Samira Xhaferi Endowed Graduate Student Travel Award Fund

Samira Xhaferi was a Ph.D. student in the Regulatory Biology program at Cleveland State University. Samira was tragically killed in a car accident, along with her fiancé Albi Cela (a law student at CSU) in November 2025. She had passed her qualifying exams two months prior and had won 2nd place in the student poster competition at the 66th Annual Drosophila Research Conference earlier that year. Samira was an exemplary graduate student: bright, hardworking, proactive, reliable, highly organized, and an impressive communicator.

Samira Xhaferi Endowed Graduate Student Travel Award Fund will honor Samira’s memory by supporting an annual travel award for graduate students in the Center for Gene Regulation in Health and Disease (GRHD) at CSU.

Our goal is to raise $50,000. Please help us achieve this goal by donating through the fundraising link below.

https://crowdfunding.csuohio.edu/project/50185/wall

Thank you!