with ear tags and tails, the Cohen lab paid homage to all our furry rodent friends for halloween.
The water wasn't quite as balmy as it could have been, but the entire lab took to the water in September to soak up the last of the summer sun. There was kayaking (and some kayak rescuing!), saunaing (yes, the hats are a vital component), and even baby Penny took to the water!.
with four successfully minted PhDs from the lab, plus a slew other friends and colleagues graduating, May 2025 was one of the best graduations yet. Congratulations to Ky'ara, Leah, Anna, Steph, Destiny, Gerrardo, Alex, and Alexis ... and so many others!.
Ky'ara Carr joined Anna, Steph, and Leah in successfully defending her thesis in the spring of 2025. Ky'ara's beautiful work on the structural details of MSH5 function in mammalian meiosis has providing much-needed details on the molecular regulation of crossover decisions in the mouse.
Leah Simon, the third of the "Three Muskateers", became our third PhD graduate of 2025, completing her thesis in which she examined novel strategies for male contraception. In addition to her relentless quest for novel strategiies for suitable in vitro spermatogenesis platforms, Leah's work investigated the transcriptomic profile of BRDT targets as potential contraceptive intervention candidates.
Stephanie Tanis joined Anna as our second 2025 graduate to successfully defend her thesis. Stephanie single-handedly brought computational biology to the lab in a big way, providing novel intervention points for male contraception through her analysis of the single cell transcriptome of prophase I in the male.
Anna Wood was the first of our four 2025 graduates to successfully defend her thesis. Anna's work on the role of CNTD1 in female meiosis brought the lab back to its roots in female reproductin and resulted in a beatiful first-author paper for Anna in the Journal of Cell Biology.
The 2025 Tri-Repro symposium was a huge success, with over 60 CoRe trainees in attendance. Cohen lab undergraduates Sophie, Ziko and Chery took home the prize for the best poster!
The pandemic made it so hard to have undergraduates in the lab in 2020 and 2021, but despite this, we were fortunate to have Yoki, Emma, and Rosemary in the lab with us from the minute we opened back up. These incredible undergrads have done some outstanding work this past year or two, and we will miss them so much. We are so proud of you all and cannot wait to see what amazing things you each accomplish in the coming years!
Despite masking, social distancing, and a disappointing absence of candles, the lab continues to celebrate birthdays in fabulous style!
Lab life is slowly returning to normal after our Covid19 lockdown, but there's always an opportunity for laughter and cake (amazing Serbian Reform Cake thanks to Jelena)!
We had a great summer of visitors to the lab - thanks to Danling, Lindsey, and David for spending time with us!
From March until July 2020, during the COVID19 lockdown, the Cohen Lab started a daily (yes, daily!) lab meeting by Zoom. Former lab members, Steve Gray and Miguel Brieno-Enriquez, joined us, along with occasional guests from the Cole and Schimenti labs. Though it was a stressful time, the lab morale kept strong with these meetings and with our Monday and Friday dance sessions!
A lab holiday party, celebrating the arrival of new people, and the end of 2019. Who knew at the time what 2020 would bring?!
Steve Gray left the lab to take a faculty position at the University of Nottingham. We will miss him so much, but we are so happy that he got his dream job, and we wish him the best of luck!
BEFORE:
DURING:
AFTER - the final products:
While all graduations are special, Graduation 2017 was especially memorable for the Cohen lab! Melissa Toledo graduated with her PhD, Elizabeth Crate graduated with her MS, and five undergraduates (Christina Regan, Robert Rickert, Eileen Shu, Uche Ezeh, and Lekha Patel) graduated! We will miss their happy smiling faces in lab, but we wish them luck wherever life takes them.
Oh, and Joe Biden came to Cornell, too!
Melissa with her undergraduates (Anita returned to Ithaca to celebrate with Lekha and Melissa):
With Vera Rinaldi, who also graduated, from the Schimenti lab:
President Martha Pollack's first commencement address:
Paula's Selfie with the new President:
And Elizabeth came back too!!!
Proudly celebrating Robert's Summa Cum Laude! Robert is off to Sloan Kettering to continue his research where he will no doubt do fabulously!
And last but no means least, Christina, who's constantly smiling face will be so missed in lab! Congratulations, Christina - go out and rule the world!
Melissa's Hooding:
Melissa with her three families (Lab, biological, and Fetcho!):
Congratulations, Melissa! We are so so so proud of you - you are going to do FABULOUSLY!
Ex-lab members were there too:
In white, but not lab coats for a change:
Little and Littler:
Party Animal:
Oh yes, and Paul was there too!!!
First up is Xu:
Josh picks the biggest box, of course (but why are Andrew and Kim grimacing like that?):
Melissa is VERY happy with her mushroom growing kit:
Kim takes a turn:
And then Elena (while Kadeine knocks back the cocktails!):
Using the complete opposite strategy to that of her husband, Kadeine goes for the smallest package, perhaps hoping for cold hard cash:
And is rewarded with the first steal of the night, but is very happy with her replacement:
Fei gets booze .... perhaps the most inappropriately paired gift of the night:
And Peter makes a steal from Elena for the most appropriately paired gift of the night (much to Elena's relief):
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