Katelyn Kelchner earns academic awards

Katelyn Kelchner, a Health Science major in the medical genomics and counseling track from Berwick, PA, has received two high academic honors. Kate was named as the College of Science and Technology's Honor Graduate, the student with the highest GPA at the fall 2020 commencement ceremony. Kate was also named as a finalist for the Syed R. Ali-Zaidi Award for Academic Excellence. The award is presented to a graduating senior in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education who has excelled in and out of the classroom. Dr. Ali-Zaidi, a charter member of the Board of Governors, established the award to inspire and honor outstanding students in the State System. Kate was nominated for the award by Bloomsburg University President Bashar Hanna. The winner will be announced by the Board of Governors later this year.

Prior to receiving her BS in Health Sciences at Bloomsburg University, Kate earned a BA in English, magna cum laude, from Millersville University. Kate has been active in undergraduate research in genomics at Bloomsburg University.  In Dr. Abby Hare-Harris's laboratory, she conducted a project on the "Development of an Automated Pipeline for Identifying Poison Exons in the Human Genome” Kate used bioinformatic research techniques to extract relevant genetic variants from large genomic datasets in order to assess their pathogenicity. Kate's work was supported by an URSCA grant. She presented her work at the College of Science and Technology Research Day sharing honors for Audience Favorite. Kate also conducted research annotating newly sequenced Drosophila genomes in the Pathways Project, a collaboration with the Genomics Education Partnership sponsored by the University of Alabama, Washington University in St. Louis, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. Kate was selected to be a teaching assistant for the consortium. In this role she assisted undergraduate students from participating universities in research projects via virtual tutoring sessions. Her work was supported by a Bloomsburg University Professional Experience Grant.

In Medical Genomics, Kate wrote a children's book that illustrated the use of pharmacogenetics to treat a missense mutation. In her story, a puppy makes muffins from cookbooks he inherited (his chromosomes), but finds that a mistake in one of the recipes  leads to the substitution of brussels sprouts for blueberries! In the book, the puppy is instructed on how to correct this mistake and save the muffins, a metaphor for pharmacogenetics. See the picture below. Kate plans to pursue publication of her book.

Kate served as a College of Science and Technology Ambassador where she assisted with college events and served as a tour guide. She has volunteered at the Crisis Text Line in Berwick PA where she helped those facing hardships to solve problems. Kate is a member of Tri-Beta Biology Honor Society. She holds Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative certification in human subjects research and OSHA blood borne pathogens biosafety/biosecurity, and is proficient in Python programming.  Kate plans to continue her genomics research in the Master of Science program at Bloomsburg University under the mentorship of Dr. Hare-Harris. Congratulations on receiving these well-deserved awards Kate!


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