Dennis Spencer
Three students in the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program have been awarded the extremely competitive United Negro College Fund/Merck Science Research Dissertation Fellowship.
Dennis Spencer, Fatima Soliman and Tanya Williams learned recently they each received one of only 12 national fellowship slots.
The Fellows will each receive a grant of $52,000, which may be used to cover a portion of their stipend, as well as to purchase equipment and supplies, and to cover the travel costs to attend scientific meetings.
Also, each Fellow will attend Fellows Day, June 27 through July 1, at the Normandy Farm Hotel and Conference Center in Blue Bell, Penn. During Fellows Day, they will have the opportunity to meet other Fellows and their Merck mentors and to visit the Merck Research Laboratories.
Spencer, who works in Dr. Vincent Fischetti's lab at The Rockefeller University's Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis, is currently studying streptococcal (strep throat) interactions that could lead to vaccine development.
Fatima Soliman
Soliman works under the direction of Dr. B.J. Casey, director of the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology at Weill Cornell Medical College, testing the effects of a common polymorphism in the brain integral to a number of clinical disorders, such as anxiety and depression.
Williams is in the Division of Neurobiology of the Department of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell, under Director Dr. Teresa Milner. She is studying gender differences in the link between stress exerted on the hippocampus and drug-seeking behavior.
All three of the Fellows are graduates of the MD-PhD Program's Gateways to the Laboratory Program. The Gateways summer program was established in 1993 by the Tri-Institutional Program as a way to prepare college freshmen and sophomores for the MD-PhD application process and the rigors of a career as a physician-scientist. Students spend 10 weeks over the summer working in labs, giving oral and poster presentations, and participating in several career enhancing workshops.
Tanya Williams
"We are thrilled at the remarkable achievements of these three MD-PhD students," said Ruth Gotian, administrative director of the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program. "We are especially honored to have worked with them since they started their journey of becoming a physician-scientist in our Gateways to the Laboratory Program. We are honored and humbled by their latest achievements and are confident that we will continue to see great successes from them."
Photography by Weill Cornell Art & Photography.