The number of applications received for both the RCEA and TCEA was dramatically lower than in previous years. A total of 8 applications for the RCEA were received and none for the TCEA; this compares to 12 RCEA and 3 TCEA in the previous fiscal period. While the Committee has not previously been concerned about the RCEA, the TCEA continue to attract the fewest applicants. The concern is that the quality of the RCEA applications seems to have declined. As a result, at the Awards Committee annual face-to-face meeting during EB, the future of both the RCEA and TCEA awards were discussed. It was decided that a survey of past RCEA recipients would be conducted to determine the impact of these awards on one’s career. The Committee decided to broaden the applicant pool for the TCEA and send out additional calls for applications through APS-associated list-serves.
The Young Investigator Award (YIA) continues to attract the most number of extremely competitive applications. This past fall 7 applications were received for the Arthur C. Guyton Award, 13 for the Lazaro J. Mandel YIA, 13 for the Shih-Chun Wang, YIA and 32 for the inaugural Dean Franklin YIA. Unlike the RCEA and TCEA, the numbers of applications received for these awards is on the rise. Furthermore, the quality of the applications received was outstanding, especially for the newly established Dean Franklin YIA.
Despite the fact that the Postdoctoral Fellowship in Physiological Genomics will no longer be offered, this award has been very popular over the years, including this year, in which 30 applications were received.
The Committee tracks the gender distribution of the applicants and recipients for these awards. The Committee will continue to track this information and discuss ways to try to increase the number of women applicants. The Chair will also work on this issue with the Women in Physiology Committee.
The APS Awards Committee met on April 23, 2012 at 7 am at the Experimental Biology Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. At that meeting, the Committee specifically discussed the following:
• The Committee was informed that the Postdoctoral Fellowship in Physiological Genomics will no longer be supported by the APS since it has outgrown its original purpose. The members of the Committee were supportive of the idea of using these funds towards another award type.
•The Committee was charged with developing ideas for a new award or Fellowship (to, in essence, replace the Physiological Genomics Award). The Committee will submit their ideas to the Committee Chair who will compile the suggestions and discuss with the members before submitting a recommendation to the APS Council.
•The future of the Research and Teaching Career Enhancement Awards were discussed: while a fair number of applications for the RCEA were received, very few were received for the TCEA. The Committee Chair will survey past recipients of the RCEA to get an idea of the impact of the award may have had on their careers. One of the members of the committee volunteered to work together with the Education Committee in promoting the program to attract more competitive applications.
2011-2012 Award Recipients
RCEA and TCEA Award Recipients
Fall 2011 RCEA recipient is Gregory Funk Department of Physiology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
Spring 2012 RCEA recipient is Cynthia Smas, Department of Biochemistry and Cancer Biology, University of Toledo College of Medicine, Toledo, OH.
Fall 2011 TCEA; no award made.
Spring 2012 TCEA; no award made.
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 Feilim Mac Gabhann, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Institute for Computational Medicine, Baltimore, MD. The Lazaro J. Mandel was awarded to Marcelo Carattino, Ph.D., Department of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA. The Shih-Chun Wang was awarded to Qi Fu, Ph.D., Department of Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX.
Postdoctoral Fellowship in Physiological Genomics
The recipients of the Postdoctoral Fellowship in Physiological Genomics are Karla Garcia-Pelagio, Department of Biochemistry, National University of Mexico, Mexico and Tatum Simonson, Department of Physiology, UCSD, San Diego, CA.