Five Cornell doctoral candidates have been selected for induction into the Cornell chapter of the Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society.

The Bouchet Society recognizes outstanding scholarly achievement and promotes diversity and excellence in doctoral education and the professoriate. Its network of scholars exemplifies academic and personal excellence, character, service and advocacy for students who traditionally have been underrepresented in the academy.

According to Sara Xayarath Hernández, associate dean for inclusion and student engagement, Cornell’s Bouchet scholars were scheduled to be inducted into the society in April at the annual Bouchet Conference at Yale, which was canceled. The inductees were recognized June 12 during the virtual 2020 Graduate Diversity and Inclusion Awards and Recognition Celebration.

Cornell’s 2020 Bouchet scholars are:

• Korie Grayson, Ph.D. ’20, biomedical engineering: Grayson’s research focuses on white blood cells that infiltrate primary prostate tumors. She hopes to provide new insight into tailoring immunotherapy targets to mitigate tumor growth and metastasis in prostate cancer patients;
• Eugene Law, soil and crop science doctoral candidate: Law’s research focuses on perennial grain cropping systems with projects that examine crop management, environmental benefits and economic implications, all in the context of agricultural sustainability;
• John McMullen, entomology doctoral candidate: McMullen’s research uses the common fruit fly’s gut microbiome as a model for studying the microbial contributions to obesity and metabolic syndromes in humans;
• Manisha Munasinghe, computational biology doctoral candidate: Munasinghe’s research explores the genetic, behavioral and environmental factors that contribute to speciation by modeling genetic processes and identifying genes underlying reproductive isolation; and
• Johana Uribe, biomedical engineering doctoral candidate: Uribe’s research investigates the interactions between cancer extracellular vesicles and adipose-derived stem cells to develop treatments and therapeutics to stop their contribution to metastasis.

Yale and Howard universities established the Bouchet Society in 2005 to recognize the life and academic contributions of Edward Alexander Bouchet, the first African American to receive a doctorate from a U.S. university. He earned his degree in physics from Yale in 1876.

Outside of the society’s founding universities, Cornell was among the earliest universities to establish a chapter of the Bouchet Society, inducting its first members in 2006.

Katya Hrichak is a communications assistant in the Graduate School.