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Graduate Student Awards

2008-09

Congratulations to the following 2008-09 UAMS Graduate School Achievement Award Winners: Stamatela (Matina) Balou, Sherin Boctor, Joy Good, Brooke Montgomery, Kristy Nicks, and David Terrano.

Stametela (Matina) Balou (Communication Sciences and Disorders)
·For Being Awarded the University of Central Arkansas McNiece Fellowship

Michael Bauer (Bioinformatics)
· Received a travel award at the 2008 National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence

Puneet Bharill (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
· Received a 2008 Walter R. Nicolai Runner Up Award for meritous research completed by a pre-doctoral candidate in the area of biomedical gerontology at the 37th Annual Meeting of the American Aging Association

Lauren Blair (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
· Received a travel award at the 2008 National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence

Sherin Boctor (Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences)
· Received the 2009 Richard Butcher New Investigator of the Year award from the Neurobehavioral Teratology Society

Stephanie Byrum (Bioinformatics)

· Received a travel award at the 2008 National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence

Shweta Chavan (Bioinformatics)
· Received a NSF Travel Fellowship for the Rock '08 Bioinformatics Conference organized by the International Society of Computational Biology

Chaoxuan Dong (Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences)
· Received an Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute Student and Clinical Staff Research Intramural Grant

Joy Good (Communication Sciences and Disorders)
·For Being Awarded the University of Central Arkansas McNiece Fellowship

Melodee Harris (Nursing Science)
·Received a 2008 National Gerontological Nursing Association Mary Wolanin Graduate Scholarship Award and a 2008 Sigma Theta Tau Research Award

Drew Jones (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
· Invited as a guest speaker to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Biny Joseph (Pharmacology)
· Received a Junior Scientist Graduate Student competition award in Cardiovascular Pharmacology at the 2008 Experimental Biology meeting

Brooke Montgomery (Health Promotion and Prevention Research)
· Received a Travel Award to Attend the Workshop on Statistical Methods in Drug Abuse and Health-Related Research
· Received a Ruth L. Kirchstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health

Shankar Munusamy (Pharmacology)
· Received a travel award from the Gordon Conference committee to attend the 2008 Oxygen Radicals Meeting, best poster award at the 2008 annual meeting of the South Central Chapter of the Society for Toxicology, and New Investigator travel award to attend the 2008 Jackson Cardiovascular-Renal Meeting

Kristy Nicks (Physiology and Biophysics)
· Received a Women in Endocrinology Young Investigator Award at the Annual Endocrine Conference
· Selected to attend NIH Graduate Student Research Festival

Lindsay Pack (Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences)
· Received a travel Award to attend Association of Public Health Laboratories national meeting in Anchorage, Alaska in May 2009

Omar Rahal (Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences)
· Received an Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute Student and Clinical Staff Research Intramural Grant

Kathryn Seely (Interdisciplinary Toxicology)
· Received a travel award from the Society for Neuroscience to attend the national meeting

Christian Simmons (Physiology and Biophysics)
· Received an Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute Student and Clinical Staff Research Intramural Grant

David Terrano (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
· For Receiving a Predoctoral Fellowship from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program

Zhen Wang (Pharmacology)
· Received first place for his oral presentation in the student platform presentation category at the 2008 South Central Chapter of the Society of Toxicology Meeting

UAMS Graduate Students Research Funds Grant
Anca Bene
Tommy Bird
Stefania Cane
Cody Cook
Sarah Cullen
Dinesh Hirenallur-Shanthappa
Elina Pathak
Glauber Pereira
Daniel Prantner

Omar Rahal
Jennifer Watts

UAMS Graduate School Travel Awards

Baby Aarattuthodiyil
Karthik Arumugam

Puneet Bharill                         
Lauren Blair
Stephanie Byrum
Stefania Cane                             
Minho Chae                             
Cody Cook  
Sarah Cullen 
Chaoxuan Dong                           
Carol Enderlin
Laura Evans   
Samual Freyaldenhoven  
Rebecca Gilbride                    
Melodee Harris  
Dinesh Hirenallur-Shathappa                      
Rawad Hodeify                     
Shashank Jain   
Drew Jones
Sujay Kharade 
Judy LaBonte    
Juan Liu            
Rakesh Luthra                         
Anna Mazur                             
Shankar Munusamy
Kristy Nicks
Elina Pathak
Omar Rahal
Kimberly Reynolds
Kathryn Seely
Richard Smith
Swapnil Sonkusare
Ying Su
Cagdas Tazearslan
David Terrano
Jacy Wagnon
Wei Wang
Yin Wang
Zhen Wang
Katharine Whitney
Meijun Ye
Endrit Ziu
 

2007-08

Congratulations to the following 2007-08 UAMS Graduate School Achievement Award Winners: Lauren Blair, Sarah Cullen, Rebecca Gilbride, Jonathan Hubbard, Biny Joseph, Brooke Montgomery, Kristy Nicks, Vishnu Ramani, and Ying Su.

Jonathan Hubbard (Pharmacology)

  • NIH Ruth Kirschstein NRSA

    Biny Joseph (Interdisciplinary Toxicology)
  • 1st place in the oral competition for graduate students in the Cardiovascular Division of ASPET at the 2008 Experimental Biology meeting
  • American Heart Association Predoctoral fellowship

    Kristy Nicks
    (Physiology and Biophysics)
  • NIH Ruth Kirschstein NRSA

    Venkata Bhogaraju
    (Pharmacology)
  • 2nd place in the Neuropharm Division of ASPET's poster contest at the 2008 Experimental Biology meeting

    Sherin Boctor (Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences)

  • 2008 Neurobehavioral Teratology Society Conference travel award

    Wassim El-Jouni (Physiology and Biophysics)

  • American Society for Cell Biology 2007 annual meeting travel award

    Carol Enderlin (Nursing Science)

  • 2006-08 Hartford Predoctoral Scholarship in Geriatric Nursing

    David Heister (Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences

  • Selected as attendee to the NINDS/AUPN/ANA How to Combine Clinical and Research Careers in Neuroscience symposium 2008

    Shuliang Liu (Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences)
  • Young Investigator's Educational Enhancement travel award to the 2008 American Society for Neurochemistry

    Shankar Munusamy (Pharmacology)

  • Travel award from the Chair fund of the Gordon Conference Committee for "Oxygen Radicals"

    Rebecca Parham (Nursing Science)

  • Geriatric Nurse Practitioner annual conference travel award

    Bruno Pereira (Physiology and Biophysics)

  • Young Investigator's Educational Enhancement travel award to the 2008 American Society for Neurochemistry

    Vishnu Ramani (Physiology and Biophysics)

  • 2007 NIH National Graduate Student Research Festival

    Sarika Saraswati (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)

  • NIH Trainee Travel Award from the American Society of Andrology

    Ying Su (Physiology and Biophysics)

  • Gerber Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship 2008

    David Terrano (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)

  • Central Society for Clinical Research travel award

    Agnieszka Zielinska (Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences)

  • Travel award to the 8th International ISSX (International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics) meeting

    UAMS Graduate Student Research Funds Awardees
    Susan Ball
    Rong Chu
    Carol Enderlin
    Laura Evans
    Lalit Oberoi
    Shelia Savell
    David Terrano

    UAMS Travel Awards
    Puneet Bharrill
    Venkata Bhogaraju
    Tommy Bird
    Lauren Blair
    Sherin Boctor
    Amit Bodhani
    Stefania Cane
    Dana Carthron
    Carol Enderlin
    Brandon Fontenelle
    Matt Forestiere
    Jun Gao
    Melodee Harris
    Dinesh Hirenallur-Shanthappa
    Biny Joseph
    Sujay Kharade
    Kyongmin Kim
    Shuliang Liu
    Rakesh Luthra
    Balasubramanian Manickam
    Kristy Nicks
    Kejal Parikh
    Yinghui Pu
    Martha Rojo
    Sarika Saraswati
    Christian Simmons
    Swapnil Sonkusare
    Ying Su
    Yin Wang
    Toby Ward
    Sarah White
    Katharine Whitney

    2006-2007

    Congratulations to the following 2006-07 UAMS Graduate School Achievement Award Winners: James Cassat, David Heister, Kristy Nicks, Sarika Saraswati, Zabeena Shaik, Athena Starlard-Davenport, and Michael Velarde.

    Sudeepa Bhattacharyya
    (Bioinformatics)

  • UALR Donaghey College of Information Science and Systems Engineering Student Excellence Award

    Bill Buron (Nursing Science)

  • John A. Hartford Foundation Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Scholar Award 2006-2008 


  • Nichole Dowdy-Sanders (
    Interdisciplinary Toxicology)
  • Travel award from American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) to attend the 2007 Experimental Biology conference in Washington, D.C. in May.  This is the second year she has received this award.

    Carol Enderlin
    (Nursing Science)
  • John A. Hartford Foundation Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity Scholar Award 2006-2008
  • Sigma Theta Tau International, Gamma Xi Chapter, Chiron Mentorship Leadership Award 2007-2008

    Gautum Gandhi
    (Physiology and Biophysics)
  • Accepted to attend the NINDS/AUPN/ANA “Combining research and clinical careers in neuroscience” meeting in Washington, D.C. in June
  • Young Scientist Travel Award to the 7th International Conference on Brain Energy Metabolism held on August 15-15, 2006 at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland to give an oral presentation

    Jun Gao
    (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
  • 2006 Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology Travel Award to the Genetics Society of American meeting
  • 2007 ASBMB Graduate and Postdoctoral Travel Award to the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology meeting

    Angela Green
    (Nursing Science)
  • Received honorable mention for poster presentation entitled “Children’s Quality of Life After Cardiac Transplant: Parent and Child Views” at the Southern Nursing Society Annual Meeting held February 22-24, 2007 in Galveston, TX

    David Heister
    (Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences)
  • National Research Service Award Fellowship from the NIH (5/05-5/11)
  • Editorial Focus in Journal of Neurophysiology written about article “Evidence for electrical coupling in the SubCoeruleus (SubC) nucleus” (2007)

    Lindsay Bradshaw (Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences)
  • Third place in the graduate student oral presentations division at the 2007 Arkansas Academy of Sciences meeting

    The IBS students led by Lauren Bailey raised money and bought gifts for a Head Start program class in Little Rock.  There was a similar effort from the GSA led by Lauren Blair (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology).

    Tanecia Mitchell
    (Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences)
  • Selected to attend the American Physiology Society Short Course “Making Scientific Presentations: Critical First Skills” from March 8-11, 2007 in Bethesda, MD.  All of her travel and meeting expenses were paid for by the NIGMS.

    Kristy Nicks
    (Physiology and Biophysics)
  • MARC/FASEB Travel Award 2006, 28th Annual American Society of Bone and Mineral Research Meeting in Philadelphia, PA
  • 2006 Porter Physiology Developmental Fellowship for Minorities (American Physiological Society)

    Zabeena Shaik
    (Pharmacology-Pharmaceutical Sciences Track)
  • ASPET Best Paper Award (First Place) 2006 in Division of Toxicology at Annual Experimental Biology meeting, San Francisco, CA-“Akt activation diminishes nephrotoxicant-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and necrosis in renal cells”
  • ASPET Graduate Student Travel Award to 2006 Experimental Biology meeting in San Francisco, CA
  • American Heart Association Predoctoral fellowship

    Jennifer Shoemaker
    (Pharmacology)
  • Neuroscience Arkansas Chapter Poster Competition 2007 winner

    Rohit Singhal
    (Interdisciplinary Toxicology)
  • Graduate Student Travel Award 2007 to attend Society of Toxicology meeting held March 2007 in North Carolina
  • Colgate Palmolive Award for Student Research Training in Alternative Methods, Society of Toxicology-2007
  • Technology Transfer Award, South Central Chapter of Society of Toxicology meeting held November 2006 in Monroe, LA

    Athena Starlard-Davenport
    (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)
  • American Association for Minorities in Cancer Research Travel Award April 2007 (LA, CA)
  • Experimental Biology 2006 Minorities and Health Disparities symposium.  Invited speaker on research entitled “Characterization of UDP-Glucuronosyltransferases in normal and malignant human breast tissue”

    Toby Ward
    (Microbiology and Immunology)
  • First place in the graduate student oral presentations division at the 2007 Arkansas Academy of Sciences meeting

    Cindy Zhang Gandhi
    (Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences)
  • Accepted to attend the NINDS/AUPN/ANA “Combining research and clinical careers in neuroscience” meeting in Washington, D.C. in June
  • Young Investigator Travel Award to the 2006 American Society for Neurochemistry