FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON
JUNE 14, 2007
APS Contact
Brooke Bruthers (Content)
301.634.7226
BBruthers@The-APS.org
Christine Guilfoy (Media)
Office: (301) 634-7253
cguilfoy@the-aps.org
American Physiological Society Names Two Minority
Outreach Fellows For 2007
BETHESDA, Md. (June 13, 2007) – The
American Physiological Society (APS;
www.the-APS.org) announced today that it has awarded its 2007 Minority
Outreach Fellowships to Jessica Clark and Clintoria Richards-Williams. The
women were selected from among three applicants for the highly competitive
award. This is the second year the award has been made.
Dr. Clark, an Asian/Pacific Islander
raised in Tucson, AZ, is a first year postdoctoral trainee in the Department
of Surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis,
Mo. There she is studying the role of intestinal epithelium in the
pathogenesis of sepsis, a disease which afflicts 750,000 Americans each year
and kills up to 30 percent of those affected. She plans to continue in
academia pursuing research relating to the physiology of the
gastrointestinal tract. Dr. Clark is a graduate of the University of Arizona
and a past winner of the APS’ graduate Porter Physiology Fellowship Award.
Mrs. Richards-Williams, an
African-American, is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Physiology
and Biophysics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research
investigates ATP and zinc modulation of insulin secretion in diabetes.
Diabetes currently affects 20.8 million children and adults in America and
is the 6th leading cause of death. She is a co-author on a
published article and several posters and oral presentations. As a four year
Dean’s list graduate of Clark Atlanta University, she has received numerous
academic awards for her scientific work. Her work has merited a Juvenile
Diabetes Research Foundation Grant, Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Pre-doctoral
Fellowship and she has received the APS’ graduate Porter Physiology
Fellowship Award.
Education and Role Modeling
for Young Minorities in Science
As APS K-12 Minority Outreach Fellows, the
women will visit K-12 classrooms to talk about their career paths and to
serve as role models for other minority students. In addition the Fellows
will:
-
serve as a Physiologist-in-Residence at the
APS Science Teaching Forum, a week of hands-on science training for
middle school and high school teachers.
-
visit K-12 minority student classrooms (in
their home towns during the 2007-2008 school year) to deliver career
presentations and lead hands-on physiology activities for the students.
They will also encourage pre-college minority students who are
underrepresented in science – African Americans, Native Americans,
Hispanics and Pacific Islanders – to think about becoming biomedical
researchers.
-
represent the APS at the national Annual
Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), a
national conference designed to facilitate increased minority
involvement in biomedical and behavioral science careers and present
cash awards to undergraduate students for best oral and poster
presentations in the physiological sciences during the conference.
-
conduct outreach activities for high school
teachers and students at the APS annual meeting, held as part of the
Experimental Biology 2007 (EB ’07) conference and
-
reach out to a local school near their
institution to participate in PhUn (Physiology Understanding) Week
(program details at http://www.phunweek.org.
The fellowship pays a variety of
conference registration fees and travel expenses for these and other events.
Marsha Lakes Matyas, Ph.D., the APS
director of education, said “In just the second year of the Minority
Outreach Fellowship, I am delighted that we have identified two such
outstanding young scientists to carry the message about science and academic
accomplishments to the next generation. On behalf of everyone at the APS, we
congratulate both of these exceptionally talented women as this year’s
Fellows.”
About the APS
The APS is a nonprofit organization
devoted to fostering education, scientific research and dissemination of
information in the physiological sciences. From its beginning in 1887 the
Society has grown to more than 10,500 members today. In addition to being a
member-based organization, APS is a premier nonprofit publisher in the life
sciences whose publications are among the most respected and frequently
cited in the world. APS publishes 13 widely acclaimed scholarly journals and
recently posted over 650,000 pages of historical scientific studies online,
some dating back to 1898.
For more
information, log on to
www.The-APS.org.
# # #
NOTE TO EDITORS: For
further information, please contact Brooke Bruthers, APS Education Office,
301.634.7226 or
BBruthers@The-APS.org.
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