RNA Institute Retreat 2025: Celebrating Science, Collaboration, and Community
The RNA institute’s annual retreat, held on June 16-17, 2025, at the Lodge at Schroon Lake, brought together faculty, trainees, alumni, and institutional partners for two days of scientific conversations, career exploration, and community engagement. The retreat kicked off with a welcome address from Director Andy Berglund and Associate Director Tom Begley, with updates on the Institute’s initiatives, new personnel, and training programs.
On day 2, Dr. Silvi Rouskin, Assistant Professor of Harvard Medical School delivered the second keynote on “Uncovering hidden regulatory elements in viral and human genomes”. The two-day event included social and networking activities with a hike to Severance mountain, lawn games, board games, and a social evening by the fire pits with s’mores. The retreat concluded with closing remarks by Dean Altarriba and Director Berglund along with an awards ceremony for the best posters as well as the RNA institute faculty and staff excellence awards.
Poster Presentation Award Winners - Dean’s Awards of Excellence
Undergraduate Student Category
Hailey Mulvihill (Shorrock Lab)
Graduate Student Category
Dwiti Das (Cady Lab)
Asmer Aliyeva (Berglund lab)
Postdoctoral Fellow Category
Cecilia Legare (Berglund Lab)
Poster Presentation Award Winners -RNA Institute’s Awards of Excellence
Undergraduate Student Category
Massa Masri (Berglund Lab)
Nada Elniel (Wang Lab)
Lauren Anderson (Chandrasekaran Lab)
Graduate Student Category
Amy Mascorro (Sheng & Berglund Labs)
Brianna Nelthrope (Shorrock Lab)
Jacob Schroader (Reddy & Berglund Labs)
Haley MacNeil (Fuchs Lab)
Tia Swenty (Tenenbaum Lab)
Kate Hayes (Dash Lab)
Fin Morris (Melendez Lab)
Postdoctoral Fellow Category
Ashif Bhuiyan (Shorrock Lab)
2025 RNA Institute Faculty & Staff Excellence Award Winners
2025 RNA Institute Excellence in Service
Sangeetha Selvam (Science Communications Specialist, RNA Institute)
Claudia Lennon (Bioinformatics Support Specialist, RNA Institute)
2025 RNA Institute Excellence in Mentoring
Andres Melendez (Professor and Chair, Department of Nanoscale Science and Engineering)
Ken Halvorsen (Senior Research Scientist, RNA Institute)
2025 RNA Institute Excellence in Research & Entrepreneurship
Scott Tenenbaum (Professor, Department of Nanoscale Science and Engineering)
2025 RNA Institute Excellence in Research & Service
Morgan Sammons (Associate Dean for Natural Sciences and Mathematics; Associate Professor, Biological Sciences)