Meet the 2025 Biology Institute at Exeter Leadership Team
Shimaa Ghazal, Institute Director
Phillips Exeter Academy
Shimaa’s area of expertise is in microbiology and bioinformatics. She earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees in microbiology from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. Her Ph.D. was a joint program between the University of New Hampshire and Cairo’s National Research Center where she studied photorhabdus bacteria genome and the role they play as a bioinsecticide. Before coming to Phillips Exeter Academy she taught and did post-doctoral work at UNH in the molecular cellular and biomedical science department. She enjoys collaborating with her colleagues on different projects to enrich the educational experience of Exonians. She started a new course at Exeter that studies Malaria and basics of Bioinformatics, where she works with her students on next generation sequencing of Anopheles genome (Malaria mosquitos) and their data analysis. Along with her students, Shimaa published two genomes of Anopheles in GenBank.
Summer Morrill, Institute Director
Phillips Exeter Academy
Summer Morrill earned a B.S. in biology from Tufts University and went on to complete her PhD in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During this time, she conducted research in genetics at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Currently, Summer teaches introductory biology and genetics at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH. She focuses on building curriculum that will engage students at all levels with scientific thinking and creativity, which has included introducing yeast as a model organism for student learning and research and starting a new course on the Genetic Basis of Cancer. She enjoys collaborating with others in the Science department to develop and carry out projects that promote creativity and streamline best teaching practices. Previously, she worked as a Teaching Development Fellow and an Instructor of TA training and Curriculum Development at MIT.