On May 5, 2025, the Graduate School of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research held its commencement ceremony, celebrating the achievements of seven Ph.D. program graduates. The ceremony also celebrated the final two graduates of the Open University, of which the Stowers Institute has served as an Affiliated Research Centre since 2006. With this year's graduates, the Graduate School now has a total of 40 alumni who have earned doctoral degrees in biology.

Graduates of the Stowers Graduate School program include Kaelan Brennan, Ph.D., from the lab of Investigator Julia Zeitlinger, Ph.D., Luciana Castellano, (degree to be conferred), from the lab of Associate Investigator Ariel Bazzini, Ph.D., Rahul Garg, Ph.D., from the lab of former Investigator Ron Yu, Ph.D., Aubrey Kent, (degree to be conferred), and Augusto Ortega Granillo, Ph.D., both from the lab of Stowers President and Chief Scientific Officer Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Ph.D., and Raktim Roy, Ph.D., and Kyle Patton, Ph.D., both from the lab of Stowers Scientific Director Kausik Si, Ph.D.

The Open University graduates are Michelle DeVore, Ph.D., from the Bazzini Lab and Xie He, Ph.D., from the lab of Investigator Paul Trainor, Ph.D. The nine graduates’ scientific contributions span diverse fields, including gene regulation, regeneration, stem cell biology, and neuroscience.

Several members of the 2025 graduating class have already embarked on postdoctoral research positions. Brennan is at Stanford University, Garg is at Case Western Reserve University, and Ortega Granillo holds a joint position with Dresden University of Technology and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics. Roy will be joining the Centre for High Impact Neuroscience and Translational Applications in India as a postdoctoral fellow, Kent accepted a faculty position at William Jewell College, and DeVore is exploring positions in the Midwest.

Two graduates are continuing their work at the Stowers Institute: Castellano is now an associate scientist in the Cellular Tissue and Molecular Biology Department, and He is a senior researcher in the lab of Investigator Linheng Li, Ph.D.