Alumni Updates

Undergraduate

Jarrod Kaufman (Biology, 1992) is a general and advanced laparoscopic surgeon in Freehold, New Jersey. Jarrod is also the NJ State Chair for the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons. In addition, Jarrod serves on the governor’s task force on Cancer Prevention, Early Detection & Treatment.

Arthur Beauregard (Mol. Bio., 2000) earned his Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from the University of Albany in 2009. He is currently a consulting scientist in the School of Public Health at Albany.

Laura Buddemeyer (Biology, 2002) received a commission from the Lehigh University ROTC program and served as an Army officer for over eight years, including multiple tours in Iraq. Laura separated from the Army in 2011 and entered the University of Kansas School of Nursing program. Her goal is to work in cricital care and ultimately become a certified registered nurse anesthetist.

Three former undergraduate researchers from the Falk Lab are pursuing their graduate degrees! Robert Buckheit (Mol. Bio, 2009) and Joseph Varco (Biology, 2009) are in the graduate program at Johns Hopkins University. Jonathan Havel (Biochem, 2006) is studying at Emory University.

Steve Hesler (Biochem, 2011) began work at Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, Indiana. “They picked me as one of seven people interviewed for 2 positions, which shows how competitive Lehigh is!”

Graduate

John Leiser, Ph.D. '03 Associate Professor at Northampton County Community College

John Leiser (Ph.D., Integrative Biology, 2003) was named the Pennsylvania Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. John is an associate professor at Northampton County Community College. Leiser’s research interests center around the study of wildlife biology, behavioral ecology, and fish biology. Murray Itzkowitz was John’s research adviser at Lehigh. John began teaching at NCC as an adjunct professor on the main campus during the spring 2002 semester. In 2004, he was hired into a tenure track position as an assistant professor at the Monroe campus.

Diane Dutt (M.S., Mol. Bio., 1994; Ph.D., Mol. Bio., 2002) is currently a federal employee working for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. “My current position is that of Senior Project Manager for the Transitional Medical Technologies Intiative (TMTI). The focus of my work is to identify, select, manage funding and oversee the progress of research projects that support the TMTI mission. Our mission is to develop and coordinate a rapid response to emerging and conventional bacterial and viral pathogens. The work is interesting as I have the opportunity to interact with those at the forefront of biotechnology development and look for upcoming researchers in the academic arena worldwide.”

William Coleman (Ph.D., Mol. Bio., 2009), began his position as a tenure-track assistant professor at Bloomsburg University in August, 2011.