Jennifer Wester, PhD

Director

[email protected]

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Dr. Jennifer Wester (she/her) is the Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity (URSCA), and an Associate Research Scholar in the Department of the History of Art. Appointed in 2023, Dr. Wester manages the awarding of undergraduate research grants and leads our research fellowship programs; chairs the annual Macksey Symposium; oversees the implementation of summer research programs for visiting undergraduates; and serves as Executive Secretary of the JHU chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. A member of the KSAS Undergraduate Education Leadership Team, she works to align research programs with curricular objectives and oversees assessment of co-curricular research activities. Dr. Wester holds a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.A., summa cum laude, in the History of Art and French from Middlebury College. Prior to joining URSCA, she was Associate Professor of Art History at Notre Dame of Maryland University, where she also served as the director of campus art galleries.  

Abdul-Hakeem Imoro, Ed.D.

Assistant Director

[email protected]

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Dr. Abdul-Hakeem Imoro (he/him) is the Assistant Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity (URSCA). In addition to mentoring undergraduates and supporting their development as researchers, he manages operations in the URSCA office, including overseeing budgets and finance and assessing our programs and services. Dr. Imoro holds an Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration and Policy from Widener University, an M.S. in Public Policy from Drexel University, and a B.A. in Communication Studies from Kean University. An expert in education policy, data analysis, and advocacy, he has spent many years as a researcher and analyst in a variety of contexts — from higher education to private firms to government agencies — always with a personal commitment to equity and inclusion.

Leroy Myers, Ph.D.

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow

[email protected]

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Dr. Leroy Myers (he/him) joined the URSCA office in May 2024 as the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Research Administration and Student Mentorship. In this role, Dr. Myers leads our community college programming and partnerships and serves as a research mentor for both visiting students and Johns Hopkins undergraduates. In addition, he serves as managing editor of the Macksey Journal. A committed scholar of public history, Dr. Myers holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A. in History from the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore.

Shalima Wellington

Graduate Assistant

Shalima Wellington is a PhD candidate in the English Department at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on 20th-century African American and Afro-Caribbean immigrant literature. As URSCA’s graduate assistant, she develops resources for undergraduate researchers, reviews submissions for the Macksey Symposium, offers feedback on student work, and provides general administrative support in the office. Prior to coming to Hopkins, she taught in the SEEK program at the City University of New York. She holds a B.A. in English and Spanish from Agnes Scott College and an M.A. in English Literature from Fordham University.

Kaylee Nguyen

Undergraduate Assistant

Kaylee Nguyen is a sophomore at Johns Hopkins University studying Molecular and Cellular Biology and Writing Seminars. She has been working in the URSCA office since June 2025, providing administrative support, writing news features for our website, and serving on the editorial board of the Macksey Journal. Kaylee is also a news and features editor for The Johns Hopkins News-Letter and a part of the executive board of the Maryland Science Olympiad at JHU. In addition, she is part of the Grados Lab and the Mills Lab, where she is conducting research on the correlation between PKC gamma and HCN ion channels to determine the effect of deep brain stimulation on patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Karen Dong

Undergraduate Assistant

Karen Dong is a junior at Johns Hopkins University majoring in Classics, English, and Writing Seminars. She joined the URSCA office in November 2025 to fulfill a variety of administrative duties and to serve on the editorial board of the Macksey Journal, our national undergraduate humanities research journal. At Hopkins, Karen also serves as the publicity manager for Witness Theater and for the a cappella group Adoremus. She formerly worked in the Library and Archives at the Baltimore Museum of Art, digitizing consignment records from the Women’s Committee Sales and Rental Gallery.

Rachel Baffoe-Bonnie ’26

Social Sciences, Community-Based Research

Rachel Baffoe-Bonnie is a senior University Undergraduate Research Fellow conducting a three-year independent research project on Black immigrant mental health. A double major in Medicine, Science, and the Humanities and Anthropology, Rachel has been involved in a variety of research projects and collaborations, including work with the HEAL Refugee Health and Asylum Collaborative and the Johns Hopkins Center for OCD, Anxiety, and Related Disorders for Children. She was recently named a Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellow, and she has received additional research grants and fellowships from JHU’s Chloe Center and Medicine, Science, and the Humanities program. Rachel has presented her research at the Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium; the United States Coalition for African Immigrant Health Conference; the JHU Medicine, Science, and the Humanities Research Symposium; and the JHU Critical Diaspora Studies Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Andrew Cavanagh ’26

Natural Sciences

Andrew Cavanagh is a senior Neuroscience and Molecular and Cellular Biology double major. A past winner of the Dean’s ASPIRE Grant, he completed a project in 2025 entitled “Development of an Intranasal Treatment for Neonatal Brain Injury with LM11A-31,” which has been accepted for publication in the journal Neural Regeneration Research. He has been working as an undergraduate researcher in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine since 2022. There, he conducts neurobehavioral, immunohistochemical, and proteomic analyses on neonatal brain injury. He has presented his research at the New York Academy of Sciences Conference, the Eastern Society for Pediatric Research Conference, the Society for Neuroscience, and the Hershey Conference on Developmental Brain Injury, and he has co-authored an article published in Neurobiology of Disease.

Dua Hussain ’26

Humanities and Social Sciences

Dua Hussain is a senior majoring in Anthropology and Medicine, Science, and the Humanities with a concentration in Writing Seminars and a minor in Psychology. A recipient of URSCA’s Dr. Saraf Memorial Award, Dua is currently completing a research project entitled “Mujhe Depression Hai: (Mis)translations and Mental Health Training in Pakistan.” Since 2023, she has worked as a research assistant in the Grados Lab in the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, where she has completed studies on ADHD and physical abuse, and on disgust and OCD compulsions. She has presented her research at the National Research Conference at Penn and at the JHU Public Health Student Forum. Dua was previously a Newman Civic Fellow and has been very involved in JHU’s Center for Social Concern. She currently works as a tutor in the Homewood Writing Center, serves as co-president of the JHU student journal Humans in Health, and has published her own writing in Out of the Blue Jay. 

Anika Kale ’27

Public Health

Anika Kale is a junior Public Health Studies major and a recipient of the Dean’s ASPIRE Grant, through which she is currently completing a research project on the adoption of Mobile Ophthalmic Units that provide eye care to reduce blindness in rural Maharashtra, India. Previously, she worked in the Cooke Lab at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, conducting research on platyrrhine primate dental morphology and food specialization, including the creation of 3D models of primate teeth. She has also interned in a regenerative medicine lab at the Oregon Health and Science University, and in an integrative biology lab at Portland State University, and has shadowed ophthalmologists, pediatricians, and neurosurgeons at three different hospitals in the U.S. and India.

Gio Kim ’28

Natural Sciences

Gio Kim is a sophomore majoring in Medicine, Science, and the Humanities, and is currently embarking on a University Undergraduate Research Fellowship project that aims to uncover the genetic mechanisms underlying poor sleep in neurodegenerative diseases using a forward genetic screen in Drosophila. Since the fall of her first year at Hopkins, she has been working in the Mark Wu Lab in the Department of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where she began her studies of the bidirectional relationship between sleep and neurodegeneration that informed her UURF proposal. She currently works with Dr. Mehmet Keles to continue studying potential genetic modifiers of tau induced neurotoxicity. She previously worked as a research assistant in a stem cell biology and regenerative medicine lab at the University of Southern California, where she investigated the requirement of atoh1a enhancers for zebrafish inner ear hair cell regeneration using CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing, and she presented her findings at the USC Summer Research Symposium.

Mamadou Thiam ’27 

Natural Sciences

Mamadou Thiam is a junior University Undergraduate Research Fellow majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology. His UURF project investigates the mechanism behind the failure of peripheral nerve regeneration following the total ablation of monocarboxylate transporters within Schwann cells. He has presented his preliminary data at the International Conference on Axon Degeneration and the JHU Neuroscience Retreat. Mamadou has also participated in clinical shadowing programs at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, both in neurology and in cardiac surgery.