Keynote speakers announced for Student Research Symposium

More than 200 NEOMED students will present their original scholarly work at the 2026 Student Research Symposium, set for Friday, Nov. 20. The event will take place from 1-5 p.m., with presentations in both the NEW Center Ballroom and Cook Alumni Hall.

The event will feature two notable speakers with presentations open to the NEOMED community. Faculty and staff are encouraged to attend.

Jennifer Villwock, M.D.
1:10 p.m.

Dr. Villwock is a professor of otolaryngology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the inaugural vice chair of Research at the University Hospitals Ear, Nose & Throat Institute, dividing her time between University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. A fellowship-trained rhinologist and anterior skull base surgeon, she came to Cleveland from the University of Kansas Medical Center, where she served as vice chair of research and innovation. She earned her medical degree from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, completed residency at SUNY Upstate Medical University, and completed a rhinology and skull base surgery fellowship at the University of Kansas. Her research led to the creation and patenting of AROMA (Affordable, Rapid, Olfactory Measurement Array), a low-cost smell test, and she won the Audience Choice Award at the 2023 Alzheimer's Association pitch competition.

Sriram "Ramu" Perni, M.D. (’98), M.B.A
3 p.m.

Dr. Perni is a board-certified maternal-fetal medicine specialist and a NEOMED alumnus. He is currently medical director, prenatal at BillionToOne, a molecular diagnostics company whose UNITY product line offers noninvasive prenatal testing. In that role he speaks widely on prenatal screening, educating obstetricians, family physicians, nurse practitioners, midwives and genetic counselors on how early aneuploidy screening can simplify later high-risk management. He trained in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Drexel University College of Medicine, then completed a maternal-fetal medicine fellowship at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell. Before moving into industry, he led Bon Secours Mercy Health's obstetrics and gynecology department as chair and its maternal-fetal medicine division as regional division director.