Honors and Grants

Mary Carskadon, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received the Association for Psychological Science’s James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award, which recognizes APS members for a lifetime of outstanding contributions to the area of applied psychological research. Among Carskadon’s major contributions to the field has been formally defining sleep. With nearly 3,000 citations, hers is the most widely referenced definition of sleep. She also developed a standard for assessing sleepiness with the Multiple Sleep Latency Test, considered the gold standard for measuring sleepiness.

Ahmed S. Abdelfattah, Neuroscience, received $4,305,787 for “Development of genetically encoded sensors and high-speed FLIM for in vivo quantitative multiplexed voltage imaging” from the National Institute of Mental Health. 

Peter A. Belenky and Amanda Jamieson, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, received $3,043,386 for “Alleviating antibiotic-induced microbiome dysfunction by quenching the microbial redox environment - 2026” from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. 

The Bradley Sleep Center has received a $10.1 million Phase Two COBRE renewal award.

Karthikeyani Chellappa, MMI, received $574,613 for “Hijaking the System: Investigating the Impact Mechanisms of Low Variant Allele Frequency JAK2V617F Clone on the Pathobiology of Myeloproliferative Neoplasms,” a subaward through Rhode Island Hospital from the National Cancer Institute. 

Robbert J. Creton, Molecular, Cellular Biology Biochemistry, received $25,000 for “Increasing IDeA state Biomedical Entrepreneurship via Ecosystem, Enterprises & Experts - UDR0000926,” a subaward through University of Delaware from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Fabian Fischer, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, received $37,900 for “Molecular, cellular and clinical fingerprinting of established pesticide toxicants in three PD cohorts,” a subaward through Brigham & Women’s from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. 

Abebe Almu Fola and Jeffrey Bailey, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, received $449,034 for “Dissecting the Rapid Multifocal Emergence of the Kelch13 441L Artemisinin Resistance Mutation across Southern and Eastern Africa” from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 

Yu-Wen Alvin A. Huang, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry, received $25,000 for “Increasing IDeA state Biomedical Entrepreneurship via Ecosystem, Enterprises & Experts - UDR0000927, a subaward through University of Delaware from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. 

Alexander Jaworski, Neuroscience, received $408,585 for “Gene-regulatory mechanisms of stepwise axon pathfinding” from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. 

Stephanie R. Jones, Neuroscience, received $50,000 for “Computational Model-Informed Drug Development (MIDD) Using Preclinical Electrophysiology [SRA]” from OTSUKA AMERICA PHARMACEUTICAL INC.

Judy Kimberly received $28,697 for “Rhode Island IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence 2026-2027” through the University of Rhode Island from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. 

Hanna M. Kodama, graduate student, and mentor Martin Taylor received $150,342 for “Mechanisms and DNA Targeting of LINE-1 ORF2p Endonuclease” from the National Cancer Institute. 

Sean Lawler, Jessica Plavicki, and Fabian Fischer, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, received $3,648,904 for “Selective modulation of the blood tumor barrier (BTB) to improve the delivery of brain cancer therapeutics” from The Warren Alpert Foundation. 

Anne CC Lee, Pediatrics, received $14,762 for “PRISMA - AI-Driven Risk Stratification for High-Risk Pregnancies in LMICs,” a subaward through George Washington University from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Madeline F. Malfara and mentor Christopher de Graffenried received $150,342 for “Trypanosoma cruzi flagellar pocket morphogenesis during cell and life cycle transitions” from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 

Ethan Moitra, Alethea Desrosiers, and Zachary Kunicki, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received $1,246,782 for “TAG-MI: A Mobile Intervention to Improve Mental Health and Adherence to HIV Care among Youth in Ghana” from the National Institute of Mental Health. 

Jacob Myers and mentor Laurent Brossay, MMI, received $246,708 for “Investigating the mechanisms of KLRG1-mediated immune suppression in regulatory T cells” from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 

Elena Oancea, Neuroscience, received $150,000 for “Multi-Omic Profiling of Healthy and Malignant Melanocytes to Define Melanoma Risk in the Saudi Population” from the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center. 

Kate O'Connor-Giles, Neuroscience, received $473,561 for “Role of ER membrane contact sites in synapse formation and plasticity” from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. 

Shreya Rajhans, graduate student, and mentor Federica Accornero received $150,342 for “Defining the Role of RBM3 in Cardiac Stress Response” from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Alexander G. Raufi, Medicine, received $50,000 for “Evaluating Mechanisms of Imipridone-Based Chemoprevention of Colorectal Cancer” from Brown University Health. 

Daniel Spade, Richard Freiman, Sendurai Mani, and Jessica Plavicki, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, received $2,711,460 for “Mechanisms of Phthalate Toxicity in Testis Development and Later-Life Function” from the National Institute of Environmental Health Science.

Elizabeth C. Thompson, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received $113,793 for “Deep phenotyping of sleep and symptoms in adolescents with psychosis-spectrum conditions” from Bradley Hospital through the National Institute of Mental Health.

George Tollefson, graduate student, and mentor Jeffrey Bailey received $100,228 for “Resolving the Evolutionary Origins of Artemisinin Resistance in African P. falciparum Malaria Using Long-Read Sequencing” from the National Institutes of Health.