2022 Inductees

Ana Maria Hoffmann is a Ph.D. candidate in the Psychology program at Emory University. Her research focuses on iconicity, or the non-arbitrary relationship between speech sounds and their meaning found in natural languages. She is particularly interested in whether these associations are universal or arise due to experience with the phonology, or specific speech sounds, in an individual’s linguistic environment. Ana Maria is a recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP) and was a trainee for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Research Service Award (NRSA) Training Program, “Mechanisms of learning across development and species.” She received her Bachelor of Art in Psychology at the University of San Francisco, where she was awarded the Fred Minnigerode Memorial Award for Outstanding Psychology Student. Throughout her academic career, Ana Maria has been involved in efforts dedicated to promoting the success of students from underrepresented backgrounds entering and navigating academic settings. In addition to mentoring undergraduate and graduate students of color through initiatives such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Grad Connect, Ana Maria is currently an Emory Diversifying Graduate Education (EDGE) ambassador where she assists in the recruitment of diverse graduate students and building an inclusive community at Emory University. In the future, Ana Maria aspires to direct her own lab where she can continue to mentor and advocate for the success of underrepresented students.

Roseline Jean Louis is a candidate for the Ph.D. in Nursing at Emory University. Her research focuses on investigating modifiable risk factors to dismantle health inequities that plague the Black community in the United States. More specifically, her dissertation uses a multi-methods approach to quantitatively examine the impacts of racial discrimination and disrespectful care on severe maternal morbidity among Black women in the United States and qualitatively explore the lived experiences of those who experienced high rates of racial discrimination and disrespectful care. Roseline is a Birth Equity Research Fellow at the National Birth Equity Collaborative, where she informs organizational research and evaluation practices that center Black women and decolonized research methodologies. At Emory University, she serves in multiple organizations and committees, including president of Emory’s School of Nursing Ph.D. Nursing Student Association, student representative for Emory University’s Laney Graduate School Student Council, and research support representative for Emory’s School of Nursing Divisional Community and Diversity Committee. She serves on multiple community committees that aim to serve marginalized groups, such as serving as co-chair of the health committee for the North Fulton National Organization for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta One Heart Initiative, which seeks to create an anti-racist environment within the Muslim community. She has co-authored three peer-reviewed manuscripts and has three first-authored manuscripts pending publication. Roseline’s long-term career goal is to be a leader in research on maternal health disparities among marginalized populations.

Ayanna J. Jones is a candidate for the Ph.D. in Chemistry with a concentration in biogeochemistry at Emory University. Her research focuses on dynamic redox reactions within the rhizosphere of plants and the implication of these redox reactions on local biology within the rhizosphere. Ayanna has been recognized as a Centennial Fellow, a Women in the Natural Sciences Fellow, and a contributing graduate scholar with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Ayanna also received a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Clark Atlanta University where she was a recipient of the Provost Achievers Scholarship and a Master of Science in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from the Georgia Institute of Technology. At Emory University, she served as the President of the Black Graduate Student Association within the Laney Graduate School. Ayanna continues to express her passion for chemistry not only in the lab, but in her work in the broader chemistry community. She is the co-founder and Vice-President of BlackInChem, a non-profit organization that supports and amplifies the achievements of Black chemists around the world. Ayanna hopes to work at the intersection of entrepreneurship and science by using her scientific background to support businesses and ideas that address necessary concerns for communities of color. She is hopeful for the future of representation in the sciences and the academy and looks forward to seeing the lasting impact that her work and others will have.

Ra’Niqua Lee is a Ph.D. candidate of English at Emory University. Her research uses post-colonial and Black queer feminist theories to explore representations of Black femme identities, spaces, and experiences. She was an ambassador for Laney Graduate School’s Emory Diversifying Graduate Education (EDGE). She has an MFA and has received support from the New York State Summer Writers Institute, Sundress Academy for the Arts, the Tin House Summer Workshop, and most recently the Kenyon Review Summer Workshop. In 2021, she was awarded the inaugural John Lewis Writers Grant for fiction by the Georgia Writers Association. Throughout her academic career, Ra’Niqua has served in editorial roles for a variety of journals, and she volunteers as a fiction reader for multiple publications in the hopes of advocating for marginalized writers and their stories. Currently, she is managing editor for the online, peer-reviewed research journal Southern Spaces, which emphasizes the multiplicity of experiences and histories of the US and Global South. At the end of the day, she hopes that her love of people and community will continue to guide her research, writing, teaching, and advocacy.

Lenore Monterroza is a candidate for the Ph.D. in Cancer Biology at Emory University. Her research focuses on designing a personalized cancer vaccine-based immunotherapy for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), using a novel protein transfer technology to process tumor tissue. She received a bachelor’s degree in Cellular and Molecular Biochemistry from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), where she was also a Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement Program (RISE) scholar. During her time at Emory, Lenore was awarded a Centennial Fellowship. She is also a founding member and media liaison for the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Advancement (IDEA) committee in the Cancer Biology program, where she has worked to promote a welcoming and diverse scientific community, with a focus on creating career development opportunities for program members of underrepresented groups. She has served in various leadership roles for graduate student organizations, including Cancer Biology Representative and Treasurer for the Division Student Advisory Council at Emory, Media Liaison of the Latinx Graduate Student Association (LGSA), and Latinx Representative on the Laney Graduate Student Council Task Force. Lenore’s focus and dedication to cancer research, her graduate division, underrepresented minorities, and students’ needs and concerns exemplify how she embodies Dr. Bouchet’s legacy from her first steps on campus to the present day. Ultimately, she aspires to be a well-rounded scientist with an established cancer immunology laboratory that focuses on personalized medicine to prevent cancer relapse, as well as to support and mentor future generations of underrepresented minority students in the biomedical field.