Congratulations to Kshitija (KK) Kale, a doctoral student in Nitin Karandikar, MD, PhD's research laboratory, who has been awarded the Ballard & Seashore Dissertation Fellowship by the Graduate College for the Spring 2026 semester. The Ada Louise Ballard & Seashore Dissertation Fellowship is awarded to students during their final semester, providing protected and supported time to focus on completing their scholarly research activities and the writing of their dissertation.

Kale's dissertation research focuses on Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a chronic neuroinflammatory autoimmune disease. Kale has discovered that the cytokine TGF-β1 rewires the behavior of Th17 cells, which are key drivers of autoimmune inflammation. Her findings provide new insight into how Th17 cells contribute to relapses in MS and may guide future strategies to target immune dysfunction in autoimmune disease.

Kale represents the first student from the Experimental Pathology PhD program to receive this award. The Experimental Pathology PhD Graduate Program is centered in the Department of Pathology and is a member of the Biomedical Science Graduate Program in the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa. The Experimental Pathology program was established in 2020 and has quickly grown, with three students already graduated and seven students currently enrolled and performing their PhD thesis research.