Honors and Grants

Eli Y. Adashi, Medical Science, was featured as the (virtual) invited speaker of the Hastings Center Bioethics Research Institute on October 19, 2022. The Lecture title was "Eggs and Sperm from a Buccal Smear. He was featured as the (virtual) invited speaker of the Hastings Center Bioethics Research Institute on October 19, 2022. The Lecture title was "Eggs and Sperm from a Buccal Smear."  

Tom Bledsoe, Medicine, has been elected a Master of the American College of Physician and president of the Rhode Island Medical Society.

Katie Brown, PhD candidate in the Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics and Center for Computational Molecular Biology earned first place in the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Nursing Informatics Working Group Student Paper Award and third place in the Student Paper Competition for the peer-reviewed paper "An Unsupervised Cluster Analysis of Post-COVID-19 Mental Health Outcomes and Associated Comorbidities,” presented at the AMIA 2022 Annual Symposium.

Dioscaris Garcia, Orthopaedics, was appointed to Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island’s board of directors.

Victoria Koenigsberger, medical student, received the Student and Resident American College of Rheumatology Convergence Scholarship from the Rheumatology Research Foundation.

Christian Schroeder MD’26 presented “Press releases on inflammatory bowel disease research are frequently misleading” at the national scientific meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in Charlotte, NC. Faculty co-authors were Samir Shah and Edward Feller.

Samir A.Shah, Medicine (Gastroenterology), completed his one-year term as president of the American College of Gastroenterology at its annual meeting in October. He gave the President's Address highlighting progress made over the year, including more than $2.2 million in research funding, DEI progress, gender equality progress, quality registries, new online resources including GIonDEMAND, new leadership initiatives, and the development of clinical teaching slides based on ACG's practice guidelines. Many trainees and faculty were also in Charlotte presenting posters and faculty member Colleen Kelly was one of the post-graduate course directors for the meeting. Highlights of the year included Shah giving multiple talks primarily focused on IBD at the Virginia and Texas GI society meetings and international talks via Zoom with the Indian Society of Gastroenterology and traveling to Brazil for the South American IBD meeting. 

Simone Thavaseelan, Surgery (Urology), received the American Urological Association’s 2023 Diversity and Inclusion Award for dedication and commitment to promoting meaningful cultural change for the benefit of urology.

Sarah Thomas, Jennifer Wolff, and Jeff Hunt, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) Outstanding Mentor Award in recognition of their service and support as a mentor to Chuchitra Thanigaivasan, a 2022 recipient of the AACAP Jeanne Spurlock Research Fellowship in Substance Abuse and Addiction for Minority Medical Students, supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and AACAP's Campaign for America's Kids Fund.

Lanbo Yang MD'23 is first author on "Patterns of pregnancy loss among women living with and without HIV in Brazil, 2008-2018 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Global Report.

Leslie A. D. Brick, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received $238,509 for “A prospective study of posttraumatic stress symptom development and cannabis use among trauma exposed injured emerging adults following Emergency Department discharge.” The grant is a subaward through the Rhode Island Hospital Injury Control COBRE from the National Institute of General Medical Science (NIGMS). She also received $8,398 for “Using Ecological Momentary Assessment to Examine Mechanisms of Action of a Physical Activity Intervention for Perinatal Cannabis Use,” a subaward to Butler Hospital from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Carsten Eickhoff, Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics, received $41,745 for “Derivation of a Clinical Prediction Rule for Pediatric Abusive Fractures,” a subaward to Rhode Island Hospital from NIGMS.

Wafik S. El-Deiry, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, received $1,000,000 for “Imipridone mechanisms and combinatorial therapeutics” from Chimerix, Inc.

Rani Elwy, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received $71,710 for “Healthy Hearts/Corazones Saludables: Partnering with US home visiting programs to promote cardiovascular health in Hispanic and non-Hispanic mothers and children.” The grant is a subaward to California Polytechnic State University from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Nicolas Fawzi, Molecular, Cellular Biology, Biochemistry, received $1,567,594 for “Residue-by-residue details of FUS protein phase separation and aggregation            “ from NIGMS. 

Sheldon L. Holder, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, received $75,000 for “Exploration of the Causes and Effects of Increased PIM1 Kinase Activity in Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC)” from the Kidney Cancer Association.                             

Mukesh K. Jain, MCB, received $387,735.87 for “Transcription Factor KLF2 and Cardiovascular Disease” from the Leducq Foundation for Cardiovascular Research.              

Tyler R. Kartzinel, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, received $12,089 for “Using DNA sequencing to assess dietary species richness,” a subaward through Duke University from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Jill A. Kreiling, MCB, received $26,684 for “Stem Cells and Aging (Project 3: Retrotransposable element expression in neural stem cell senescence and aging) - Supplement 2,” a subaward to Rhode Island Hospital from NIGMS.         

Jayakrishna Shenoy, postdoctoral fellow, MCB, received $150,000 for “Structural studies of TDP-43 self-assembly as a therapeutic target for ALS” from The ALS Association. Mentor is Nicolas Fawzi.                   

Erica N. Larschan and Ashley Webb, MCB, received $2,450,625 for “BII:Integration Institute: Sex, Aging, Genomics, and Epigenetics (IISAGE),” a subaward through the University of Alabama, Birmingham through the National Science Foundation.      

John Marshall, MCB, received $150,000  for “Therapeutics Development of BDNF Potentiating Therapeutics for Motor and Cognitive Dysfunction in AS” from the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome.

Eleftherios E. Mylonakis and Sharon Rounds, Medicine, received $1,500,000 for “Alpert Medical School Initiative Combating Potential Pandemic Pathogens (AMS-ICPPP)” from The Warren Alpert Foundation.    

Gregorio Valdez, MCB, received $326,975 “Role of synaptic Schwann cells in NMJ and skeletal muscle aging” from the National Institute on Aging.

Edward G. Walsh, Neuroscience, received $9,623 for “Phenotyping Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction Using Non-Invasive Biomarkers.” The grant is a subaward through Ocean State Research Institute from NIGMS.  

Lauren M. Weinstock, Elizabeth Chen, and Richard Jones received $2,251,302 for the National Center for Health and Justice Integration for Suicide Prevention - ADMIN CORE. The grant is a subaward through Michigan State University from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Laura Whiteley, James Brock, and Rani Elwy, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received $3,542,022 for “A Multisite Randomized Trial of Viral Combat:  A Mobile Gaming App to Improve Adherence to PrEP” form NIMH.