Webinar: Get Into Grad School
Date: Sunday, September 21, 2025
Time: 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm Eastern Time
Registration Deadline: September 18, 2025 (11:59 PM ET)
Overview
The Society for Developmental Biology is hosting a webinar for students interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in developmental biology or related fields. In this webinar, you will interact with faculty from SDB’s leadership who have a wealth of experience in Ph.D. program admissions, as well as current doctoral students who recently went through the admissions process. This event is designed for current undergraduate students and post-baccalaureates looking to learn more about U.S.-based doctoral programs, the key elements of a compelling graduate school application, and the interview process.
The webinar will be presented by SDB Past President Carole LaBonne (Northwestern University) and Developmental Biology Editor-in-Chief, Ondine Cleaver (University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center). There will also be a panel discussion, featuring former SDB Trainee Representative and graduate student Madison Martinez (University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center) and graduate students Cristina Guerena (University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center), Jerry Wei Heng Tan (University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center) and Talia Marc (University of Virginia).
Registration
SDB Members: Free
Group (classroom): $100
Non-members: $30
Become a member today and take advantage of the wide range of membership benefits.
The seminar will be recorded and made available for a limited time to
SDB members. The link to the webinar will be sent to registrants closer
to the event date.
SDB Disclaimer
The views expressed by our panelists during the webinar are those of the individuals based on their personal experiences and not necessarily of the SDB. The goal of this session is to share information that will be useful to all graduate school applicants; we cannot provide individualized mentorship to participants.
The webinar will be recorded and available for a limited time to registrants. Attendees will not have microphone or camera access during the webinar; written submissions of questions may be shared during the Q&A portion of the event.
If you have any questions about the webinar, please email sdb@sdbonline.org.
Speakers
Carole LaBonne | Carole LaBonne is Past President of the Society for Developmental Biology and the Erastus Otis Haven Professor of Life Sciences at Northwestern University. Her lab focuses on development of the skin epidermis, whose pattern of regularly spaced, coordinately polarized hair follicles provides a powerful, genetically tractable and versatile mammalian model system to decipher the mechanisms of tissue morphogenesis. |
Ondine Cleaver | Ondine Cleaver is the Editor-in-Chief of Developmental Biology, past SDB Secretary, and a member of the SDB Strategic Planning Committee. She is Professor of Molecular Biology and the Lee Fikes Chair in Biomedical Sciences. She grew up in Quebec, Canada, and graduated from UT Austin with a B.A. in History and a B.S. in Molecular Biology. She completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard before establishing her independent lab at UT Southwestern Medical Center in late 2004. The Cleaver Lab focuses on cell differentiation during organogenesis and has particular interest in the coordinated morphogenesis of the vasculature with embryonic tissues. Ondine is dedicated to graduate education and mentoring the next generation of scientists and medical students. She is currently Director of the Genetics, Development and Disease Graduate Program at UTSW. |
Madison Martinez | Madison is a sixth-year doctoral graduate student in the Genetics, Development, and Disease program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. She received her B.S. in Biology at the University of Arkansas in 2020 and immediately went into graduate school that fall. She had two amazing research experiences during her undergraduate career: being a research assistant in Dr. Daniel Lessner's lab at University of Arkansas for two years and being a summer research intern through the summer undergraduate research program (SURF) at UT Southwestern in Dr. Linda Baker's lab. Both experiences were instrumental when it came to applying for graduate school. Madison is currently in Dr. Jane Johnson's lab at UT Southwestern where she studies the gene regulation of an important neural developmental transcription factor, ASCL1. She has held many leadership positions within the Society for Developmental Biology, including the Graduate Student Trainee Representative and the current Strategic Planning Intern. |
Jerry Wei Heng Tan | Jerry is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Genetics, Development and Disease graduate program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He was born and raised in Singapore and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from Nanyang Technological University. During his time as an undergraduate, he took on multiple research projects as a CN Yang research scholar, covering fields of functional genomics, stem cell biology and vascular development. His interest in genetics and developmental biology grew exponentially during his 2-year research stint with Dr Joyce Bischoff at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he explored the mechanistic basis of Infantile Hemangioma. This experience gave him the confidence to further his scientific journey and inspired him to explore drivers of cell fate decisions. Jerry is currently exploring the role of transposable elements in shaping the cis-regulatory network during early development in the labs of Laura Banaszynski and Gary Hon at UT Southwestern. |
Cristina Guerena | Cristina is a is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Cellular and Molecular Biology (CMB) program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She earned my B.S. degree in Cellular and Molecular Biochemistry from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in 2022. During her time at UTEP, she participated in the esteemed research program known as BUILDing Scholars, which is designed to engage students more deeply in the STEM field. During her sophomore year at UTEP she joined a lab under Dr. Renato Aguilera and studied the cytotoxicity of various compounds against cancerous and non-cancerous cell lines. She is currently a graduate student in Dr. Jenna Jewell’s lab where she studies a lysosomal transporter and how this regulates mTORC1 activity. |
Talia Marc | Talia is a first-year Biomedical Sciences (BIMS) Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, Virginia. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Union College in 2024, where she first discovered her passion for developmental biology as an SDB Choose Development! Fellow. Through this program, she spent a summer working in Dr. Marnie Halpern's lab at Dartmouth College and another summer in Dr. Loydie Jerome-Majewska’s lab at McGill University. During her senior year of college, she knew she wanted to strengthen her lab experience and have support during the grad cycle, so she applied to post-bac programs. After graduation, she participated in the ENGAGE-Bio post-bac program at the Marine Biological Laboratory, where she worked with Dr. Margherita Perillo to study organogenesis and regeneration using sea stars and establish a new sea cucumber, Leptosynapta tenuis. Talia credits her diverse research experiences and strong mentor relationships with preparing her for the graduate application process and helping her feel confident entering a PhD program. At UVA, she is completing coursework and rotating through labs to identify where she will pursue her dissertation research. |
