As president of the Pace Nursing Student Association (PNSA) and policy and education director for the Nursing Students’ Association of New York State, Tram is already making her voice heard. She credits Lienhard faculty with encouraging her ambitions and connecting her with opportunities, including a Mount Sinai Health System internship and a collaborative student research position at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Why did you choose to enroll in the BS in Nursing program?

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I decided to major in nursing because I experienced a lot of health issues in high school, and, after being in and out of the hospital for so long, I started to identify as a patient and with my illness, and it was hard to find the motivation to heal. Then, sometime around junior year, I met a nurse who changed the entire trajectory of my recovery. It was the first time in a long time that someone treated me like a person and not just a patient, and that not only motivated me to make progress in my healing journey, but it was through her kindness that I realized how much of an impact a nurse can have, and this helped me see a professional future in something meaningful.

Recently, you worked on important advocacy with the Nursing Students' Association of New York State (NSANYS) to raise the minimum age of consent for sex. Tell me more about your interest in advocacy and your role with NSANYS.

I have always had an advocacy bone. Healthcare advocacy, however, wasn't something I knew about until I attended Pace’s hosting of the Oncology Nursing Society’s Advocacy Day conference. I felt empowered to bridge the gap from being an individual nursing student to meshing with a bigger, broader, more abstract idea of healthcare. My belief in advocating for my patients as well as nursing transcending beyond bedside care evolved on that day.

Working with nursing student leaders from across the state as policy and education director at NSANYS has been very rewarding, and the opportunity to write the resolution (and serve as a member of the Resolution Committee) pushed me to take the first step in sharing my concerns nationally. I was intimidated at first but learned a lot about leadership and having the confidence to take on important roles.

How is this topic meaningful to you and what impact do you hope to have?

Throughout this experience, I learned that choosing a topic to advocate for that I really cared about made it that much harder. The current law on the age of consent for sex made no sense to me; I was also confused and angry that there was such a discrepancy across state lines and dismayed that no one seemed to be doing anything about it, so I decided that I would be the person to address it. I'm hoping that through my advocacy work, the age of consent can be raised to 18, at least in New York State, and eventually nationally. The development of a teenager doesn't vary from state to state, and so, there should be laws to protect adolescents until they are developmentally capable of consenting to sex.

Tell me more about your role as president of the Pace Nursing Student Association (PNSA) and how this is meaningful to you.

I take so much pride in and I'm excited to have stepped into the role as president of PNSA. This year's board is a wonderful and capable group of nursing students, with incredible ideas for on and off campus events. It's a privilege to work with such a great team, and, this year, we have expanded by adding committees for Men in Nursing and Mental Health.

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What internships have you had as a student?

Currently, I am a nursing student scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a collaborative research position between the Center and Pace’s Lienhard School of Nursing. And this past summer, I completed the Mount Sinai Student Nurse internship in the apheresis department, an opportunity Chief Nursing Officer and Associate Professor Esma Paljevic, EdD, RN, CPNP, FNYAM, graciously connected me with. I’m so grateful that the contributions of my professors and clinical instructors and the knowledge I gained in Lienhard prepared me to excel in my internships.

What other faculty have been instrumental in your academic journey?

I am indefinitely grateful to Professor Stephanie Allen, PhD, RN, who has nurtured my aspirations for research and policy work and supported my leadership endeavors. Her joy and enthusiasm are contagious, and I believe that nursing education needs more individuals like her. In addition, when I came to Clinical Assistant Professor Kara Giustino, MSN, CPNP with my resolution proposal, she was so affirming that what I was advocating for was necessary and urgent. She poured herself into it as if it was her own, and her contributions helped during times when I doubted myself.

What are your post-graduation/career plans?

I am very eager to gain bedside experience with patients when I graduate, and my current role at MSKCC reflects my eagerness in continuing with oncology. I think it's a good blend of med surge, where I can build lots of clinical and therapeutic skills, with the added challenge of cancer increasing the level of acuity within the population I am caring for. Long term, I want to be a women's health nurse practitioner. Women's health is centered on conception and obstetrics, yet various reproductive pathologies may occur throughout their lives, and so, I would like my future practice to reflect the realities of the needs of women's health.

What advice would you like to provide for students?

Get involved! The skills I didn't even know I needed to develop and the exposure to things that matter to me now were only accomplished through allowing myself to be challenged by opportunities I was intimidated by. I know the feeling of looking at other students and viewing them as extraordinarily talented or intelligent (beyond any perceived capacity I would ever achieve) and thinking that there was no way I could ever be so capable. And yet, through trial and error, and not being afraid to say yes to opportunities (or being afraid and still saying yes), I am the student I once looked up to.=

Did you know? Pace Undergraduate Nursing Jumped 25 Spots in 2027 U.S. News rankings.

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Professor Emily Gold Waldman has been awarded the 2026 Goettel Prize for Faculty Scholarship for her article, Parents at the Schoolhouse Gate, published in the North Carolina Law Review, 104 N.C. L. Rev. 773 (2026).

The Goettel Prize was created in 2004 to encourage and recognize outstanding scholarship by members of the Elisabeth Haub School of Law faculty. Each year, members of the tenured and tenure-track faculty are invited to submit their work for consideration (on an anonymous basis) by a selection committee of outside reviewers. This year's committee consisted of three distinguished professors: Andrea Freeman, Second Century Chair Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School; Jordan Blair Woods, James E. Rogers Professor of Law, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona; and Heather Payne, Carter C. Kissell Professor of Law, Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University.

“Professor Waldman’s Parents at the Schoolhouse Gate takes on an exceptionally timely and important area of law, offering thoughtful analysis of the evolving relationship among parents, students, and public schools,” said Professor Margot J. Pollans, Associate Dean for Faculty Development at Haub Law. “Emily’s work exemplifies the rigorous, relevant scholarship that distinguishes our faculty, and I am delighted to see her recognized with this year’s Goettel Prize.”

In Parents at the Schoolhouse Gate, Professor Waldman examines the evolving constitutional landscape surrounding parental rights in public education. The article analyzes the implications of the United States Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which held that parents were entitled under the Free Exercise Clause to opt their children out of certain elementary school lessons that conflicted with their religious beliefs. It also explores the rise of “parents’ rights”-focused organizations and the new types of arguments they are making under the Free Speech Clause.

“I am so honored to receive the Goettel Prize and to have Parents at the Schoolhouse Gate recognized by this year’s selection committee,” said Professor Waldman. “I started writing the article in 2024, and then things started changing so quickly in the courts—especially with the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Mahmoud—that I had to substantially update it several times! I hope that the piece contributes to the ongoing conversation about parental rights, student interests, and the role of public schools.”

Professor Waldman joined the Haub Law faculty in 2006 and teaches Constitutional Law, Law and Education, Employment Law Survey, and Civil Procedure. Her scholarship focuses on constitutional law, education law, and the law of the workplace. She is also the Faculty Director of Haub Law’s Federal Judicial Honors Program. Notably, this 2026 award marks Professor Waldman’s second Goettel Prize for Faculty Scholarship; she previously received the award in 2008 for her article "Returning to Hazelwood's Core: A New Approach to Restrictions on School-Sponsored Speech," 60 Fla. L. Rev. 63 (2008).

At Pace, persistence pays off, and in this case, years of scientific research has led to a remarkable, lifesaving breakthrough for humanity.

Faculty in the award-winning Haskins Labs, renowned for producing innovative research on parasitic diseases that improves human health across the world, have contributed to a major development in the treatment of human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), a potentially fatal parasitic disease commonly known as sleeping sickness. Acoziborole (marketed as Acoziborole Winthrop) can now cure the disease with a single oral dose, representing a significant step forward in the management of tropical diseases.

The advance is especially significant for a disease that historically required far more complex—and sometimes highly toxic—treatment. Now, a simple, single-dose therapy could make treatment dramatically easier to deliver in remote communities and help accelerate global efforts to eliminate sleeping sickness altogether.

This achievement grew out of a collaboration involving Pace, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), who funded the research, Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Scynexis, and other partners. Director of the Haskins Lab and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Nigel Yarlett, PhD, and Professor Emeritus Cyrus Bacchi, PhD, former director, helped evaluate potential compounds using both bloodstream and central nervous system models, work that ultimately contributed to identifying and advancing acoziborole toward clinical development.

A competitive, curative edge

Linked to the Biology and Chemistry and Physical Sciences departments in the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences on the New York City Campus, with joint research projects involving students, faculty and staff, Haskins is unique in that very few labs have the capability to do late-stage disease models, a key component in life-extension for those afflicted with HAT.

Yarlett said, “Acoziborole is a huge contribution to the treatment of HAT since it is administered as 1-3 pills, single dose, can last in the patient for up to 28 days, and penetrates the blood-brain barrier, curing both early-stage (blood stream infection) and late-stage disease (central nervous system infection); the latter is fatal if not addressed.”

The work continues

There are two main forms of HAT, depending upon the region of Africa where the disease is prominent, and acoziborole is currently being used to treat patients with West African Trypanosomiasis caused by Trypanosoma gambiense. Acoziborole has not yet been used, however, in the case of East African Trypanosomiasis caused by T. rhodesiense, and that’s where the Haskins Labs come in, with the next stage of research set to determine if the treatment can extend to all forms of the disease.

“I feel confident it will, but parasites can often surprise you,” said Yarlett.

Yarlett and his research team are also working on developing a curative treatment for cryptosporidiosis, a debilitating diarrheal disease implicated in an estimated 200,000 child deaths annually, and primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. There is currently no approved drug, and treatment consists of intensive intravenous hydration, a practical impossibility in the countries most impacted.

Haskins has received funding from both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to investigate the parasite with the goal of producing an oral, low dose, non-toxic small molecules to treat children impacted with this parasite.

Student success at Haskins

At Haskins, both undergraduate and graduate students carry out research under the guidance of faculty and regularly publish their findings in high impact journals, present at conferences, and pursue successful careers, with two students who participated in Haskins during the 1970s with then-director Seymour Hutner recognized with Nobel Peace prizes.

Although students were not directly involved in the more recent research on acoziborole, they were involved in other key aspects leading to its discovery.

Donna Sarno, laboratory supervisor, has contributed to various parasitic research at Haskins during the course of 34 years at Pace, and a big part of that has been alongside students.

“The labs give students a unique research experience. Working with parasites and neglected diseases especially opens them up to a world they may not know about,” she said.

Pace honored among industry professionals

In November 2026, scientists (including Yarlett and Bacchi) and industry leaders who were key players in facilitating efforts to finally eliminate sleeping sickness will be celebrated at an event cohosted by the North Carolina Global Health Alliance and DNDi.

A key feature will be a documentary partly filmed at Haskins in September 2026, followed by a roundtable discussion with Q+A by representatives in attendance.

For Yarlett, it is very much a full-circle moment.

Since joining the Haskins laboratory in 1986, acoziborole is the second drug that Yarlett has seen go into clinical trial for the treatment of Human African Trypanosomiasis, and it could not have happened without the collaboration of so many in the Pace Community.

He said, “A large part of this success stems from the great insight and knowledge that Cy Bacchi has for this disease and ability to find the Achilles Heel of a deadly parasite. We are also grateful to the support and encouragement provided by Pace University and President Krislov in these endeavors, it is a great environment to do this research, and we look forward to the continued success of the Haskins Laboratories at Pace University.”

Making a difference, into the future

The scientific breakthrough in the form of acoziborole’s discovery is a powerful example of what happens when Pace gives great minds the support to pursue big questions.

It is also a testament to how a gem of a space and decades of persistence can have a far-reaching impact, ultimately changing lives around the world.