A journal built by students, for students

Founder

Srijan Vemireddy

Pre-medical

Srijan’s scholarship is rooted in a fascination with how the brain works, and how it can be protected. His research examines Alzheimer’s disease and the psychology of color, including a published study on how the colors of a classroom shape students’ cognitive performance. Together, these interests reflect a conviction that careful inquiry into everyday environments can illuminate the mechanisms of the mind.

He founded NextGen Scholars to give young researchers the platform he sought himself: a rigorous, professional venue in which to publish early and be taken seriously. He intends to pursue a pre-medical track in college, with the aim of building a career in medicine informed by research. Through this journal, he hopes to help a new generation of scholars pair ambition with purpose.

Nelson Chao, M.D.

Duke University · Professor of Medicine · Chief, Division of Cell Therapy

Professor Chao has generously shared his time and perspective with NextGen Scholars, offering students the insight of a physician-scientist who has spent a career at the frontier of cellular therapy. He judged the NextGen Scholars research competition, bringing a clinician’s rigor and an investigator’s curiosity to the evaluation of student work. He is the Donald D. and Elizabeth G. Cooke Cancer Distinguished Research Professor at Duke, with appointments in medicine, integrative immunobiology, pathology, and global health, and is a member of the Duke Cancer Institute.

His research spans clinical hematopoietic stem cell and cord blood transplantation and laboratory studies of graft-versus-host disease and immune reconstitution, including work to make cord blood transplantation a viable option for adults with hematologic malignancies. He earned his M.D. at Yale University and completed his residency and oncology fellowship at Stanford University. Visit the Chao Lab at Duke