The Committee received seven applications for the spring and fall Research Career Enhancement Awards, down from 18 applications received last year. The Committee only received two applications for the Teaching Career Enhancement Awards, one for the spring deadline and one for the fall deadline. This is similar to the number of applicants received for this award over the past several years. Unfortunately, this award continues to attract very few applicants.
This past fall seven applications were received for the Arthur C. Guyton Award, two for the Lazaro J. Mandel Award, and four for the Shih-Chun Wang Award. While these numbers seem low, they are similar to the numbers in years past. The quality of the applications received for these awards were outstanding.
The APS Postdoctoral Fellowship in Physiological Genomics receives the highest number of applications of all the Society awards. Thirteen applications were received in January 2010, which was down from the 24 applications received in January 2009; however, it was similar in number to the 12 applications received in January 2008 for this same award.
In addition to reviewing applications and selecting awardees, the Committee tracks the gender distribution of the applicants and recipients. The following results were found for the past year.
- For the fall 2009 RCEA Award, all the applicants were male (seven applications).
- For the fall 2009 TCEA Award, all the applicants were male (one application).
- For the 2009 Arthur Guyton Award, 28% of the applicants were female (two applications) and 72% male (five applications); the awardee was female.
- For the 2009 Mandel Award, all the applicants were male (two applications).
- For the 2009 Wang Award, all the applicants were male (four applications).
- For the 2010 APS Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, 38% of the applicants were female (five applications) and 62% male (seven applications); the two awardees were male.
- For the spring 2010 RCEA Award, 43% of the applicants were female (three applications) and 57% male (four applications); the awardees were 60% female (three awardees) and 40% male (two awardees).
- For the spring 2010 TCEA, there was only one application received, female; the applicant received the award.
The Committee will continue to track this information and discuss ways to increase the number of women applying for awards, including working with the Women in Physiology Committee.
The APS Awards Committee met at the Experimental Biology Annual Meeting in Anaheim, CA. At that meeting, the Committee discussed ideas on how to increase the number of applications. Some members believed the reduced amount of money for the Mandel and Wang Young Investigator Awards ($4,000/per award) and the fierce competition for the postdoctoral awards (2 of 24 were funded in 2009) dissuaded investigators from applying. Other members thought that busy lives and email overload resulted in missed opportunities. The Committee also discussed and instituted the following at the meeting:
- Requesting a 4-page NIH-type biosketch instead of a full cv.
- The deadline date for applications for the fall RCEA and TCEA awards have been moved back by two weeks (Friday October 1, 2010) to determine if this will increase the number of applicants.
- Examples of winning applications have been posted on the APS Awards website to give applicants guidance on what constitutes an outstanding application.
- The Committee discussed the nature of the postdoctoral fellowship in physiological genomics and decided that the focus of this fellowship could be flexible so that as physiology evolves over time, physiological fields deemed important by the Society could be encouraged through this mechanism.
2009-2010 Award Recipients
RCEA and TCEA Awards
The Fall Research Career Enhancement (RCEA) Recipients are Timothy John Fairchild, PhD, Murdoch University, Australia; Thomas Lloyd Pannabecker, PhD, University of Arizona; Gary L. Pierce, PhD, Medical College of Georgia; and Kevin A. Zwetsloot, PhD, Appalachian State University.
The Fall Teaching Career Enhancement (RCEA) Recipient is Stefan Pulver, PhD, University of Cambridge, UK.
The Spring Research Career Enhancement (RCEA) Recipients are Linda Boland, PhD University of Richmond; Mihail Mitov, PhD, University of Kentucky; Caroline Alice Rickards, PhD, University of Texas at San Antonio; Chantal A. Rivera, PhD, LSU Health Sciences Center; and Jason D. Vescovi, PhD, York University, Canada.
The Spring Teaching Career Enhancement (RCEA) Recipient is Penelope Hansen, PhD, Memorial University of New Foundland, Canada.
Young Investigator Awards
The APS has three Young Investigator Awards, the Arthur C. Guyton Award for Excellence in Integrative Physiology, the Shih-Chun Wang Young Investigator Award, and the Lazaro J. Mandel Young Investigator Award.
The Arthur C. Guyton Award was awarded to Kelly J. Suter, PhD, University of Texas at San Antonio. The Lazaro J. Mandel was awarded to Alexander Staruschenko, PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin. The Shih-Chun Wang was awarded to Eric Lazartigues, PhD, LSU Health Sciences Center.
Postdoctoral Fellowship Award in Physiological Genomics
The recipients of the Postdoctoral Fellowship Award in Physiological Genomics are Naresh Bal, PhD, Ohio State University, and Rudolf Schilder, PhD, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.