Congratulations to undergraduate Coco Holliday for accepting an offer from Harvard University to join their Immunology PhD program. We are incredibly proud and can’t wait to see all of the amazing science she will do!

Congratulations to undergraduate Abhi Verma for being awarded a prestigious Harrison Fellowship, and also for crushing the Charlottesville 10 miler!

Congratulations to Dr. Ashley Bolte and Dr. Katherine Bruch who both matched for residency!

Congratulations to Dr. Hannah Ennerfelt for being named the Outstanding Graduate Student in Neuroscience this year, as well as winning the Peach Outstanding Graduate Student Award!

Congratulations to undergraduate researcher Lexi Vesselinov and graduate student Lexi Johnson for being awarded a Double Hoo Award!

Jess Thanos nailed her solo performance of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas“, a duet sang with fellow Neuroscience Graduate Program student, David Tyus. Their graduate student a capella group, The First Harmonics, performed a diverse lineup of songs during their beautiful winter concert.

We had an amazing time catching up with colleagues, making new science friends, sharing cool new data, and enjoying the California sunshine.

Themes included: Twin Day, Brain Immunology and Grain (BIG) Farmer’s Day, Festive/Ugly Sweater Day, Swaggy Shoe (Dress Like John) Day, and Pajama Day.

The lab had a great time catching up with all of our Neuroscience Department friends at the holiday party held at The Graduate.

The Lukens lab enjoyed exploring Shenandoah in the fall on the annual BIG center hike. Huge thank you to Harris lab members Isaac and Lydia for organizing this great event!

Hannah had a killer thesis defense, with the published findings now out in Cell! Congratulations, Dr. Ennerfelt, we wish you the best in your next step as a postdoc at Stanford!

The Bowman Award is given to a fourth year medical student who best exemplifies the spirit and ideals of Dick Bowman.

Hannah Ennerfelt, Kristine Zengeler, and Coco Holliday flew overseas to Lisbon, Portugal to attend the Neuro-immune Axis conference.

Interested in a neuroimmunology and glial research postdoc? Apply to participate the 2022 BIG Scholars Symposium for a chance to network, learn about research at UVA, and explore beautiful Charlottesville! <click for more details>

The lab had an incredible time learning about some amazing new science at the BIG (Brain Immunology and Glia) Symposium! It was our first in-person conference in quite a while. We enjoyed meeting leaders in our field and interacting with other trainees.

Hannah Ennerfelt was selected to give a talk at the WashU BIG Symposium alongside other impressive scientists in our field. Her talk was titled “SYK coordinates neuroprotective microglial responses in neurodegenerative disease”.

Josh Samuels, Lexi Johnson, and Addie Walsh join the Lukens Lab ranks to pursue their PhD research studies. We look forward to working with these amazing young scientists!

Third year undergraduate Coco Holiday was awarded a prestigious Harrison Fellowship to continue her research exploring the role of CLEC7A in microglia in Alzheimer’s Disease in collaboration with graduate student Hannah Ennerfelt.

First year undergraduate Ava Hollis was awarded a Double Hoo Award to support her work with graduate student Kristine Zengeler exploring inflammasome function in seizures.

We are looking forward to having Coco and Ava around this summer!

Lukens Lab holiday party at Bowlero! Featuring a stunning array of sweaters.