Congratulations to Kush Yadav (Kenney lab) for being selected as a recipient of the 2022 Student Life Leadership's Outstanding Graduate/Professional Student Award. The Outstanding Graduate/Professional Student Award is among the highest of honors conferred to graduate and professional students, this award recognizes those who have made outstanding contributions to Ohio State in leadership and service outside their academic program. To be selected, students must demonstrate their ability to balance scholarship with their leadership and involvement.
Kush Kumar Yadav is a doctoral candidate in the Center for Food Animal Health (CFAH) working for Scott Kenney (Kenney lab) on the Ohio State University Wooster Campus. He joined the Kenney lab as a master’s student in 2018 and his research focuses on the role viral and host factors play in the pathogenesis of hepatitis E virus (HEV). Kush’s research areas include but are not limited to studying pathology utilizing the human, pig, and avian strains of hepatitis E viruses, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Kush has been trained and is skilled to work on highly infectious agents that requires biosafety level-3 (BSL-3) containment. In the Kenney lab, Kush has played a major role in several projects utilizing various animal models such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, pigs, hamsters, ferrets, and mice to study the pathogenesis associated with various viruses where his veterinary skills were advantageous. During the pandemic, under the supervision of Dr. Juliette Hanson, Kush with his team members (Kenney and Gourapura lab) have done multiple projects in the BSL-3 facility such as screening drugs and vaccines to find treatments against SARS-CoV-2. In his graduate career (still ongoing), Kush has been awarded with 9 different awards including for oral presentations and poster presentations in various international meetings. He has also successfully written multiple grants and achieved internal funding from OSU sources. Kush has written three book chapters and has two peer reviewed journal articles. In addition to that, Kush is a vice-president of the Infectious Disease Institute Trainee Association (IDI-TA) and one of the leaders of the Graduate Student Unit (GSU/CFAH). Furthermore, Kush is an active player of The Ohio State University Cricket Club (OSUCC) and has been representing OSU in American College Cricket tournaments. Kush is inspired daily by his girlfriend, supervisor (Scott Kenney), brother, and his family members in Nepal. Kush is a powerful force in the workplace and uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed.
The 2022 Leadership Awards will be streamed virtually on April 8th, from 4:00–5:00 pm ET from the Ohio State Student Life YouTube channel.