2008 Perkins Memorial Fund Committee Report
Applications for the Award are accepted in the spring
and fall, with application deadlines of April 15 and December 15. For the
April 2007 deadline, the Committee received three applications, and two were
funded. For the December 2007 deadline, the Committee received three
applications and funded one.
This was the first year that applications were
submitted and reviewed using the online application process. This
streamlined process was a complete success.
One of the questions asked on the application is how
the candidate learned of the award. Most indicated that they saw the award
online or learned about it from their host scientist; one applicant
indicated that he learned of it from colleagues.
The Committee received six applications during 2007,
three of which were funded.
Porter Physiology Development Committee
The goal of the Porter Physiology Development Program
is to encourage diversity among students pursuing full-time studies toward
the PhD (or DSc) in the physiological sciences and to encourage their
participation in the American Physiological Society. The program provides
one to two year full-time graduate fellowships. The program is open to
underrepresented ethnic minority applicants who are citizens or permanent
residents of the United States or its territories. Since 1967 the program
has provided support to 109 trainees.
2007-2008 Porter Physiology Fellowship Program
In 2007-2008, the program provided funding for five
fellows: Antino R. Allen, Indiana Univ.; Dolores F. Doane, Univ. of
Illinois; Zelieann Rivera, Univ. of Arizona; Brandi A. Thompson, Univ. of
Michigan; and Lizette Warner, Mayo Clinic.
2008-2009 Porter Fellowships: New and Renewal
Applications
The number of new applications received for Porter
Fellowships continues to increase. A total of 18 new and three renewal
applications were submitted. The stipend paid to the Porter Fellows for
2008-2009 will be $20,772, consistent with the NIH scale. This allowed the
Porter Fund to present a total of eight awards for the 2008-2009 Program.
Program Enhancements
In 2007, the APS Council approved several enhancements
to improve the Porter Physiology Fellowships. The goal of these enhancements
is to increase the overall impact of the fellowship on the student’s career
and their long-term interactions with the APS. These enhancements are being
implemented for the first time with 2008-2009 Porter Fellows. Each Fellow
will complete an entry and exit survey to provide better formative feedback
and information on short term program impacts; staff will send an individual
press release for each fellow to their hometown paper and institutional
press office to provide additional visibility of the program and the
fellows; each Fellow will be expected to do the following professional
development activities in order to successfully complete their fellowship:
submit an abstract to EB, attend EB, attend an APS professional skills
training (PST) live workshop or online course or complete a comparable
course, and participate in at least one APS outreach opportunity during
their two-year fellowship period.
Minority Travel Fellows Program
This program is designed to encourage highly qualified
underrepresented minority students to pursue professional careers in
physiological/biomedical sciences. Since its inception in 1987, the
APS-NIDDK Minority Travel Fellowship Program has awarded 665 travel
fellowships to 470 undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students and to
faculty members at minority institutions. In addition to travel support, the
program provides meeting mentors, an EB orientation session, the Porter
Reception, a networking breakfast, and a luncheon honoring the travel
fellows.
2007-2008 Travel Awards
Five travel fellows received funding to attend the
summer APS conference in 2007. In January 2008, the Committee selected 53
travel fellows to attend EB 2008 in San Diego, CA. Travel fellows received
funding to attend the APS Intersociety Meeting, “The Integrative Biology of
Exercise V.”
2008 Porter Reception
As in the past, the Committee has held a reception for
Travel Fellows, their meeting mentors, and past and current Porter and
Travel Fellows. This was initiated with the goal of building stronger
connections between minority students and the larger community of APS
scientists, especially other minority scientists. The Porter reception again
this year was extremely successful. A number of Council members, including
the APS President, Hannah Carey, past Presidents Dale Benos and Doug Eaton,
and incoming President, Irving Zucker, were on hand to meet the students and
welcome them to the meeting.
Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority
Students Awards
The APS, along with more than 280 graduate
institutions, government agencies, foundations and professional
associations, exhibited at the 2007 meeting in Austin, TX, promoting
graduate study in physiology and the APS programs for minority students. The
APS provided $2,000 for cash awards for the most outstanding undergraduate
presentations in physiology research.
APS K-12 Minority Outreach Fellowship
The APS K-12 Minority Outreach Fellowship, launched in
2006, seeks to foster communication between minority graduate and
postdoctoral students and middle/high school minority life sciences
students. The program capitalizes on the relationships that the NIDDK
Minority Travel Fellows Program and Porter Physiology Fellowship program
builds with minority graduate and postdoctoral students and the
relationships that the Frontiers in Physiology program builds with minority
middle/high school teachers. In its second year, the program supported two
fellows, Jessica Clark, Washington Univ. School of Medicine and Clintoria
Richards-Williams, Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham.
New Initiatives
The Committee hopes to play a more active role in
monitoring the participation of minority physiologists and trainees in
Society governance and activities and to promote participation where
possible.
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