Student Awards

Emily Warner was recently selected to receive a 2018 Trainee Professional Development Award (TPDA) from the Society for Neuroscience. These are highly competitive awards and it is a great achievement for Emily.

The award comes with a complementary registration to the conference in San Diego and a monetary award of $1000. Emily will present a poster at a poster session for other recipients and will be able to attend several Professional Development Workshops while at the conference.

Congratulations Emily!

Congratulations to our NGP students for again earning these honors at this year's School of Medicine and Dentistry Convocation Ceremony.

• Kathryn Toffolo (1st year): Merritt and Marjorie Cleveland Fellowship Award
  • This fellowship was established in 1991 from Mr. and Mrs. Merritt Cleveland and is awarded to a Ph.D. student entering graduate study through the Biomedical Sciences Program with interest in developing a neuroscience-related research career.
• Monique Mendes (4th year): Outstanding Student Mentor Award
  • This award, established in 2015, recognizes a student mentor who guides, supports and promotes the training and career development of others.
• Gregory Reilly (1st year): J. Newell Stannard Graduate Student Scholarship Award
  • This scholarship was established by Dr. Stannard, Professor Emeritus, to recognize one deserving incoming graduate student for their commendable academic achievements. Dr. Stannard developed the world's first doctoral program in radiation biology at the School of Medicine and was a faculty member for almost 40 years before retiring in 1975. He taught and mentored hundreds of students who went on to become leaders and experts in the field of radiation health.

Monique was selected by the Society for Neuroscience's Professional Development Committee and its Diversity in Neuroscience Subcommittee as a Neuroscience Scholars Program Fellow. This program is designed to provide underrepresented graduate students in neuroscience with career development and networking opportunities to help them with success going into the future.

The program provides the following benefits:

• A mentoring team consisting of a senior mentor and a member of the Diversity in Neuroscience Subcommittee. The team will discuss a fellow's research, career plans, and overall experience.
• Two years of complimentary SfN membership.
• A travel award to attend the SfN annual meeting each fall during the two-year program.
• Up to $1500 in enrichment funds to support allowed professional development activities.

Congratulations Monique!

Rianne Stowell, a fourth year NGP graduate student, has been awarded a two year NIH Fellowship award (F31) for her project titled, "Noradrenergic modulation of microglial dynamics and synaptic plasticity". Rianne works in the laboratory of Ania Majewska, Ph.D.

The purpose of the Kirschstein National Research Service Award program is to enable promising predoctoral students with potential to develop into a productive, independent research scientists, to obtain mentored research training while conducting dissertation research.

Well done Rianne!

Monique S. Mendes, a neuroscience Ph.D. student, is the first University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) graduate student to receive a prestigious diversity award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders in Stroke (NINDS). Mendes works in the laboratory of Ania Majewska, Ph.D. and studies the role that the brain's immune cells play in development, learning, and diseases like Autism.

Mendes, originally from Kingston, Jamaica, received her undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Florida. She came to URMC in search of a robust program that focused on glial biology and a collaborative environment. She chose the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience to complete her thesis work due in part to Majewska's record of mentoring students and her lab's reputation for conducting leading research in brain development.

Mendes has been awarded a F99/K00 NIH Blueprint Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) fellowship from NINDS. The award was created to provide outstanding young neuroscientists from diverse backgrounds a pathway to develop independent research careers. Unlike traditional graduate student fellowships, this award provides research funding for 6 years, including dissertation research and mentored postdoctoral research career development.

Read the local Jamacian Observer newspaper article.

Jessica Hogestyn, a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Graduate Program has been awarded a $23,000 Messersmith Dissertation Fellowship for 2018-2019. The Messersmith Fellowship is a competitive one-year fellowship for students in the pre-clinical departments of the School of Medicine and Dentistry or in Biology, Chemistry, Optics or Physics. Appropriate candidates have passed the qualifying exam and are in the process of writing their dissertations or are at least engaged in full-time research.

Congratulations Jessie!!

Kathleen Gates has been awarded an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship. This fellowship is meant to enhance the integrated research and clinical training of promising students who are matriculated in pre-doctoral or clinical health professional degree training programs and who intend careers as scientists, physician-scientists or other clinician-scientists, or related careers aimed at improving global cardiovascular health.

Congratulations Kathleen!!