Graduate Student Awards

William Arnold Award

This award was originated  by the graduate students in the former Department of Microbiology to recognize and commend one or more of their fellow students.  The fund which was established in memory of William Arnold, a former student.

Arnold Award Recipients

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting.

Lew Borgendale Award

The Borgendale Award was established in remembrance of Lew Borgendale, Jr., a graduate student in the Department of Biochemistry until his untimely death in the fall of 1979.  One of Lew’s strongest qualities was his never-ending desire to expand our wealth of knowledge.  Therefore, it was felt that an appropriate way to remember Lew would be through an award recognizing that quality in other graduate students.  This award is presented annually to the student who, in the opinion of fellow graduate students, presents the most outstanding seminar during the fall symposium.

A Recent Recipient

Kawaljit Kaur (graduate student, De Guzman lab) is the recipient of the Borgendale Award for her talk at the 2015 Graduate Student Symposium entitled "Novel PIASy SIM identified by NMR is critical for PIASy-dependent SUMO conjugation."

Borgendale Award Recipients

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting.

William King Candlin Award

Bill Candlin was an undergraduate slated to work in the laboratory of Professor Jerome Yochim as an National Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Participation Awardee, but was involved in a tragic car accident before he could begin. His family established the award in his name for the then "Department of Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology.”  The award honors outstanding work in Cell Biology or Biochemistry.

Recent Recipients

Amber Smith (graduate student, Xu lab) was the recipient of the Candlin Travel Award to attend the 2014 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, April 5-9, 2014, San Diego, California. She presented a poster entitled, “Tumor suppressor miR-137 inhibits colorectal cancer progression by negatively regulating cancer stem cell marker, Musashi-1.”​

Makoto Yoshida (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) was the recipient of the Candlin Travel Award.  Makoto presented a poster entitled "SUMOylation of DNA Topoisomerase IIα C-terminus domain regulates Haspin kinase activity important in Aurora B kinase centromeric localization" at the Seventh International Conference of SUMO, Ubiquitin, and UBL Proteins: Implications for Human Diseases, May 10-13, 2014, Shanghai, China.

Samantha Hartin (graduate student, Ackley lab) is the recipient of a 2014 Candlin Travel Award. She will attend the Axon Guidance, Synapse Formation and Regeneration Conference September 16th-20th, 2014, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. She will present a poster entitled "C. elegans Wnt-dependent Anterior-Posterior axon growth of the D-type motor neurons is modulated by sdn-1."
 

Nadeem Asad (graduate student, Timmons lab) was the recipient of a Candlin Summer Research Fellowship for 2014.

Candlin Award Recipients

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting.

Dan Carr Award

The Carr Research Award is given to an MB graduate student for excellence in research related to biochemistry in the broadest sense.  Dan Carr was a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at KUMC.  He had an endowment fund there which he transferred to the Lawrence campus in 1999, for this purpose.​

A Recent Recipient

Chad Highfill (graduate student, Macdonald lab) was the recipient of the Carr Travel Award to attend the 55th Annual Drosophila Research Conference in San Diego, CA on March 28.  His abstract was selected for an invited platform talk entitled “Quantitative genetics of caffeine resistance in Drosophila melanogaster.”​

Carr Award Recipients

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting.

Cora M. Downs Award

Cora M. Downs received her A.B., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Kansas.  Her first teaching appointment at KU was in 1917 as an instructor in bacteriology during her master’s study.  Except for top-secret service during World War II with the U.S. Army Biological Laboratories, Fort Dietrich, Maryland, she remained a member of the KU faculty until her retirement from teaching in 1963.

Within five years of receiving her Ph.D. in 1924, she gained national recognition for her work on tularemia, a viral disease known as “rabbit fever.”  Her subsequent research provided important insights into the understanding of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, rickettsia, and “Q” fever.  Her research on rickettsia was described in the 1958 Encyclopedia Britannica under the section entitled “significant science progress.”  For this work, she received a nearly $20,000 grant in 1961 from the U.S. Public Health Service; by that time she had already been awarded over $300,000 in research grants.  Perhaps her best known achievement was the development in 1959 of a fluorescent antibody staining technique, used to trace and identify viruses in a living organism and in test tube cultures.  Her article detailing this technique was cited in 1976 as the eighth most frequently cited article in the field of pathology.

Dr. Downs worked at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in 1939-40, and was a Special Fellow of the National Institutes of Health at Oxford University in 1959.  Among her most significant recognitions have been her appointment as Summerfield Distinguished Professor of Microbiology at KU, the International Women’s Year Award for Health Protection of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and her designation as “Woman of the Year” by the Federal Regional Council, District VII, in 1975.  She was featured in the November 1974 issue of the “Newsletter” of the American Society of Microbiology, and again in the January 1975 issue, together with five other distinguished women members of the Society.  She is one of only four women to have been designated honorary members of the Society.  In 1979, the Missouri Valley Branch of the Society voted unanimously to rename its annual graduate student award for her.  Her portrait hangs in the International Gallery of Medical Honor of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow.  In 1964 she received KU’s highest honor, the Citation for Distinguished Service.

This biography was copied from the University of Kansas Program for the November 3, 1981 Dedication of Strong and Dyche Auditoria in Honor of Ray Q. Brewster and Cora M. Downs

Dr. Down's New York Times obituary.

In 1974, Dr. Cora M. Downs, Professor Emerita of Microbiology, instituted and supported an award to recognize outstanding students in the Department of Microbiology.  In fond memory of Dr. Downs, who was a distinguished scientist as well as an untiring supporter of Microbiology at KU, we continue this award.  The Downs Award is presented in recognition of an outstanding graduate or undergraduate student.  

Downs Award Recipients

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting.

Arthur Atsunobu Hirata Award

Dr. Hirata was born in Los Angeles, California.  He received his baccalaureate and master's degrees in zoology at Duke University.  Dr. Hirata first became interested in immunology during his graduate studies in zoology at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in 1958.  His interest matured at the California Institute of Technology where, under the tutelage of Professor Dan H. Campbell, an eminent immunochemist, he carried out postdoctoral research as a National Science Foundation Research Fellow.  In 1960 he moved to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland as a Staff Research Immunologist, and in 1965 he became a Research Fellow in Immunology at Abbott Laboratories in North Chicago, Illinois.  He joined the faculty of the University of Kansas as a Professor of Microbiology in 1973, but returned to Abbott Laboratories in 1975 to become a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Laboratories of Immunology, a position he held until his death.

Dr. Hirata's life-long scientific interest was immunochemistry, especially as it applied to medical diagnostic technologies.  In this area alone he published many scholarly papers and received more than twenty patents.  He was an active member of more than a dozen professional societies.  His devotion to academic science was evident from his participation in the graduate teaching programs at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois Medical School.  Moreover, throughout his tenure at Abbott Laboratories he maintained a particularly close and active association with the faculty and students in the Department of Microbiology as an Adjunct Professor of Microbiology at the University of Kansas.  This scholarship is presented to a graduate student who has demonstrated excellence in research, academic performance, and service to the Department.​

A Recent Recipient

Vinidhra Sridharan (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) is the recipient of the Hirata Travel Award to attend 2014 Cold Spring harbor Meeting for Nuclear Organization and Function, August 19 - 23 in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. Vinidhra will present a poster entitled "SUMOylation regulates Polo-like kinase 1-interacting checkpoint helicase  (PICH) during mitosis."

Hirata Award Recipients

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting..

Phillip and Marjorie Newmark Award

This award was initially set up to remember Philip Newmark who was a faculty member in the former biochemistry department.  He died of a heart attack in 1962.  Phil Newmark is remembered for his activism during and after the McCarthy era, for his commitment to building a strong biochemistry program at Kansas, and for his excellence as a biochemist.  Sympathy notes received after his passing read like a “who’s who” of biochemistry.  In 1991, Marge Newmark’s name was added to the award.  After Phil’s death, Marge raised three children alone, took on the demands of a faculty position, and had a large part in building the department.  She developed a number of the major biochemistry courses, acted as director of graduate studies for 20 years, and attained numerous federal grants to fund educational opportunities within the department. 

A Recent Recipient

Amber Smith (is the recipient of the 2015 Newmark Award for excellence in biochemistry research for her project which she described in a presentation entitled, “Therapeutic strategies targeting the RNA binding protein Musashi-1 in colorectal cancer.” Other finalists for the prize were Nabil Alhakamy (Berkland lab), Smita Paranjape (Gamblin lab), and Vinidhra Sridharan (Y. Azuma lab). Amber (right) is pictured receiving her prize from Professor Karen Allen of Boston University, who presented the Philip and Marjorie Newmark Lecture in Biochemistry.;

Newmark Award Recipients

2016          Kawaljit Kaur

2015          Amber Smith

2014          Yan Xia

2013          Sunhwan Jo

2012          Jose Olucha

2011          John Hickey

2010          Adam Norris

2008          Yu Wang & Lingling Zhang

2007          Ryan Schultz

2006          Feng He

2005          Roma Kenjale & Hardeep Samra

2004          Amanda Harrington & Mengmeng Wang

2003          Jake Kohlmeier

2002          Scott Falke

2001          Ward Tucker

2000          Yafei Huang

1999          Mohan Gupta

1998          Nathalie McComb & Brad Schnackenberg

1997          Deborah Ferrington

1996          Xiaomin Fan

1995          Danielle Hamill & Qin Song

1994          Beverly Benson

1993          Ulrike Benbow

1992          Denise A. Mills

1991          Bruce Hart

1990          Michael A. Harding & William D. Singer

1989          Hossain Jahansouz

1988          Lingjun Zhao

1987          Larry Dobbs & M. Mejillano

1986          Elizabeth Runquist

1985          Fred Smardo, Jr. & Ylanda Fuchs

1984          Bill D. Roberts

1983          Patricia Necessary & Randal Scott

1982          Susan C. Brown

1981          Douglas C. Dean

1980          Douglas Brenneman

1979          Charles Pugh

1978          John Alderete

1977          Gary Sams

1976          Mary Hedblom

1975          Donald L. Kreutzer

1974          Dhiren R. Thakker

1973          Edward T. Nelson

1972          May L. Chan

1971          Hugo F. Lathrop

1970          John R. Schiltz

1969          Harry W. Chen

1968          William H. Welch, Jr.

1967          Melvin Chaplin & T. Devanathan

1966          James Curry

1965          Thomas McGivern

1964          Fred Jones

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting..

Joe and Ethel Paretsky Award

This award was established to honor Joe and Ethel Paretsky, the parents of David Paretsky.  Professor Paretsky was the chairman of the University of Kansas department of Microbiology (1957 to 1976) and a University Distinguished Professor, who retired in 1989.  Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1918 to immigrant parents, he was raised in an environment that was deeply committed to his education. In 1939, he graduated from City College of New York with a BS in bacteriology. After serving in the Pacific Theater from 1944-1946, he completed his doctoral degree at Iowa State College.

Professor Paretsky was most noted for his expertise in what were, at that time, considered "tropical diseases," such as tularemia, Q fever and rickettsioloses.  Working with colleague Professor Cora M. Downs, Paretsky became one of the first to reproduce the rickettsia organism, which allowed scientists to develop the vaccine against Q fever, a common European disease that had led to the deaths of numerous Allied and German soldiers during WWII. He was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service and was consulted frequently by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Throughout his career, Paretsky also conducted much research on cancer, with a focus on liver cancer. In the classroom at KU, Paretsky was known as a “gifted and engaging lecturer” who had a passion for teaching and was eager to pass on his knowledge to students. 

The Paretsky Award honors excellence in microbial pathogenesis research.

A Recent Recipient

Sriram Varaham (graduate student, Hancock lab) is the recipient of the Paretsky Travel Award to attend the 58th Wind River Conference on Prokaryotic Biology in Estes Park, Colorado.  He presented a talk entitled "Deletion of an ABC transporter renders Enterococcus faecalis susceptible to lysozyme."

Paretsky ​Award Recipients

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting.

Cassandra Ritter Award

In the early twenties, Cassandra Ritter received her B.A. and M.A. in the Department of Bacteriology at the University of Kansas.  Her professional career was centered on the public health bacteriology laboratory in Lawrence, Kansas, where she was in charge of the Water Laboratory.  She continued to have a close association with the Department and the University.  After her death, a contribution from the Kansas Section of the American Waterworks Association, and individual contributions from her many friends, established this award in her memory.  The award has been used to recognize undergraduate and graduate students for outstanding achievement.​

Recent Recipients

Smita Paranjape (graduate student, Gamblin Lab) is the recipient of a Ritter Travel Award to support her travel to the 2014 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. where she will make a presentation “Azaphilones are novel tau aggregation inhibitors” in the Brain Wellness: Metabolism and Energetic Nanosymposium, Monday November 17th.​

Vaishnavi Nagarajan (graduate student, Timmons lab) is the recipient of the Ritter Travel Award.  She gave a poster presentation entitled "Transcriptional Gene Silencing on an Endogenous Locus in wild-type Caenorhabditis elegans" at the 2014 Genetics Association of America Aging, Metabolism, Stress, Pathogenesis and Small RNAs Meeting in Madison, WI on July 12.

Ritter Award Recipients

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting.

Stanley Twomey Award

Stanley L. Twomey received his Ph.D. in Physiology and Cell Biology here at KU in 1971.  “Stan the Man,” as many of his friends called him, was a man of action.  He lived his life according to one of his favorite sayings, “You only get invited to this party once.”  He never hesitated to take on any task or feat.  Stan was successful in his research and professional achievements, and made friends quickly.  Although competitive in nature, he was also a humanist who derived great pleasure in the success of others.  All who knew him were acutely aware of his physical presence; however, some might not know that Stan played the guitar and harmonica, wrote poetry, carved scrimshaw and played major roles in a local theatre group, to which he brought his unique character. 

Stan passed away on July 10, 1979, at the age of 35, after courageously fighting off malignant melanoma for 4 years.  While in the hospital, Stan sustained his usual psychological strength.  Stan gave his last presentation, “Enzyme-labeled immunosorbent assay for serum ferritin” on June 26, 1979, at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry in Montreal.  This award was established by friends and colleagues of Stan “to perpetuate his ‘life’.”

Recent Recipients

Andy Wolfe (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was the recipient of a Twomey Travel Award to attend and present a poster at the Experimental Biology meeting March 28- April 1 in Boston. The EB meeting serves as the annual meeting for six sponsoring professional research societies. Andy belongs to the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) which provided Andy additional financial support with a Graduate/Postdoctoral Travel Award. Andy’s poster was entitled, “TGF-β and Wnt Crosstalk Require SMAD 3 for Msi1 Induction in Colon”. Andy (right) is shown with Matt Miller (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) and Dr. Neufeld.

Twomey Award Recipients

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting.

MB GSO Travel Award

This award was made possible through the efforts of the Molecular Biosciences Graduate Student Organization (MB GSO) in the Ever Onward Fundraising campaign. Friends, family, faculty, and graduate students worked together in the spring of 2015 to raise money to provide travel awards and professional development for MB graduate students. For the fall of 2015, the officers of the MB GSO are excited to present a $500 travel award to a MB graduate student.

The MB GSO Travel Award will be given to a graduate student in the MB department who is also a member of the MB graduate student organization. Preference will be given to individuals presenting talks or posters at national or international meetings.

Finally, the recipient of the MB GSO Travel Award will be required to submit a picture of themselves at the meeting, either presenting a talk or in front of their poster, to the MB GSO officers. This photo will be used on the MB GSO Facebook page and website. If you are not yet a member of the MB GSO, please go to the following website Rock Chalk Central

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting..

Travel Awards. Awards will be made to assist with travel expenses for an individual student. Preference will be given to individuals presenting talks or posters at national or international meetings in their research area. Support for training at national laboratories also will be considered. All applications must be submitted electronically to the awards committee via John Connolly (jconnolly@ku.edu).

Each travel application must include:

1. Letter from the applicant describing their suitability for a travel award, including description of any previous departmental travel support. (see below).
2. Copy of applicant's CV and DPR (Degree Progress Report).
3. Budget: estimated expenses, no more than $1000
4. Dates, location and description of conference/meeting.
5. Copy of an abstract that will be published and presented at the meeting.
6. Letter from the faculty advisor attesting to the student’s need and research progress. If more than one request is made from a single laboratory in a year, the letter must rank each students priority and indicate other possible travel support for students.

Deadlines: October 18, 2016; January 17, 2017; April 4, 2017​

All awards are given on a reimbursement basis so you will need to keep all of your itemized receipts upon returning from a meeting..