2016 Le Moyne Graduate Offered Fulbright in Germany to Research Epilepsy
Kimberlyn Bailey, who graduated from Le Moyne College in 2016 with a major in general science, has been offered a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Student Program Study/Research Grant to Germany. Bailey is currently a research assistant at the National Institutes of Health, where she has worked with Dr. Christian Meisel, whose lab is at the Carl Gustav Carus University Hospital in Dresden, Germany. She will join for her Fulbright research in September 2018.
“It feels like my world is about to be opened up in a multitude of ways I can now only nebulously grasp,” said Bailey. “I’m thrilled to be able to work on the bleeding edge of translational medicine, where the best of modern data science is being leveraged toward clinical applications that sound like they are straight out of science fiction!”
She also said that she plans to do volunteer work for women in STEM organizations local to Dresden. “I am committed to be deeply engaged with women in STEM initiatives and conduct sociology research throughout my career. A year in Germany will be the perfect opportunity to establish that work on an international scale.”
A specialist on epilepsy, Dr. Meisel has focused on bridging the gap between computational neuroscience and medicine by combining neurology, physics, and data science to understand and treat neurological disease. Under Dr. Meisel’s guidance, Bailey has proposed to conduct research using EEG data on epilepsy patients in order to develop algorithms that help predict epileptic seizures and to adapt these algorithms to a wearable device for everyday use. Because epileptic seizures, like the weather, can be forecasted to a certain extent, if such a wearable device could predict seizures reliably, it could dramatically improve the quality of life for epilepsy patients.
After completing her Fulbright grant, Bailey plans to enter an M.D.-Ph.D. program, with the long-term goal of developing computational models of neurological disorders and creating medical treatments based on such models.
“This is a tremendous achievement for Kimberlyn, and reflects on the quality of her Le Moyne education and her overall academic experience,” said Deborah Cromley, Ph.D. Le Moyne’s Fulbright Program advisor and an assistant professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Bailey is the fourth Le Moyne graduate to receive a Fulbright in the past 10 years.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments, host institutions, corporations, and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The Program operates in over 160 countries worldwide.