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tGRADUATE PROGRAM UPDATESIBP Graduate Program Highlights 2025The Graduate Program in Integrative Biology and Physiology is doing well, which will be detailed herein. However, I%u2019d like to take a moment to introduce myself as the new Director of Graduate Studies in the Department, taking over for Dr. Jop van Berlo who did an outstanding job directing our program. Thanks Jop! I hope to continue the Department%u2019s excellent record of graduate training and continue to advance our program.Currently the program has 23 graduate students and this past year we successfully recruited four new graduate students. We%u2019re pleased to welcome our new students Ian Ahlberg, Paige Leary, Chenxi Xu, and Cora Youngs,who are introduced in a separate section of this newsletter. Additionally, we welcome two new transfer students, Briceyda Limon and Andrew Orm, who arrive as second year students in the laboratory of new IBP faculty member, Frank Duca. This fall, we will begin another round of recruiting and hope that all IBP faculty can do their best to reach out to their network across the nation to solicit the best applicants to apply to our graduate program.The current second year students have all successfully passed their written preliminary exams and have identified a research mentor. Aaron Ahlquist has joined the Perlingeiro Lab, Audrey Daugherty has joined the Bartolomucci Lab, and Chi-Yun (Lisa) Liu has joined the Camell Lab. Of note, Audrey received the Allan Hemingway Award for the highest cumulative GPA this year!In the past year, we have had several successful PhD thesis defenses. Seokwon Jo (Alejandro Lab) successfully defended his thesis Oct 28, 2024, and has continued on as a postdoctoral fellow in the Alejandro Lab. Fanta Barrow (Revelo Lab) successfully defended her thesis Jan 24, 2025, and is now a post-doctoral fellow at Regeneron. Jean Pierre Pallais(Bartolomucci Lab) successfully defended his thesis April 30, 2025, and has continued on as a post-doctoral fellow in the Bartolomucci Lab. Arthur de la Cruz-Lynch (Osborn Lab) successfully defended his thesis May 6, 2025, and has returned to medical school to complete his MD/PhD. Houda Cohen (Metzger Lab) successfully defended her thesis May 9, 2025, and has continued on as a post-doctoral fellow in the Metzger Lab. Finally, Preethy Parthiban successfully defended her thesis (Revelo Lab) June 2, 2025, and is now a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University.Additionally, this past year, several of our students received awards: Preethy Parthiban and Jenna Mendelson were both recipients of the Dr. Marvin and Hadassah Bacaner Research Award, Tracy Her was selected to receive the Steer Family Award in Diabetes Research, Natalie Weir received the Lifson/Johnson Memorial Awardand was awarded a UMN Interdisciplinary Fellowship,Fanta Barrow received the J. Jacob Kaplan Award and the Jan Lunden Award, and Seokwon Jo received the UMN Best Dissertation Award for the Biological & Medical Sciences. Finally, Natalie Weir and Brian Akhaphong were appointed to the IBP T32 predoctoral fellowship.Dr. Timothy O%u2019Connell,Director of Graduate Studies2 IN FOCUS t ISSUE 2025-2026PhD Students, 2025Audrey Daugherty received the Allan Hemingway AwardZofia Zukowska Distinguished Lectureship held September 18, 2025Rawan Almutlaq, Jenna Mendelson, Audrey Daugherty, and Keynote Speaker Annet Kirabo, DVM, MSc, PhD, Vanderbilt University