Undergrads Take Over the Lab!!

We are happy to have both of our Pitt undergraduates students with us in the lab full time this summer!

Gia (left) is a rising senior from Pitt Public Health BSPH program. She has been a member of our group since 2023 and has joined our lab full time for the summer as a Research Assistant! She supports all projects within our group.

Neal (right) received a Summer Undergraduate Research Award (SURA) through the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. This award provides a stipend over the summer to conduct independent research with Dr. McMillen!

Two Hartman-lab graduates in 2025!

Maris Pedlow (IDM MS) and Kaleigh Connors (IDM PhD) both graduated at the School of Public Health ceremony on May 2nd!!

Dr. Rachael Rush Receives Postdoctoral Leadership Award!

Huge congratulations to third-year postdoctoral scholar in our group, Dr. Rachael Rush, on receiving the 2025 Postdoctoral Leadership Award! This award is given to an individual who has demonstrated a profound, sustained, or leadership contribution to the University of Pittsburgh Postdoctoral Association (UPPDA).

Dr. Rush leads the Lanternfly working group in the Hartman lab, with a focus on RVFV entry, pathogenesis and dissemination. She is a pivotal member of our lab, providing outstanding mentorship to trainees and consistently strengthening the collaborative and supportive spirit of our group.

She served as the 2023-24 president of UPPDA and currently serves as the postdoctoral representative on the Senate Research Committee. Her deep commitment to research, mentorship, and community engagement extends well beyond the university and the lab.

Read more about Dr. Rush on the Pitt Public Health News page!

HLCD aka Ghost Blogger

If you’ve noticed an increase in the frequency of blog posts, you would be correct to surmise that we have a ghost blogger. Kaleigh is now officially named Hartman Lab Communications Director. She was tired of me neither having the bandwidth or capacity to update frequently enough. I am happy to off load this. The website will be updated more frequently now. She is open to suggestions for content. :-)

Congrats to Master of Science, Maris!!

We are excited to share that IDM Master’s student Maris Pedlow has successfully defended her thesis (to a full room and Zoom!) and become a Master of Science! Maris joined our lab last spring, and a year later, has contributed to two different projects which are nearing publication.

Maris worked primarily within the neuropathogenesis and entry projects in our lab with (new) postdoctoral associate Kaleigh Connors and laboratory technician, Zach Frey. She successfully established and utilized multiple CNS cell lines to characterize Oropouche virus (OROV) infection and tropism. This work has contributed to a preprint which is currently online. She found that OROV replicates well in immature neurons, microglia and astrocytes, contributing to data on OROV preferences within the CNS.

Committee members: Drs. Amy Hartman (IDM), Priscilla M Da Silva Castanha (IDM), and Guillermo Rodriguez Bey (HuGen), with Maris Pedlow, MS!

Simultaneously, Maris contributed to an ongoing project with the Amarasinghe lab at Washington University of St. Louis. For this project, she assessed antivirals with pan-bunyaviral potential, with the goal of limiting replication and therefore preventing infection in vitro. Look out for more about this project soon!

We are incredibly proud of the time and effort Maris put into her work in our lab, while juggling a full class schedule. She enthusiastically learned new techniques, established new protocols for our group, and coordinated several lab dinner outings.

After her defense, we celebrated with treats in the CVR break room (the whole lab group pictured below)! We are excited to see where Maris Pedlow, MS, ends up in her next adventure!

Welcome to the lab, Elon!!

Elon with “Antonio”

We have a new doctoral student joining us in the Hartman lab!

Welcome to Elon Holmes, a first-year doctoral student from Pitt Public Health in the Department of Infectious Disease and Microbiology. Elon rotated with us in the fall and has officially joined as a graduate student!

She will be joining projects on RVFV infection during pregnancy.

Elon says: “I’m originally from Silver Spring, Maryland, but I grew up in Fort Mill, South Carolina. While living in South Carolina, I earned my Bachelor's degree in Microbiology with a concentration in biomedicine from Clemson University, where I also worked as a diagnostic lab technician. Now in Pittsburgh, I live in the Shadyside area, where I enjoy walking and exploring local coffee shops and restaurants. Outside of work, I love hiking, attending concerts, and trying out fun activities and festivals around Pittsburgh!”

Lots of Good News in the Hartman Lab!

We’ve received a lot of good news in our lab this week, and want to share!

Austin and Cindy will both have talks at the American Society for Reproductive Immunology (ASRI) annual meeting in St. Paul, MN this May!

Austin will be presenting a talk titled “Protecting mothers and neonates from Rift Valley Fever: RVFV-delNSs/NSm vaccine prevents vertical transmission and neonatal mortality following maternal vaccination.” In addition, Austin received a Trainee Travel Award to attend this meeting!

Cindy will be presenting a talk titled “Human trophoblasts and placenta explants are susceptible to Oropouche virus infection.”

Cade and Rachael will both be attending the annual meeting of the American Society for Virology being held in Montreal, Quebec (Canada) in July.

Cade was selected for a flash talk and poster presentation titled “Role of Lrp1 in Oropouche virus pathogenesis in mice".

Rachael will be presenting a talk titled “Role of Lrp1 on myeloid cells in infection and dissemination of Rift Valley fever virus".

Zach and his “grad school reveal” during Hartman lab meeting!

Zach, one of our technicians and former Hartman Lab undergraduate student, has officially committed to UNC BBSP for his PhD! Zach has been working on neuropathogenesis and entry-related projects within our lab.

Science Outreach at Carnegie Science Center, 2025

Drs. Cindy McMillen, Rachael Rush and Kaleigh Connors — alongside current IDM PhD students (Daniel Lane, Christine Crasto, Melaina Jacoby and Bethany Hoschar) — volunteered last Friday at the Carnegie Science Center SciTech Day! They represented both the Center for Vaccine Research and the Department of Infectious Disease and Microbiology at Pitt Public Health.

This event connects middle- and high-school students from greater Pittsburgh with real-world scientists, engineers, and other STEM professionals. The entire day-long event allows students to participate in demonstrations and activity booths hosted by exhibiting organizations.

At the CVR/IDM booth, we had swag including tote bags, stickers and coloring pages, as well as information about Pitt Public Health. Visiting students were able to learn how to perform serial dilutions with a pipet, how to extract DNA from a strawberry, and how to properly remove gloves covered in shaving cream!

We always enjoy partnering with the Carnegie Science Center, and look forward to participating in future SciTech Days in Pittsburgh! H2P!

Top-Tier Health Sciences Papers of 2023!

Our 2023 publication in Nature Communications, which found that a human monoclonal antibody against Rift Valley fever virus protected mother and offspring from infection and vertical transmission, was selected as a Top-Tier Health Science paper for 2023 by the Senior Vice Chancellor’s office at Pitt Health Sciences!

Dr. Amy Hartman was invited to give a 10-minute lightning talk on our paper from 2023 titled A highly potent human neutralizing antibody prevents vertical transmission of Rift Valley fever virus in a rat model. This project was lead by Dr. Cindy McMillen, in collaboration with Drs. Nathanial Chapman (now at UNC) and James E. Crowe, Jr., at the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center.

View the original write-up on this publication here!