Plas Receives Akeson Award for Graduate Teaching

Associate professor of cancer and cell biology David Plas, PhD, has been named this year’s recipient of the Richard Akeson Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching by the Health Sciences Graduate Association.

The graduate teaching award was created in 1990 in an effort to recognize the contributions of the outstanding faculty in the College of Medicine’s graduate programs. Graduate students in the medical school nominate faculty who they view as excelling in the area of teaching in the classroom and/or in the lab. 

The award was named for Richard Akeson, PhD, former director of the Molecular and Developmental Biology graduate program and chair of the Committee on Graduate Education, after his death. 

Plas received the award at the 34th annual Graduate Student Research Forum, which took place Tuesday, Oct. 15.  Keynote speaker was James Bradner, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. 

The forum included 80 student poster presentations and ended with the following awards: 

• First Place: Melinda Engevik, Worrell lab, Systems Biology.
• Second Place: Kyle McKracken , J. Wells lab, Molecular Developmental Biology.
• Third Place: Michael Workman, J. Wells lab, Molecular Developmental Biology.

Honorable Mentions:

• Haley Titus-Mitchell, Ratner lab, Neuroscience.
• Kyle Bednar, Ridgeway lab, Immunobiology.
• Nasif Tabaja, Kovall lab, Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry and Microbiology.
• Swati Tiwari, Malik lab, Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry and Microbiology.
• Diana Taft, Morrow lab, Epidemiology and Biostatistics.