Biomedical sciences doctoral candidates receive travel awards, fellowships

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Four biomedical sciences doctoral students have been selected for summer travel awards or fellowships, said Randall Davis, Ph.D., director of the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program and associate professor of pharmacology.

Sheri Core and Dusti Sloan won travel awards to present research posters in July at the joint meeting of the American Physiological Society and The Physiological Society in Dublin, Ireland. Sloan’s research focuses on central interactions between estrogen and oxytocin in the control of feeding and body weight. Core studies the estrogen modulation of behavioral responses to body sodium imbalance and the role of specific types of neurons in the central nervous system.

Leandra Figueroa-Hall received a travel award to attend the Postdoctoral Preparation Institute 2016 in Bethesda, Md. in June. The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology provided the award as part of its Maximizing Access to Research Careers program. The program objective is to provide insight about the variety of career pathways available to Ph.D.-trained scientists as they prepare to transition into independent careers in the biomedical research workforce.

Leigha Lynch was awarded the Robberson Summer Research Fellowship from the OSU Graduate College. She will receive a summer tuition waiver, a $4,000 stipend and her research will be featured on the Graduate College website. During her research fellowship, she will extract DNA from and measure the skeletal shape of 52 specimens of the extinct noble marten. The goal is to determine whether the noble marten is a unique species and how it is related to the living marten species. Martens are omnivorous animals related to minks, badgers, ferrets and weasels.