Taking curiosity to new heights: URI Ph.D. students awarded NASA fellowship

INGSTON, R.I. – June 23, 2025 – Two Ph.D. students in the University of Rhode Island’s College of the Environment and Life Sciences’ interdisciplinary biological and environmental sciences graduate program have been awarded graduate research fellowships from the NASA Rhode Island Space Grant Consortium. Michelle Marder, from Lynnfield, Massachusetts, and Kate Remy ’24, from Brockton, Massachusetts, are specializing in cell and molecular biology and aim to help scientists better understand antibiotic resistance.

This summer, Marder and Remy will continue research projects funded through the NASA consortium. The program offers graduate fellowships that provide academic year funding to students working on research projects with NASA relevance. It also provides fellows opportunities to present their findings at the Annual Rhode Island Space Grant Spring Symposium.

Marder is working with Professor Steven Gregory to study the ribosomes of thermophiles, a kind of microbe that can grow and thrive at high temperatures. “My research focuses on the ribosome, the cellular machine that makes proteins using the genetic information encoded in DNA,” Marder says. “This is a basic feature of all living things on earth. In all organisms the ribosomes are similar to one another.”

Read the full article on uri.edu.

Author Credit: Kristen Curry

Image Credit: Rhody Today

Original Post Date: June 23, 2025