Fellows
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Susan Yankee-DillnerVoiceSusan Yankee-Dillner performed the Mezzo-soprano repertoire across the country, including two solo appearances at Carnegie Hall and soloist in the Mozart in Mass Series at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center and the New York City Opera National Company. Ms. Yankee is a graduate of the Hartt School of Music and the Yale School of Music. Ms. Yankee is a (3) three times National Endowment of the Arts grant recipient for her creation of interactive educational operas for children based on popular fairytales to the music of classical opera composers. Each opera has a civic-minded topic; youth smoking prevention, recycling, and healthy eating and exercise. She is the past Artistic Director of Shreveport Opera’s Young Artist Program. Ms. Yankee has been on the faculty of many young artist programs and makes it her mission to guide young performers in a successful career in the arts. Email Susan Yankee-Dillner |
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Joliana YeeAssistant Dean, Director Asian American Cultural CenterJoliana Yee’s tenure as Director of the Asian American Cultural Center at Yale began in January 2018. Prior to joining the AACC staff, Dean Yee served as a Residence Hall Director at the University of Connecticut for four years where she worked closely with campus partners to create an inclusive and equitable living and learning environment. Dean Yee’s dedication to serving Asian/Asian American students and striving for social justice stems from her re-racialization experiences as an Asian international undergraduate student at Miami University over a decade ago. Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Dean Yee is a first-generation college student who earned her M.S.Ed. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Indiana University and her B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Miami University. Dean Yee is also currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Higher Education from Loyola University Chicago. Her dissertation focuses on highlighting student affairs practice that cultivates the critical consciousness development of Asian/Asian American college students. Email Joliana Yee |
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Calvin YuFinance and AdministrationCalvin Yu is the Vice President of Finance and Administrative Services at Bakersfield College.Email Calvin Yu |
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Raphaella ZanuttiniLinguisticsRaffaella Zanuttini’s interest in linguistics arises from the fact that it studies a component of human nature with methods that approach scientific rigor. She feels privileged to study an aspect of the human mind that is still largely mysterious, the knowledge of language, and enjoy the challenge of trying to model it using a theoretical framework that is still developing, the generative framework. |
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Heidi ZapataInfectious DiseaseMy interest in microbes started in college when I did a research project on Trypanosomes, the parasite that causes African sleeping sickness. I was struck with how the membrane of the parasite changed its surface antigens to circumvent the host immune response. My interest in the host microbe relationship continued during my MD/Ph.D., during which my thesis work focused on Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV), the cause of chicken pox and shingles. We demonstrated that the VZV virus had co-evolved to become highly dependent on the cellular signaling proteins JNK and ERK, which was beautifully illustrated when we found that the virus had hijacked these cellular proteins and had incorporated them into the virion. My research interests inspired my choice to pursue Infectious Diseases as a specialty. During my Infectious Disease fellowship at Yale, my clinical experiences repeatedly demonstrated that different human hosts respond very diferrently to infection. The same microbe could produce a mild disease in one person, and an overwhelming sepsis in an another. I especially noted that both older adults and HIV-infected individuals had particularly different responses. With each patient I saw, the important role the host response plays in infection was underscored. Overall, my clinical experiences have solidified the importance of the host-microbe relationship, and have pushed me to further understand the host innate immune response through my research. Email Heidi Zapata |
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Shu Yi Zhou-TrzcinskiGlobal Strategy and International AffairsShu Yi Zhou is the Cross-Disciplinary Program Manager at Yale Young Global Scholars. Her love for STEM and the Social Sciences is rooted in her research at Columbia University. Her research focused on understanding why certain societies and cultures promoted the practice of skin bleaching, the history of skin color and societal status, and investigating the molecular and physiological effects of the bleaching agent, hydroquinone. Prior to Yale, Shu Yi worked at Minds Matter, a national college access non-profit supporting high-achieving low-income students. There, she spearheaded a nation-wide summer programs initiative and sent over 600 students to pre-collegiate summer programs across the globe annually. Shu Yi’s a proud first-generation low-income student who graduated from the University at Albany with a B.S. in Human Biology and received her Ed.M. in Higher Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She’s passionate about social justice, empowering youth activists, and supporting students with marginalized identities to thrive in higher ed. In her spare time she can be seen crocheting, dreaming about opening an animal sanctuary, or going on walks with her rescue pup from Azerbijian, Kiko. Email Shu Yi Zhou-Trzcinski |