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 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 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 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 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
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 ChewAnne Chin
Andrew Kahlen ConnerKasandra Dassoulas
Dale DingBrian Hanak
Obehioya IrumudomonJulia Jaffe
Jonathan LatzmanNeal Mehan
Whitney ParkerMatthew Parry
Caroline TougasNina Zobenica
University of Missouri
University of TorontoUMDNJ – New Jersey Medical School
Indiana UniversityUniversity of Virginia
Duke UniversityMassachusetts General - Harvard
Case Western ReserveMount Sinai School of Medicine
New York UniversityUniversity of Cincinnati
University of PennsylvaniaVirginia Commonwealth University
University of OttawaBarrow Neurological Institute
