Congratulations to Narges Firouzshahi, MS, a doctoral student in Marco Hefti, MD’s research laboratory, who has been awarded the Ada Louise Ballard & Seashore Dissertation Fellowship by the Graduate College for the Spring 2027 semester. The fellowship is awarded to students during their final semester to provide protected and supported time to focus on completing their scholarly research activities and the writing of their dissertation.

The spread of tau pathology through the brain is a key feature of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and progressive supranuclear palsy, yet the role of glial cells in this process remains poorly understood. While prior work has largely focused on aggregated tau, far less is known about how astrocytes respond to monomeric tau, which may represent earlier stages of disease. Narges’ dissertation investigates how astrocytes internalize and process tau, with a particular focus on how phosphorylation state influences these pathways and examines how tau exposure alters astrocyte function using human iPSC-derived models.