Three Pharmacology Graduate Students Receive Outstanding National Awards

STONY BROOK , NY – The Department of Pharmacology was proud to have three of its student receive distinguished awards. To have these announcements made in one week during December was a welcomed suprise to many. The three students were: Dumaine Williams, Laura Cheney, and Christine Ardito.

Doctoral candidate Dumaine Williams was a recipient of the prestigious 2008 K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award. Presented by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U), the Cross Award recognizes graduate students who show exemplary promise as future leaders of higher education; who demonstrate a commitment to developing academic and civic responsibility in themselves and others; and whose work reflects a strong emphasis on teaching and learning. Williams received the honor at the AAC&U Annual Meeting held January 23-26 in Washington, DC.

William is one of ten recipients to receive the award in the United States and is the second Stony Brook graduate student to receive it this year. He served as the Pharmacology Graduate Senator for Stony Brook's Graduate Student Organization, as a Student Representative and Steering Committee member, a mentor and Biochemistry tutor for the AGEP program and Pharmacology graduate students.

Third year student Laura Cheney was awarded a two-year pre-doctoral Fellowship from The PhRMA Foundation Program in Pharmacology/ Toxicology beginning in January. The PhRMA Foundation program aims at supporting promising students during their thesis research by providing some assistance in this training sequence. The fellowship includes a $20,000 stipend to cover costs incidental to the training. Cheney's thesis research, in the Morrison-Steigbigel Laboratories, is entitled “The Interactions of HIV and Epstein-Barr Virus: Mechanisms of Enhanced Viral Replication and Abnormal Immune Activation.”

Pharmacology Second Year Graduate Student, Christine Ardito, is a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research Recipient. The Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research (GIAR) aims to promote scientific excellence and achievement by providing undergraduate and graduate students with valuable hands-on educational experiences. The program awards grants of up to $1,000 to students from all areas of the sciences and engineering. Ardito was awarded the grant for her research project, “Exploring the Role of A disintegrin and Metalloprotease-10 (ADAM-10) and the Notch Pathway in Pancreatic Development and Tumorgenesis,” in Howard Crawford's Lab.