INFORMATION FOR
Saul will begin medical school in Fall 2021 semester at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Saul was an Honors Biology major who worked in Dr. Sonya Bierbower and Dr. Joe Spagna on his senior thesis “Neuroprotective Effects of KCNQ Potassium Channels after Traumatic Brain Injury with Acute and Chronic Alcohol Use.” Saul participated in many research conferences including the Northeast Regional Honors Council Conference and GS-LAMP and worked as an EMT while at William Paterson.
During undergrad, most of my opportunities were presented through the Honors College. After learning about the Honors Club in my Honors first year seminar, I became a member, was elected sophomore class rep, and was president of the club for the remainder of my time at WP.Additionally, my Honors Peer Leader introduced me to Greek Life, and sophomore year I joined Theta Phi Alpha Fraternity, later becoming the president of our council: the National Panhellenic Conference. Most importantly, I started working as a student assistant in the Honors College Office, where I remained for three years and had the chance to work with some of the best people on campus. I am currently studying at the Yale School of Public Health , working towards a Master's in Public Health focused in health policy, with a concentration in Climate Change and Health. Continuing the trend of becoming involved, I was recently elected to be a Health Policy department representative for the Student Association of Yale School of Public Health. While the course load is definitely significant, the community at Yale is so supportive and I find time to really experience Yale life. Recently, I was able to attend a talk with the US Surgeon General at the Yale Law school, do a 5.5 mile hike with my department, and take a beach trip!
I was accepted to transfer to William Paterson University. One day while at lunch, I had learned of WPU's honors program from a friend. A thousand questions later, I emailed the honors director with an idea for my thesis. Within a week I was accepted to the honors program and began working on my passionate project: An Integrative review of the literature surrounding "The Effects of Bias and Racial Disparities in the African American Maternal Population". From start to end, I especially loved that I felt well supported by other members of the honors programs as well as my advisor, Dr. Nocella. I found that Dr. Nocella strived to equip me with all the tools I needed to competently complete my project and I truly believe that she helped me to do just that. Now that I have completed and presented my thesis, I feel that I have grown tremendously as a writer, become more confident in public speaking and have a newfound respect for the amount of work that goes into research.I graduated from WPU's Nursing program with Honors in May 2021 and I am now working as an ICU/CCU nurse in a level 2 hospital .I believe that the Honors program challenged me intellectually, whilst creating an enriching experience while taking nursing courses. I would recommend the honors college to anyone looking for the same, you will not regret it, but will however be incredibly proud of your work when you finish. Summer 2024 Update: Kadesha is now in the Certified Nurse Anesthetist- DNP program at Columbia University
“I graduated with my Master’s at William Paterson this past Spring 2021 and defended my Thesis titled “Neuroprotective Effects of Estrogen after a TBI and LPS-induced microglial activation”, under the guidance of my mentor Dr. Bierbower on June 24, 2021. This fall, I will begin my PhD program in Biology at the University of Kentucky, working under Dr. Santollo to investigate the effects of estrogen on the control of water intake.”
"I currently a computer science Ph.D. student at NJIT in Newark, NJ. I perform research under the supervision of Dr. David Bader. I received his B.S. in computer science with a minor in mathematics from William Paterson University in May 2020 with summa cum laude honors. During my undergraduate studies, I was a member of the Honors College, a part of the Upsilon Pi Epsilon honor society for computing and information disciplines, and was also awarded the Omicron Omega award for excellence in computer science. My most valued experience from WPU has to be the one-on-one time my instructors and mentors were able to give me to be able to succeed. The small class sizes and personalized time they were able to provide is unmatched. Second to that has to be the skills I acquired from my different positions from within the WPUNJ IT department.My current research interests involve the design and implementation of algorithms in the area of high performance computing primarily for data and graph analytics. During his Ph.D. at NJIT, I have worked as both a teaching assistant (TA) and research assistant (RA). As a TA I instructed two lab sections of CS103, a programming course for business majors, and also filled in as a lecturer for CS103 during the second half of the Spring 2021 semester. I also worked as a recitation instructor for CS100, the introductory programming course all computing students at NJIT are required to take. As a research assistant my main focus has been developing and implementing algorithms for Arkouda, a framework for Python for massive-scale computing backed by the recently-released parallel programming language, Chapel. This work has led to a symposium presentation and two publications thus far. I am looking forward to my second year in the NJIT CS Ph.D. program and preparing for my second round of qualifying examinations the summer of 2022."
"I’m currently a graduate computer science student at Montclair State University and will be graduating in the Fall of 2021. I’m in the process of publishing a research paper and doing research for my Master’s Thesis. My research is regarding using Machine Learning to improve the Software Engineering process. I worked as a graduate teaching assistant for my first year of graduate school where I got the opportunity to help undergraduate students with homework, labs, and any course concepts and grade their assignments for various classes. As of now, I’m a Data Science intern for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida and plan on working full time as a Data Science Analyst while finishing my master’s degree in the fall. As a Data Science Analyst, I will be working on predictive modeling and creating dashboards to better visualize data. The honors college at William Paterson prepared me well for my graduate studies, research, and job as I got the opportunity to work closely with my computer science professors to conduct research and hone my skills."
"I have wanted to be a lawyer for as long as I can remember, and I am finally going to start my journey to accomplish that goal at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law! I am so excited to start this next chapter in my life! Right now, I am finishing up one last summer course I need to officially graduate, and then I will be starting law school in late August. I am entering school with an open mind about what type of law I want to practice, but regardless of the area of law, I can’t wait to get started on pro bono work, and to have the privilege to help others."
