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).

For additional information, visit NREF Grants & Fellowships online or contact the NREF team at info@nref.org.

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.

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.

- Eugene Vaios, Harvard Medical School, 2015 Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship recipient

Fellowship Recipients

2023 Fellows
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

 

2022 Fellows
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 Fellows
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 Institute

2021 NREF & Southeastern Brain Tumor Foundation (SBTF) 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 Fellows
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 Fellows
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

University of Rochester

Winward Choy

University of California, Los Angeles

Samuel Clarke

Columbia University

Shanna Fang

Mayo Medical School

Abdullah Feroze

Stanford University School of Medicine

Yizheng He

Washington University

Christina Huang

Pennsylvania State University

Pouya Jamshidi

University of California, San Diego

Siri Sahib S. Khalsa

George Washington University

Sattar KhoshkhooBharat Kilaru

University of California, San Francisco

Yoshito Kosai

Vanderbilt University

Benjamin Lu

Case Western Reserve University

Kendall McEachron

New York University

Ramin Morshed

University of Minnesota

Farshad Nassiri

University of Chicago

Adam Pampori

University of Toronto

Kunal Patel

University of Maryland

Matthew Pease

Cornell University

Pete Pow-anpongkul

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

Derek Chew

Anne Chin

Andrew Kahlen Conner

Kasandra Dassoulas

Dale Ding

Brian Hanak

Obehioya Irumudomon

Julia Jaffe

Jonathan Latzman

Neal Mehan

Whitney Parker

Matthew Parry

Caroline Tougas

Nina Zobenica

University of Missouri

University of Toronto

UMDNJ – New Jersey Medical School

Indiana University

University of Virginia

Duke University

Massachusetts General - Harvard

Case Western Reserve

Mount Sinai School of Medicine

New York University

University of Cincinnati

University of Pennsylvania

Virginia Commonwealth University

University of Ottawa

Barrow Neurological Institute

NREF is the Philanthropic Arm of the AANS

Contact Us

5550 Meadowbrook Industrial Ct.
Rolling Meadows, IL 60008-3852
847.378.0500
info@nref.org