Ellery Koelker-Wolfe Honored at CMC Senior Awards Banquet

CLAREMONT, Calif. - Senior Ellery Koelker-Wolfe was honored by Claremont McKenna as top overall science student in the Class of 2019 at CMC's Annual Senior Awards Banquet this week.

Koelker-Wolfe, a biochemistry major, has been a four-time SCIAC All-Academic Team selection for the CMS women's basketball team, and started every game for the Athenas this season. She led CMS to a 24-3 record this winter and to a combined 90 wins over her four seasons (90-22), including four straight regular season league titles.

Koelker-Wolfe wrote her senior thesis, titled "On the right TRAC: Using CRISPR-Cas9 to engineer iPSCs for an off-the-shelf CAR T cell therapy." The motivation for her thesis subject came from this summer, when she stayed 3000 miles from her Atlanta home to conduct research on cancer therapy at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California. The goal of the research is to help improve the human body's immune system's ability to fight cancer cells. 

CMSathletics.org featured Koelker-Wolfe this winter as part of its "CMS-ence of" video profiles of the senior class. To watch the video, click on the following link: