Students

To date, we have more than 500 alumni across the many programs of CASE. Many of our alumni are in Ph.D. programs or have graduated and gone on to work in science either in industry or as faculty/teachers. A vast majority of alumni who graduate from our programs continue to work and study in STEM fields. We believe the success of our students lies in the fact that while at Brooklyn College and in our programs they are given a solid foundation that allows them to be successful in the endeavors they pursue after leaving us.

Alumni Highlights

Moses Feaster

Moses Feaster, a corporal in the Marine Corps Reserved, transferred to Brooklyn College in 2002. He majored in biology and eventually joined the Louis Stokes Alliance for Maximizing Participation (LSAMP), which supports research in the biomedical fields. He soon began working with Professor Jennifer Basil on research that investigated memory formation in freshwater crayfish.

In 2004, Feaster applied to and was accepted to Brooklyn College’s Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program, which offers students both an opportunity to do research in the biomedical fields with a faculty mentor and considerable financial and academic support. He also became the recipient of the Rose Goldstein Memorial Scholarship, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowships and the Dr. Mordecai Gabriel Scholarship. The following year, as a result of the MARC program, he spent his summer at Columbia University, working with Dr. Virginia Papaioannoua on the role of the gene Tbx6 in the development of the mouse embryo and with Dr. Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis in the Sloan Kettering Fellowship National Cancer Institute CURE program, which supports cancer research.

In 2006, Feaster was awarded a three-year NSF grant to pursue a Ph.D. in developmental biology in addition to several other undergraduate awards, including an honorable mention in the Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Diversity Fellowship program.

While in the MARC program, Feaster was encouraged to apply to several of the top biomedical research programs. He was accepted to Ph.D. programs at Cornell Weill, NYU, Columbia, Rockefeller, Mt. Sinai, and Sloan Kettering. Moses eventually choose Rockefeller University to continue his education and began his studies in developmental genetics with full support, including both financial and academic, of the university. Both the LSAMP and MARC programs that Feaster participated in serve to increase the number of traditionally underserved students in STEM disciplines and strongly promote research in the biomedical fields.

Ismaele Jacques

Ismaele Jacques graduated from Brooklyn College cum laude in 2003 with a B.S. in biology. As an alumna of the school’s Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program, to which she was accepted into in 2001, Jacques worked with Professor He Qi studying molecular and cellular mechanism governing the Drosophilia visual system.

Jacques received her Ph.D. in microbiology in December 2008 at Yale University after nearly six years of study and research—quite an accomplishment for a student whose interest in science was encouraged when, as a sophomore, she decided to take three difficult science classes at Brooklyn College. These three classes, some of the toughest any student can manage, were Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Calculus. As a student used to overcoming challenges, Jacques, who in a CUNY Matters article describes herself as enjoying challenges, earned two B+s and an A in those classes. What is also amazing is not only that Jacques did so well in these classes but that she took them all in the same semester.

While at Brooklyn College, Jacques joined the MARC program, which encourages students to become interested in research as early as their junior year. Students work with a faculty mentor on substantial research projects. Jacques studied 2,3,7,8-Tetrachloro dibenzop dioxin (CTCDD), an element found in the infamous Agent Orange. Jacques, who migrated to Brooklyn in 1991 with her family from Haiti and attended Martin Luther King High School in Brooklyn, attained a lifelong dream when she was granted her Ph.D. in advanced microbiology for her study of mircobial pathogenesis and will continue her work in research in the biomedical field. She is planning to further her education by pursuing a degree in medicine.

Brooklyn. All in.