What's New...

FIRST Alumnae Receive Major Funding
Program Update
Annual IRACDA Conference
Fellows' Monthly Seminar Series

FIRST Fellows Receive Faculty Appointments
Article
s Published about FIRST

Available Positions


Program Update

Former FIRST fellow, Dr. Valerie Haftel, has just recently been promoted to Asssociate Professor with tenure at Morehouse College in the Department of Biology. Valerie has been at Morehouse since completing the FIRST program in 2003.  She was in our FIRST class of fellows when our grant began in 2000 and is the first to receive tenure at a college or university.  Valerie continues to support the mission of the FIRST program and has been an active teaching mentor for several years. Please feel free to send your congrats to Valerie (vhaftel@morehouse.edu).

FIRST has accepted 15 candidates into the program for the 2009-2010 fiscal year - Lea Marie Alford, Boston College; Matthew Campbell, postdoctoral fellow, Yerkes Primate Research Center;  postgraduate university: University of Wisconsin-Madison; Anatasha Crawford, Georgetown University; Avanti Gokhale, Jacob Kagey and Heather Ross, Emory University; Melissa Henderson, East Carolina University; Jennifer Hurst-Kennedy, PaDreyia Lawson and Jennifer Kovacs, Georgia Institute of Technology; Jennifer Larimore, Ph.D., Postdoctoral fellow, Emory University; postgraduate university: University of Alabama, Birmingham; John Pulliam, postdoctoral fellow at Morehouse School of Medicine; postgraduate university: Emory University; Cherie Rooks, University of Georgia; Tammi Taylor, Indiana University School of Medicine; Katherine Wilkinson, University of California–San Diego.  They have very diverse research interests and have been placed in laboratories in departments throughout Emory University.  Those departments include Physiology, Department of Medicine-Cardiology Division, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Cell Biology, Chemistry, Biology, Pharmacology, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Neurology Division and the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Morehouse School of Medicine..

The deadline for receiving applications for fiscal year 2009-2010 has passed.  Selected fellows are matriculating into their selected laboratory to begin their research projects.  We will start accepting applications for the 2010-2011 fiscal year on January 1, 2010. Please contact FIRST@emory.edu if you have any questions or need additional information.

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Annual IRACDA Conference

The 2009 IRACDA conference was hosted by the ISIS program at the University of California, San Francisco from June 7-10, 2009.  The meeting was held at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel near Union Square in San Francisco. See http://www.iracdaconference.info for more information. A few of the PowerPoint presentations from the IRACDA conference have been posted on the conference website at: http://www.iracdaconference.info/presentations.html. Additionally, FIRST fellow, David T. Glover, won an award for Best Research Poster at the Conference.
  • D.T. Glover, S.K. Hollingshead, and D.E. Briles.  Streptococcus pneumoniae surface protein PcpA elicits protection against lung infection and fatal sepsis, and facilitates adherence to lung epithelial cells. IRACDA Conference. University of California, San Francisco

The 2010 IRACDA Conference will be hosted by the TEACRS - Training in Education and Critical Research Skills located at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. The dates are from June 6-9, 2010. So mark your calendars today.  More information to come!

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FIRST Alumnae Continue to Receive Major Funding

Dr. Vincent Ciavatta, Research Scientist, at the Atlanta Vision Loss Center at the Veterans Administration Hospital, just received the VA Merit Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs which will fund his research for the next three years. The title of his grant is "Mechanism and Origin of Neuroprotection from Subretinal Electrical Stimulation," and will be funded from April 1, 2010 to April March 31, 2013 with a total award of $749,000.

Dr. Sarah Brosnan, an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University, has received a Career Award from NSF from the Division of Social and Ecomonic Sciences for 5 years for a total award of $677,462 (see Notice of Award).  This is her second NSF award which will guarantee her funding through June 20, 2014.  In October, 2007 she was awarded a grant from NSF for $514,658, 1 month after she started her faculty position at GSU. This was her first grant application which she actually wrote while still in the FIRST program in anticipation of the start of her faculty position at Georgia State (see Notice of Award).

Dr. Daniel Williams, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, North Carolina Central University has received 2 grants.  The first from NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The project title is: Modulation of Virulence Determinants Contributing to Gonococcal Pathogenesis and the project period is from 8/1/2008-7/31/2011 with a total award of $225,000.  His second grant is an NSF – Collaborative Grant with Duke University.  The project title is Genome Wide Root Analysis and the project period is from 8/1/2008-7/31/2012 with a total award of $160,000.

Dr. Jessica Sales - An Assistant Research Professor at Emory University in the School of Public Health, Department of Behavioral Science & Health Education, just received a K01 award funded by NIH, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).  The title of her project is Factors Associated with Teens' Non-Responsiveness to HIV Intervention and is funded from April 1, 2009 - March 31, 2014.

Assistant Professor of Biology at Haverford College, Dr. Andrea Morris, who finished the FIRST program in 2003, received an NIH grant for "Sonic the Hedgehog."  The five-year grant—the first of its kind awarded to a faculty member at a small liberal arts college—supports Morris’ exploration into the molecular mechanisms of visual system development, focusing on a particular gene called, yes, “sonic hedgehog” and its role in retinal axon guidance which is the process of connecting the eye to the appropriate parts of the brain that allow for visual perception. (For the complete article see: http://www.haverford.edu/news/stories/861/51.)

Dr. Valerie Haftel, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Morehouse College, has been awarded the Department of Education Minority Science Improvement grant. The grant, entitled "Enhancement of Interdisciplinary Science", begins in October of 2007, and lasts until September of 2010 for a total budget of $476,000. Valerie also completed the FIRST program in 2003.  (For the complete article see: http://www.morehouse.edu/academics/bio/news.html.)

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FIRST Fellows Continue to Receive Faculty Appointments
(For the full list of appointments received by FIRST fellows see
Job Placements of Graduates
)

  • Chris Bates, Ph.D., Assistant PRofessor, Department of Biology, Augusta State University - Begins August, 2009
  • Joann Brooks Powell, Ph.D., Instructor, Department of Biology, Spelman College - Begins August, 2009
  • Elethia Tillman, Ph.D., Instructor, Department of Biology, Spelman College - Begins August, 2009
  • Kesmic Jackson, Ph.D., Academic Professional, Department of Biology, Georgia State University - Begins June, 2009
  • Laurie Krug, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, SUNY - Stony Brook University in Long Island, NY- Began Dec. 1, 2008
  • Kyla Ross, Ph.D., Academic Professional, Department of Biology, Georgia State University - Began January 2, 2009
  • Montreka Dansby, Ph.D., Nutrition Specialist, with the Cooperative Extension Program at North Carolina A & T State University - Began March, 2009

Other Positions:

  • Jason Miranda, Ph.D., Senior Scientist at Pfizer Regenerative Medicine in Cambridge, UK  - Begins August 10, 2009
  • Danso Ako-Adjei, Ph.D., Viral Genome Curator, Computercraft (contractor for NIH), Washington, DC - Began June, 2009
  • Karen Pazol, Ph.D., Epidemiologist in the Maternal and Infant Health Branch, Division of Reproductive Health at the CDC - Began April, 2009.
  • Ian M. P. Joseph, Interdisciplinary Scientist, Federal Drug Administration (FDA), Atlanta, GA - Began April 27, 2009

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Published Articles About the FIRST Program

The most recent article published about FIRST outlines a model for increasing minority participation in the sciences:

Keen-Rhinehart, E., Eisen, A., Eaton, D. and McCormack, K. (2009) Interactive methods for teaching action potentials, an example of teaching innovation from neuroscience postdoctoral fellows in the Fellowships in Research and Science Teaching (FIRST) program. The Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 7:A74-A79.

C. Brommer and A. Eisen. (2006) FIRST: A model for increasing quality minority participation in the sciences from the undergraduate to the professoriate level. J. of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 12:35-46.

Read about FIRST in the May issue of the Journal of College Science Teaching:
J.D. Holtzclaw, A. Eisen, E.M. Whitney, M. Penumetcha, J. Hoey, & K. S. Kimbro. (2006) Incorporating a new Bioinformatics component into Genetics at a historically black college: Outcomes and Lessons. CBE Life Sci Educ, 5:52-64.

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FIRST Fellows Seminar Series

The FIRST Seminar Series is a peer research conference where fellows give mini-seminars about their individual research. It is also a forum in which fellows can practice an upcoming lecture for a particular course or practice a job talk prior to going out on job interviews. The most senior fellows generally begin the series of talks each year since they are further along in their research. Fellows are encouraged to take notes and give their colleagues feedback as to their general knowledge of the subject and presentation.

The conferences will be held on the 2nd Tuesday of every month from 12:00 - 1:00 PM. Refreshments will be served. All are welcome to attend.

Seminar Schedule 2009-2010

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Available Postdoc Positions

A postdoctoral position is available at Emory University; Department of Physiology in the Helms Laboratory.  In general, this laboratory studies the molecular mechanisms regulating epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) activity as it relates to maintaining alveolar fluid balance.  Technical approaches include experimentation with isolated lung tissue from transgenic mice; patch-clamp electrophysiology using live tissue and cultured cells; and confocal imaging using latest fluorescent indicators. The ideal candidate will have interest in studying ion channel regulation or redox signaling, have less than 3 years prior post-doctoral training, and have an M.D. or Ph.D.  However, all creative and innovative applicants will be considered.  US citizenship not required; candidates must be eligible to obtain a valid employment authorized visa. Please send a curriculum vitae, brief statement of research interests (not to exceed 1 page), and professional references to: My N. Helms, PH.D., Assistant Professor, mhelms@emory.edu

Emory University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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Emory University School of Medicine
Department of Physiology
Atlanta, GA 30322-3110
(404) 727-7410 Office ~ (404) 727-2648 FAX

For questions or comments, contact the webmaster at FIRST@emory.edu.