MCW Graduate School

🌟 Student Spotlight 🌟

Join us in celebrating Rutuja Borawke, a PhD student, for her outstanding commitment to community engagement, advocacy, and leadership!

Rutuja recently began serving as a Community Representative for the Alzheimer's Association Wisconsin Chapter, where she helps connect communities with education, resources, and volunteer opportunities related to Alzheimer's disease and dementia. In this role, she represents the organization at community events, delivers educational presentations, and promotes initiatives such as the Walk to End Alzheimer's and Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month.

Her dedication has also earned her a full scholarship to attend the 40th Annual Wisconsin State Conference hosted by the Alzheimer's Association.

Adding to these accomplishments, Rutuja was recently selected and recognized as one of Milwaukee's "Influential Women," highlighting her impact as a leader and advocate in the community.

Congratulations, Rutuja, on these well-deserved achievements and for making a difference both within and beyond the classroom! 👏

Science in action 🧠⚡

On April 21, six MCW PhD students visited the Milwaukee Academy of Science to bring neuronal signaling to life for local high school students! Through hands-on activities and interactive models, students explored how brain signaling relates to depression and experienced different signaling states in action.

This outreach event was organized by the Community Outreach by Students in Science (COSS) Committee, a graduate student-led organization dedicated to connecting science with the community and inspiring the next generation of scientists. 🔬✨

We are so excited to see what you do next, Angela! Congrats!

MCW made a global impact at the 2026 Consortium of Universities for Global Health conference in Washington, DC 🌍

With 31 attendees and one of the highest numbers of presentations among nearly 200 institutions worldwide, MCW students, faculty, and global partners shared research on topics ranging from diabetes and cervical cancer to teledermatology and violence prevention.

MCW’s strong presence highlighted our continued commitment to global collaboration, innovation, and improving health worldwide. 🔬✨

Today, we are highlighting Sadaf Siddiqie. Congratulations on the completion of your MPH!

Congratulations to PhD graduate, Vlad Friedman! We are so excited for your next chapter!

Another day, another graduate! Alexis Knotek, PhD, congratulations on your degree!

Congratulations to our Spring Paper of the Season winner, Erin Hammonds! The title of their paper is “Histone H3 tail charge patterns govern nucleosome condensate formation and dynamics.”

It can be read here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40291647/.

Congratulations Lexi Kazen on the completion of your PhD!

Yesterday was a perfect day! More photos from our Hooding Ceremony coming soon. Congratulations to all of our incredible graduates! See you on Friday! 🎓