Student Awards

Anna Bird has received the Randy N. Rosier Award for public speaking ($1000 in travel funds received at the URMC CMSR Symposium 2015) and the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) Trainee Abstract Award ($750 in travel funds for AAI New Orleans Conference, 2015).

The 2015 Vincent duVignaeud Award for excellence in basic research will be awarded at this year's commencement to Dr. Steven Baker who completed his Ph.D. in Luis Martinez-Sobrido's lab.

The 2015 Wallace O. Fenn Award for excellence in basic research will be awarded at this year's commencement to Dr. Julie Sahler who completed her Ph.D. in Richard Phipps' lab.

Award Recipients for the Melville A. Hare Award for Excellence in Research have been awarded to Dr. Denise Skrombolas who completed her Ph.D. in the lab of John Frelinger and Dr. Benson Cheng who completed his Ph.D. in Luis Martinez-Sobrido's lab.

The Melville A. Hare Award for Excellence in Teaching has been awarded to Jennifer Colquhoun. Jennifer is in Paul Dunman's laboratory.

A Departmental Peer Mentoring Award was established this year. The recipient of the 2015 award is Lisbeth Boule. Lisbeth is in Paige Lawrence's laboratory.

Anna Bird, an IMV graduate student in the Anolik lab has been awarded pilot project grant through the Pilot Studies Program of the CTSI. Anna’s application entitled, “Neutrophils as a driver of inflammation in lupus bone marrow” was felt to be highly meritorious and received a priority score enabling her proposal to be funded.

Alejandro Avilés Reyes, a graduate student in the Lemos Lab and lab of Jacqueline Abranches, Ph.D., has been selected for the 2015 Arnold Bleiweis Travel Award, to present his work entitled "Modification of Streptococcus mutans Cnm by a novel glycosylation pathway". Mr. Avilés Reyes will give his presentation during the upcoming General Session of the International Association for Dental Research Conference, to be held March 10-14, 2015 in Boston, MA, as part of the first Robert Marquis Mini-Symposium for Young Investigators in Microbiology and Immunology.

Alejandro is currently working on the characterization of Cnm, a collagen-binding protein produced by invasive Streptococcus mutans. The Lemos-Abranches lab focuses on characterization of the stress-response mechanisms of Gram-positive bacteria and their contribution to virulence and disease.