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2006 Graduate Student Achievement & Recognition Ceremony
The 2006 VCU School of Medicine Graduate Student Achievement & Recognition Ceremony was held on May 19. Many of our students received awards and recognitions. This is a wonderful reflection of our talented students and faculty who are very dedicated to graduate education.
C.C. Clayton Award
The Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology nominates as their candidate for the Clayton Award the second-year Ph.D. candidate with the highest
GPA and with good evidence of research ability. This year we are proud to announce this year’s winner,
Katarzyna Wilczynska who is highly qualified for this honor. She has an excellent GPA and has devoted considerable time and effort to launching her research careers. In addition, Ms. Wilczynska has four co-author publications, a considerable accomplishment for a second year PhD student.
The Sidney S. Negus Award for Excellence in Biochemistry
Dr. Negus was the Chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology for many years, guiding it through much of its growing period. At the state level he was a leader in the Virginia Academy of Science and promoted science and science education throughout the commonwealth. He was well known for his “Science Writing for the Public.” He ran the press office for FASEB and AAAS for many years and also was involved in organization of several international congresses on nutrition.
We greatly appreciate the efforts of the Negus family in making this award possible so that we can recognize the achievements of our students both for their research papers and their Forbes Day presentations. This year the selection of the winner was very difficult. We had 14 students from our department who wrote excellent papers and gave outstanding presentations. We would like to recognize the following graduate students from our department for their research achievements for this year:
- Harminder Bhatia
- Seth Dever
- Charles (Chas) Easley
- Heather O’Farrell
- Rachael Griffiths
- Kwasi Kari Kari
- Pei-Lun Lee
- Poulami Mitra
- Steven Paugh
- Anjali Rao
- Miguel Rufail
- Heidi Sankala
- Chu Ri Shin
- Katarzyna Wilcyznska
There were two papers/ presentations at Forbes Day that were so outstanding that we have two recipients of this year’s Negus Award.
Anjali Rao and Steve Paugh
Also, special congratulations to Miguel Rufail and Rachael Griffiths who won first place (Miguel) and second place (Rachael) awards in the overall Forbes Day competition for the entire school of medicine.
Herbert J. Evans Award:
Dr. Herbert John Evans Jr. was a protein chemist and enzymologist who used proteins from snake venoms to investigate biological activity in the coagulation cascade. Dr. Evans’ protein structure/function studies led to the identification and prediction of biologically useful peptides. Each year, the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology presents an award in Dr. Evan’s honor to the most outstanding undergraduate student in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. It is hoped that the talented and conscientious student who receives the award will aspire to and excel at the same qualities of rigorous scholarship, honesty, and diligence, which Dr. Evans valued.
This year’s recipient is: JiaDe (Jeff) Yu (rising junior Biology/ Chemistry double major; interests in cancer research). Jeff also received a travel award from ASBMB undergraduate chapter to attend the annual meeting in San Francisco.
Other Awards:
- Rochelle Coelho: Outstanding Poster Presentation, 2006 Graduate Student Association Annual Poster Presentation; VCU Graduate School Travel Award to attend American Society for Neurochemistry Meeting, 2006
- Shanaka Dayansinghe: Phi Kappa Phi Scholarship Nominee Award
- Chas Easley: VCU Graduate School Travel Grant to attend American Society for Cell Biology Meeting, 2005
- Rebecca Frum: Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society
- Rachael Griffiths and Sunita Gopalan: Outstanding Poster Presentation, 2005 Integrated Cell and Molecular Signaling (ICAMS) Research Retreat
- Kwasi KariKari: Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society
- Poulami Mitra: VCU Graduate School Travel Grant to attend 97th American Association of Cancer Research Conference, 2006
- Steven Paugh: Honoree, 2006 St. Jude National Graduate Student Symposium
- Miguel Rufail: VCU Graduate School Travel Grant to attend 2006 Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Meeting
- Mario Saavedra: VCU Graduate School Research Grant
- Emilse Sanchez: Young Investigator Enhancement Award, American Society of Neurochemistry
- Preeti Subramanian: Biochemical Journal Award, 39th Southeastern Regional Lipid Conference
Predoctoral Training Fellowships:
Our department has several students who received predoctoral training fellowships
- Krystina Berg, American Heart Association predoctoral fellowship
- Steven Paugh, American Heart Association predoctoral fellowship
- Ricky Saini, National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, NIH predoctoral fellowship
- Morgan Salmon, American Heart Association predoctoral fellowship
- Heidi Sankala, Department of Defense predoctoral fellowship
- Mariano Scian, National Cancer Institute, NIH predoctoral fellowship
- Preeti Subramanian, American Heart Association predoctoral fellowship
- Palmer Wilkins, National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, NIH predoctoral fellowship
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1101 E Marshall St | PO Box 980614 | Richmond, VA 23298 | ph 804.828.9762 | fax 804.828.1473
Site Update July 20, 2008, Responsible Unit - Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, biochemgrad@mail.vcu.edu
Virginia Commonwealth University,
VCU School of Medicine
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