1. W&L’s DART Internship Program Places Students in Cutting-Edge Research Labs

"The students have to be ready to contribute, and they do."

~ Bob Stewart, professor of cognitive and behavorial science and neuroscience program head

Each summer, a small number of Washington and Lee University students step into laboratories most undergraduates never see: high-intensity research environments where the pace is fast, the expectations are high and the work carries real-world stakes. Last summer, through the DART Fellowship four students had the opportunity to join nationally recognized research teams studying Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC), a rare, fatal neurodegenerative disease that primarily affects children.

The internship is funded through Dana's Angels Research Trust (DART), a foundation created by Phil Marella '81 and his wife, Andrea, after their daughter, Dana, was diagnosed with NPC. Dana passed away from the disease just before her 20th birthday. Their son, Andrew, now in his mid-20s, lives with the same disease, with his life extended and stabilized through experimental treatments that DART has helped support. Marella says that the program has been an excellent partnership between W&L and the labs involved.

"I knew when we began creating the program that W&L's science programs were strong enough to contribute to this research," he says. "I looked at it as a win-win for W&L science students and the labs, and it's worked out that way."

W&L's DART fellows have spent each summer since 2011 focusing on NPC at top-notch medical research facilities such as the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Childhood and Human Development, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. From its inception, the program was designed to accelerate rare-disease research and to immerse Washington and Lee students in serious, consequential scientific work at a formative moment in their education.

Each year, selected students - primarily neuroscience majors, though the program is also open to students in biology, chemistry and biochemistry - are placed in research labs and major medical research centers across the country. The internships typically run eight to 10 weeks, during which students receive funding to support travel, housing and living expenses while working full-time in the lab.

The connection between bench research and real lives is central to DART's design. Bob Stewart, W&L professor of cognitive and behavioral science, neuroscience program head and longtime institutional liaison for the program, says students are chosen not only for academic strength but for their readiness to step into high-stakes environments.

"These labs are like small businesses," Stewart says. "They live and die by grant funding. The students have to be ready to contribute, and they do."

Stewart, who helped shape the program alongside Marella in its earliest years, says the goal has always been to send students who can handle both the technical and personal demands of the experience.

"They're going to big metropolitan areas. They're often living alone or with one other intern. They're being asked to step into a research culture that's much more intense than anything they've experienced before," he says. "It takes a certain kind of maturity."

For members of the 2025 cohort, the internship marked their first sustained exposure to wet lab research tied directly to clinical outcomes. Ava GianGrasso '26, a neuroscience and music performance double major from Buffalo, New York, who spent the summer at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), was drawn to the program because of her interest in neurodegenerative disease and, she says, because she wanted to move beyond purely computational research.

"This was my first wet lab experience," she says. "I had done dry lab work before, but this was different. You're culturing cells. You're testing drugs. You're actually doing the work." GianGrasso has volunteered playing the violin for Alzheimer's patients since the eighth grade and says her DART internship experience confirmed her desire to pursue a career in medicine and research.

At UIC, GianGrasso and fellow intern Ryan Taylor '26 worked in a lab studying how cholesterol becomes trapped inside cells in patients with NPC, a process that ultimately leads to neurological decline.

"NPC is basically a cholesterol-mover disease," GianGrasso explains. "All the cholesterol gets stuck inside the cell instead of being used where it's needed. Our job was to do drug research on how to get it out."

Taylor, a neuroscience major from Richmond, Virginia, says the experience was invaluable as she charts her path to medical school.

"Even studying for the MCAT, there's a handful of passages that talk about common lab procedures, and I've seen those now," she says. "It's very helpful to be able to visualize what that might look like."

For many students, the experience reshapes how they see medicine altogether while shadowing clinicians who treat children with NPC.

"These kids are getting spinal taps every two weeks," GianGrasso says. "And the parents know what you're working on. They ask you about it. That changes everything."

Alumni Connections

Years later, DART program alumni describe their summer experience as a turning point.

Jina Park '13, now a neurologist in New Jersey, completed the internship twice at the National Institutes of Health, an experience that led directly to her first publication and her eventual specialization.

"I really attribute why I chose neurology to my experience at NIH," Park says. "It was my first exposure to that field."

Lule Rault '11, an OB-GYN specializing in family planning, recalls how the program reshaped her understanding of advocacy.

"What it really ingrained in me was how important it is for patients and families to advocate for themselves," she says. "That stays with me every day."

And Mccauley Massie '15, now completing a pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship, described how meeting the Marella family transformed abstract lab work into a human mission.

"It really got me thinking about the patient behind the work," Massie says. "That was incredibly motivating."

Learn more about how W&L's neuroscience, biology, chemistry and biochemistry departments are preparing students for medical careers.

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