Medicine
Ali Alam — University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center
Brandyn Castro — University of California, San Francisco
Tyler Cole — Stanford University School of Medicine
Kyle Gabrick — University of Tennessee Health Science Center
Chad Gier — Cleveland Clinic
Emelia Hakes — Phoenix Children’s Hospital
Mark Kraemer — University of Utah
Travis Ladner — Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Edward Larkin — University of Pennsylvania
Stephen Miranda — University of Rochester Medical Center
Neel Patel — Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Morgan Prust — Massachusetts General Hospital
Ranjodh Singh — Weill Cornell Medical College – New York Presbyterian
Saman Sizdahkhani — University of Illinois at Chicago
Timothy Wen — University of Southern California
Joseph Wooley — Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Aqib Zehri — Barrow Neurological Institute
Xiaofei (Sophie) Zhou — Case Western Reserve School of Medicine
Jeffrey Zuccato — University of Toronto
Sean Childs
Winward Choy
Samuel Clarke
Shanna Fang
Abdullah Feroze
Yizheng He
Christina Huang
Pouya Jamshidi
Siri Sahib S. Khalsa
Sattar KhoshkhooBharat Kilaru
Yoshito Kosai
Benjamin Lu
Kendall McEachron
Ramin Morshed
Farshad Nassiri
Adam Pampori
Kunal Patel
Matthew Pease
Pete Pow-anpongkul
University of Rochester
University of California, Los Angeles
Columbia University
Mayo Medical School
Stanford University School of Medicine
Washington University
Pennsylvania State University
University of California, San Diego
George Washington University
University of California, San Francisco
Vanderbilt University
Case Western Reserve University
New York University
University of Minnesota
University of Chicago
University of Toronto
University of Maryland
Cornell University
Ohio State University School of Medicine
Raanan Alter — Boston University School of Medicine
David Altshuler — University of Michigan
Matthew Amarante — UMDNJ
Mark Attiah — University of Pennsylvania
Al-Wala Awad — University of Arizona College of Medicine
Ranjith Babu — Duke University
Andrew Duren — Columbia University
Jacob Greenberg — Washington University School of Medicine
David Kurland — Washington University School of Medicine
Jason Mandell — University of Maryland
Robert Mitchell — The Pennsylvania State University
David Paul — University of Toronto
Arjun Pendharkar — University of Rochester
Kunal Raygor — Stanford University
Marko Spasic — UCSF
Jessica Swienckowski — Dartmouth Medical School
David K. Chen — UMDNJ – New Jersey Medical School
Newton Cho — University of Toronto
Ramana Gorrepati — Weill Cornell Medical College
Mohammad-Ali Jazayeri — Medical College of Wisconsin
Alexander Kotlyar — Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Vincent Ma — Case Western Reserve School of Medicine
Margy McCullough-Hicks — Columbia University
David McMullen — University of Washington
Polina Ogas — Harvard Medical School/Mass General Hospital
Benjamin Plog — University of Rochester
Alexander Riccio — Albany Medical College
Christopher Showers — Stanford University
Matthew Sun — University of California, San Francisco
Krista Stewart — University of Wisconsin, Madison
Samuel Terman — University of Michigan
Jeffrey Barry — University of California, San Francisco
Yevgenya Byekova — University of Alabama
Ian Crain — Barrow Neurological Institute
Nihar Gala — University Hospital – UMDNJ
Jasmine Hasselback — University of Ottawa
Francis Huttinger — University of Cincinnati
Cynthia Loder — University of Virginia
Vivek Mehta — Johns Hopkins University
Thomas Noh — Duke University Medical Center
Brenton Pennicooke — Harvard Medical School
Sandhya Ravichandran — University of Utah
Adam Shen — University of Pennsylvania
Shelly Wang — University of Toronto
Teresa Wojtasiewicz — Columbia University
Lucas Harmon Bradley — University of Missouri
Derek Chew — University of Toronto
Anne Chin — UMDNJ – New Jersey Medical School
Andrew Kahlen Conner — Indiana University
Kasandra Dassoulas — University of Virginia
Dale Ding — Duke University
Brian Hanak — Massachusetts General – Harvard
Obehioya Irumudomon — Case Western Reserve
Julia Jaffe — Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Jonathan Latzman — New York University
Neal Mehan — University of Cincinnati
Whitney Parker — University of Pennsylvania
Matthew Parry — Virginia Commonwealth University
Caroline Tougas — University of Ottawa
Nina Zobenica — Barrow Neurological Institute