Congratulations to Karissa Jade Muñoz for receiving the Rose Hills Foundation Fellowship, which recognizes students in STEM fields who have demonstrated academic excellence, scientific accomplishments, and strong leadership qualities. Karissa is a 5th year PhD student jointly supervised by Drs. Christine Suetterlin (Developmental and Cell Biology) and Ming Tan (Microbiology and Molecular Genetics). She is interested in infectious diseases and studies Chlamydia, an obligate intracellular bacterium and the most reported cause of human infection in the U.S. Karissa’s research uses pharmacological and cell biological approaches to determine how these bacteria acquire nutrients from their host cell and how trafficking pathways influence the chlamydial developmental cycle. Her ultimate goal is to identify novel molecular targets for treatment and disease prevention. Karissa is also a recipient of an NSF graduate research fellowship.