Office of Graduate Education Hosts Graduate Student Research Forum

The Office of Graduate Education hosted its 35th annual Graduate Student Research Forum on Friday, March 6, 2015. The forum brings together graduate students, postdoctoral students and faculty for a poster session, speaker and awards ceremony. This year’s event drew 55 student poster presenters, as well as 30 faculty and postdoctoral judges, to the CARE/Crawley Atrium for lively scientific discussions.

The forum was also a time to honor Terry Kirley, PhD, professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Cell Biophysics and recipient of the Richard Akeson Award for Excellence in Graduate Education. Keynote speaker Michael Meaney, PhD, professor at McGill University in Montreal, presented the talk "Parental Regulation of the Structure and Function of the genome in the Offspring: Implications for Familial Transmission and Treatment Programs.”

Each graduate student poster was scored by two different non-affiliated judges, and the scores were combined to determine the top presenters.  First-place award went to Rahul D’Mello, in the Medical Scientist Training Program Division of Immunology, Allergy and Rheumatology, while second-place prizes were awarded to Marie Matrka in the graduate program of Cancer and Cell Biology and Carolyn Rydyznski in the Division of Immunology, Allergy and Rheumatology. Third- place honors were awarded to Alexander Ross in the Department of Pharmacology and Cell Biophysics and Jennifer Schwanekamp in the Department of Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry and Microbiology.

Honorable mentions include: Mark Althoff and Nicholas Brown, both in the graduate program in Cancer Biology; Catherine Chaton, Swati Tiwari and Cameron McDaniel, all in the Department of Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry and Microbiology; George Gardner in the Department of Pharmacology and Cell Biophysics; and Jared Klarquist in the Division of Immunology, Allergy and Rheumatology.