Stavros Kariofilis ’17

Stavros graduated with his BS in Biochemistry from Lafayette College in 2017. While at Lafayette, he conducted research with Dr. Roxy Swails synthesizing new water-soluble transition metal catalysts. Stavros also conducted organometallic chemistry research as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan with Professor Melanie Sanford. He obtained his PhD from Princeton University in 2022 as an NSF Fellow under the guidance of Professor Abigail Doyle, where his research focused on developing cross-coupling reactions using nickel and photocatalysis. Towards the end of his PhD, Stavros moved to UCLA as a visiting researcher, where he was able to integrate data science techniques towards a workflow for assessing the generality of new chemical reactions. In 2022, Stavros moved to Columbia University as an NIH postdoctoral fellow, working under Professor Tomislav Rovis. While at Columbia, he developed photocatalytic methods for protein modification and new Rhodium-catalyzed transformations. In 2025, Stavros joined Merck’s Discovery Process Chemistry group as a Senior Scientist. At Merck, he focuses on both early- and late-stage peptides.

 

 

Brianna  Leopold ‘23

Brianna Leopold is a Cell Culture Associate Scientist in the Clinical Immunology and Diagnostics branch of the Vaccines Department at Pfizer. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry, with a minor in Music, from Lafayette College in May 2023. During her time at Lafayette, she conducted research in the Bertucci Lab and successfully defended her honors thesis studying quorum sensing in the Streptococcus gordonii Challis bacterium.

In December 2025, Brianna completed a graduate certificate in Advanced Materials Characterization at the University of Connecticut. She is currently pursing an M.S. in Chemistry part-time as the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

 

 

Daniel Cline ’99

Dan graduated from Lafayette College with a BS in Biochemistry and a BA in German in 1999. As a Marquis Scholar, Dan worked under Joseph Sherma and Bernard Fried, using thin layer chromatography to investigate snail hemolymph sugar profiles under several stress conditions. After graduation, he went on to complete his PhD in Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Delaware, where his studies focused on peptide chemistry and the effects of Arsenic on protein structure and function. Dan continued his work designing peptide inhibitors of antibiotic resistance in bacteria as a post-doctoral fellow at UNC Chapel Hill. Upon completion of his fellowship, Dan moved back to the Lehigh Valley and transitioned to the biotechnology industry working at Saladax Biomedical (Bethlehem, PA), where he developed commercial diagnostic assays to monitor therapeutic drugs in patients’ blood. Afterwards he went on to Fujirebio Diagnostics (Malvern, PA), where he has risen through the ranks to Senior Project Manager developing and commercializing diagnostic assays for various cancer biomarkers.