Three Northeastern students named Goldwater Scholars
The highly prestigious scholarship supports students with promise for great careers in science, engineering and mathematics research.
How do bacterial biofilms — communities of bacteria that develop an extracellular matrix around themselves — allow chronic infections to flourish? What can the reproductive system of a worm teach us about the human body? Does an axolotl’s ability to sense and respond to physical stimuli matter in skeletal regeneration?
These are the questions asked by three Northeastern students in the research they’ve pursued over the course of their undergraduate careers. This work has led to Numair Elahi, Maren Ritterbuck and Sophia Guerra, becoming three of the 454 students who received this year’s Barry Goldwater Scholarship. This prestigious award supports undergraduate students in science, engineering and mathematics who have the potential for promising research careers.
These students, all of whom will graduate next year, were selected from a pool of over 5,000 college sophomores and juniors majoring in science, engineering and mathematics-related areas.
While growing up in Bangladesh, Elahi, a third-year biochemistry major, saw how health care outcomes are impacted by access to care. Pharmacies in Bangladesh sold antibiotics to patients, even those without a prescription. People could and would purchase this type of medicine, in hopes of curing ailments on their own without a visit to the doctor.
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But if taken when not needed, antibiotics can kill “good” bacteria (like the kind found in the gut to aid digestion) and allow “bad” bacteria to build resistance to these types of drugs, rendering them useless in treating future infections.
Since coming to Northeastern, Elahi has researched bacterial biofilms, which are fixed communities of bacteria that attach themselves to surfaces and produce an extracellular matrix around themselves. Often found in body tissue, this matrix protects bacteria from environmental stressors, including antibiotics, and contributes to antibiotic resistance.
Using experimental and computational research, Elahi has studied how these bacterial biofilms and other membrane-associated processes (functions regulated by the plasma membrane of the cell) drive antibiotic resistance and chronic infection. His work, done under professprs Veronica Godoy-Carter and Constantinos Zeinalipour-Yazdi, shed greater light on how these bacterial membranes remodel themselves to become more resilient to treatment.
“What excites me most about this work is that it sits at the intersection of microbiology, biochemistry, and biophysics, while also holding real translational potential,” Elahi told Northeastern Global News (NGN).
Receiving the scholarship gives meaning to the failure or troubleshooting that come with this sort of research.
“To receive something that validates those difficult moments is especially meaningful,” he added. “It reminds me that the work I hope to do matters, and it strengthens my commitment to making the most of every opportunity in my academic journey.”
Elahi plans to pursue an MD/Ph.D. and become a physician-scientist, juggling treating patients and conducting research that can be applied to his clinical work.
For Guerra, the scholarship is a stepping stone to a career as a researcher studying the development of new biofuels and biomaterials.
Since coming to Northeastern, the third-year biology and mathematics major has worked in the lab of biology professor and associate dean for research, Erin Cram. Guerra works with a widely used model organism, the Caenorhabditis elegans worm, which serves as a great medium for studying processes that are present in other animals as well. In her case, Guerra is interested in learning how muscle cells, when they contract or move in any way, then signal that movement to the nervous system, such as when muscles coordinate signaling cues to the rest of the body to successfully ovulate and lay eggs.
This smooth muscle movement is similar to the human reproductive system and can play a role in regulating other processes such as digestion, Guerra said.
“We hope that by piecing together pathways involved in such behavior, we will be able to better understand these systems in a fundamental, biophysical way with potential applications in multiple types of disease research,” she said.
Guerra’s work combines data analysis and lab work. She uses open-source gene and protein databases to identify genes of interest and perform screenings using genetic engineering tools. She hopes to pursue this type of computational biology as she continues her academic career.
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“I’ve been interested in research since I was in high school,” Guerra told NGN. “I’ve only grown more and more interested in and excited by the idea of earning a Ph.D. and leading important and innovative graduate level research,” she said, adding, “Winning the Goldwater feels like a confirmation that these goals might actually happen.”
Ritterbuck, a fourth-year bioengineering and biochemistry double major, is also interested in muscle movements, specifically, how the body moves and recovers from injury. Her work includes research on axolotls and how bone generation in these aquatic salamanders is impacted by their ability to sense mechanical forces.
Ritterbuck completed this research as an AJC Merit Research Scholar, a program that funds student work in the laboratory of a faculty member working in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, and worked in professor Sandra Shefelbine’s lab.
Ritterbuck’s past research examined how mechanical function is linked to biochemical composition change in the degenerating cartilage associated with osteoarthritis. This work contributed to the development of a promising tool that can help diagnose degenerative joint disease. It sparked an interest, like Guerra, in how cells convert outside stimuli into internal signals that influence the structure of musculoskeletal structures. She is currently studying the role this process plays in regeneration to determine if cells need to sense mechanical forces like stress or tension for proper bone regeneration.
“This has the possibility of informing therapies for fracture healing and other musculoskeletal injuries,” she told NGN.
Ritterbuck hopes to go on to obtain a Ph.D. in biomechanics and research techniques that could lead to regenerative therapies. She said applying for the Goldwater Scholarship made her think about her research journey and the impact of her work and inspired her to apply for larger graduate fellowships to help her continue her academic career.
“It has been very rewarding to see how all the hard work I have put in, alongside my mentors, has culminated into the award,” she said. “Being selected as a Goldwater Scholar marks the start of what I hope will be a long career in science working on projects that help people around me….(It) has strengthened my confidence in both myself and my research abilities, empowering me to set ambitious goals for the next stages of my scientific career.”
