Research Trainee Diya Upadhyaya Named Goldwater Scholar

Congratulations to Diya Upadhyaya on being named a Goldwater Scholar for the 2026-27 academic year. Diya is one of two recipients of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship at the University of South Florida.

Diya is an undergraduate student in the USF Judy Genshaft Honors College and the College of Arts and Sciences. She is majoring in applied mathematics and biomedical sciences. At Moffitt, Diya is a research trainee in the lab of Dr. Renee Brady-Nicholls in the Department of Integrated Mathematical Oncology (IMO). In 2024, she participated in the Moffitt SPARK program. Diya is the only undergraduate to have been invited twice to IMO’s annual workshops – hackathons designed to ideate innovations in biomarker estimation, biopsies, and potential cures.

These workshops exposed Diya to a spectrum of problems in cancer research and inspired her biophysics study with USF’s Dr. Ghanim Ullah, focusing on the dynamics of ion channels in PIEZO1 — a mechanical channel that converts force into cellular signals — and its role in astrocytic function. 

Upadhyaya has published on bioRxiv, a preprint server for biology, and worked on studies with Ullah and DRUMS, which are nearing publication. She has presented her work at the Moffitt Symposium, the 2025 Annual Biophysical Society Meeting, the American Mathematical Association Joint Meeting, and in the Applied Physics section of the Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium. She intends for her future work to improve the treatment of disease worldwide. 

Congratulations Diya!