Student Awards

Dr. Peter Shrager and Dr. Steven Raiker at the 2011 Neuroscience Retreat

Stephen Raiker, Ph.D., a former student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program, has received the Robert Doty Award of Excellence in recognition of outstanding dissertation research in neuroscience. Through his thesis research, Dr. Raiker joined the laboratory of Dr. Roman Giger and began collaborating with Dr. Peter Shrager, who ultimately became his co-advisor.

Dr. Raiker's research on the physiological role of Nogo receptors in axon plasticity and regeneration culminated in two publications in The Journal of Neuroscience, one as co-first author and one as first author. He was a contributing author on two additional papers plus a review article, and he presented his research at several international meetings. After defending his thesis, Dr. Raiker was subsequently selected as the 2011 recipient of the Vincent du Vigneaud Commencement Award for Meritorious Research. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Thomas Schwarz in the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Children's Hospital Boston.

Dr. Robert Doty was a leading brain researcher who helped create what is now the world's largest organization of neuroscientists, the Society for Neuroscience. Dr. Doty had served the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry since 1961, a central figure to a team of people that has made the University an internationally recognized powerhouse in neuroscience.

Neuroscience graduate program student, Phillip Rappold has received an F30 NIH Individual Predoctoral Fellowship for 3 years, entitled Role of mitochondrial dynamics in Parkinson's disease processes and therapeutics.

First year student in the Neuroscience graduate program, Jennifer Stripay has been selected by the faculty to be this year's recipient of the Irving L. Spar Fellowship Award. Jennifer's selection was based on her outstanding credentials and the faculty opinion that she has unusual potential for future meritorious contributions in her field. The Irving L. Spar Fellowship Award honors the memory of Dr. Spar, a former Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the School of Medicine and Dentistry. It is awarded annually to a deserving graduate student entering the School through the Graduate Education in the Biomedical Sciences Program.

MSTP, NSC graduate student, Adrianne Chesser, has received an F30 Fellowship from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, for her project entitled: Mitochondrial Dynamics Underlie Gene-Environment Interactions in Parkinson's. The mission of the NIEHS is to reduce the burden of human illness and disability by understanding how the environment influences the development and progression of human disease.

Recently the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) awarded several of our Neuroscience graduate students training grants. This year, a first year NGP student, Jennifer Stripay, as well as second year students, Kelli Fagan, Julianne Feola, John O'Donnell, Fatima Rivera-Escalera, Grayson Sipe received funding. NINDS is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with it's continuing mission to reduce the burden of neurological disease - a burden borne by every age group, by every segment of society, by people all over the world.

Neuroscience graduate student, Steven Raiker has won this year's Vincent du Vigneaud Award for meritorious research by a Ph.D. student in the Medical School. Raiker, who recently defended his thesis entitled, The Nogo-66 Receptor, NgR1, Regulates Structural and Functional Plasticity at Schaffer Collateral-CA1 Synapses, was advised by Drs. Roman Geiger and Peter Shrager.

MSTP and Neuroscience student, Susan Lee has received a Trainee Travel Award to present her research at the Organization for Human Brain Mapping's 17^th Annual Meeting in Quebec City, Canada on June 26-30, 2011. Susan is currently working in Dr. Loisa Bennetto's lab on Audiovisual Integration During Language Comprehension: The Neural Basis of Social Communication in Autism and Typical Development.

Crystal McClain, a graduate student in Neuroscience, was awarded an NIH Individual Predoctoral Fellowship Award. Crystal currently works in the Goldman Lab and studies the signaling pathways of both fetal and adult glial progenitor cells, and the molecular bases for the fate decisions that determine whether progenitors become oligodendrocytes or astrocytes, a key determinant of both remyelination and gliosis after injury.