Honors and Grants

E. Christine Brousseau, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Women & Infants Hospital, received the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology Outstanding District Service Award.

Mary A. Carskadon, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received the William C. Dement Academic Achievement Award for exceptional initiative and progress in the areas of sleep education and academic research from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Kathryn Grive,Obstetrics and Gynecology, Women & Infants Hospital, received a Global Consortium of Reproductive Longevity & Equality Junior Scholar Award. This $200,000 award will fund her pilot project entitled: “Revealing the Role of Ubiquitin C-Terminal Hydrolase L1 and the Ovarian Proteasome Pathway in Female Reproductive Aging.”

Karen Ha MD’25 received the 2023 Alpha Omega Alpha Carolyn L. Kuckein Student Research Fellowship. She received $5,000 for her proposal, “Addressing the Intersection Between Language and Health Literacy at the Rhode Island Free Clinic.”

Tracy Madsen, Emergency Medicine, received the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine 2023 Advancement of Women in Academic Emergency Medicine Award.

Beth Ryder, Surgery, received the Student Accessibility Services Access Ambassador Award for making the surgery clerkship accessible to students with disabilities. Ryder was recognized for actively working to identify accommodations to make the clinical placement accessible. 

Ben Rhee MD’25 was awarded second place in the 2023 Alpha Omega Alpha Helen H. Glaser Student Essay Competition for his essay “Pathway Programs: A Promising Pipeline to Diversity and Equity for Tomorrow’s Physicians,” which will be published in the upcoming autumn edition of the Pharos magazine. 

Carolina Roberts-Santana, Obstetrics and Gynecology,  Women & Infants Hospital director of Pediatric Research and Administration, was named to Providence Business News’ annual 40 Under Forty.

John Stoukides, Medicine, has been named chairman of medicine at Roger Williams Medical Center.

Mayra M. Banuelos, Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology (EEOB), received $159,000 for “Leveraging archaic and modern human genomes with machine learning approaches to elucidate the evolutionary history of our species” from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Mentor is Emilia Huerta-Sanchez.

Gilad Barnea, Neuroscience, received $2,175,634 for “Sensorimotor transformations for controlling heading direction in the insect central complex” from NINDS. He also received $2,280,562 for “A Neuropeptidergic Neural Network Integrates Taste with Internal State to Modulate Feeding” from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Comm Disorders.

Peter A. Belenky, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology (MMI), received $198,766 for “Relating impacts of antibiotics on the gut metabolome and microbiome to host physiology and weight” from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Leslie A. D. Brick, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received $92,120 for “Validating Sensor-based Approaches for Monitoring Eating Behavior and Energy Intake by Accounting for Real-World Factors that Impact Accuracy and Acceptability.” The grant is a subaward through Clemson University from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease                     

Laurent Brossay, MMI, received $3,948,810 for “Immune response to MCMV infection in the salivary glands” from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Elizabeth S. Chen, Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics, received $20,276 for “Enabling Digital Transition of Care for High Need Patients.” The grant is a subaward from Rhode Island Quality Institute through the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Kevin C. Connolly, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry (MCB), received $143,082 for “The Neuronal Effect of CHI3L1 in Neuroinflammation & Alzheimer's Disease” from the National Institute on Aging. Sponsor is Yu-Wen Alvin Huang.

Robbert J. Creton, MCB, received $1,390,836 for “Cryo-TEM for Biomedical Research” from the Office of the Director.

Timothy P. Flanigan, Medicine, received $1,829,052 for “Emerging Infectious Disease and HIV Scholars Program at Brown University” from the NIAID.                          

Mascha Frank, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received $32,786 for “NCS-FO: SOUND: Understanding the Functional Neural Dynamics Underpinning Auditory Processing Dysfunctions through a Multiscale Recording-Stimulation Framework.” The grant is a subaward through University of Rhode Island from the National Science Foundation.  

Richard N. Freiman, MCB, received $18,500 for “Regulation of spermatogonial stem cell development” from the Rhode Island Foundation.                        

Anne C. Hart, Neuroscience, received $11,821.67 for “Developing C. elegans AHC ATP1A3 models” from the Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood Foundation from the Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood Foundation. She also received $11,821.67 for Developing C. elegans AHC ATP1A3 models from HOPE for Annabel.                        

Edward Huey, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received $130,176 for “Neuroanatomical associations with the factor structure underlying neuropsychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer's disease” from the National Institute on Aging. He also received $439,032 for “Using RDoC Negative and Positive Valence Paradigms to Investigate the Mechanisms of Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (NPS) in Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias” from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Amanda M. Jamieson, MMI, received $25,000 for “Targeting Caspase-8 in Macrophages as a Potential Therapeutic for Complex Lung Infections” from the Rhode Island Foundation.

Alexander Jaworski, Neuroscience, received $625,000 for “Collaborative Research: Evolution of ligand-dependent Robo receptor activation mechanisms for axon guidance” from the National Science Foundation.

Sanghyun Lee, Molecular, Microbiology and Immunology (MMI), received $459,688 for “Entry inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 by human LRRC15” from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).          

Judy Liu, MCB, Stephen Helfand, MCB, Rich Jones, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, and Eric Morrow, MCB, received $3,120,415 for “Genetic and Functional Mechanisms in Citrate Transporter Disorder associated with SLC13A5” from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).        

Tracy Madsen, Emergency Medicine, received $292,468 for “Migraine and Stroke in Women: Leveraging the Observational and Clinical Trial Cohorts of the Women’s Health Initiative” from the American Heart Association.

Nicole R. Nugent and Leslie Brick, Psychiatry and Human Behavior received $298,953 for “Ecological Assessment of Proximal Risk Factors for Suicide During Care Transitions.” The grant is a subaward from Butler Hospital through the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).        

Carin Papendorp MD/PhD’25 received $35,000 for “Building a Clinical Trial Pipeline for Profound Autism” from the Autism Science Foundation.

Sara Ragi MD'24 received $5,000 for “Pre-Diagnostic Plasma Metabolites and Risk of Psoriasis” from the National Psoriasis Foundation.  

Alexander G. Raufi, Medicine, received $100,000 for “ONC201 for Chemoprevention of Colorectal Cancer.” The grant is a subaward through Rhode Island Hospital from Brown Physicians, Inc.                              

John M. Sedivy, MCB, received $20,459 for “Atrial Fibrillation in Aging Heart: Role of Senescent Atrial Cells.” The grant is a subaward through Rhode Island Hospital from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). He also received $86,335 for “Cell Senescence Regulating Osteoarthritis Progression: Sex-dependent Mechanisms,” a subaward through Rhode Island Hospital from the National Institute on Aging.    

Robert W. Sobol, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, received $192,451 for NIH-Greater Caribbean Center for Ciguatera Research (GCCCR). The grant is a subaward through Florida Gulf Coast University from the National Institute of Environmental Health Science. He also received $529,940 for “Measuring genomic DNA damage and DNA repair capacity in longitudinal population samples - a step towards precision prevention” from NIEHS. He also received $56,527 for “SON-mediated RNA splicing in glioblastoma” through the University of Alabama, Birmingham from the National Cancer Institute.           

Anthony Spirito and Jennifer C. Wolff, Psychiatry and Human Behavior, received $3,815,794 for “Towards a reliable and valid assessment of preteen suicidal thoughts and behavior” from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Jami Star, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine received $250,000 for “Perinatal and Neonatal Quality Collaborative of Rhode Island (PNQCRI)” from the Centers for Disease Control with the National Perinatal Information Center.

Gregorio Valdez, MCB, received $438,625 for “Development of a microbial-rich exposure regimen to accelerate translational research using mouse models of Alzheimer's Disease to humans” from the National Institute on Aging.                                            

Rahul Vanjani, Medicine, received $250,000 for “Building and Expanding Social Medicine Education and Practice in Rhode Island” from the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation.       

Edward G. Walsh, received $128,740 for “Collaborative Research: Magnetic Clustering using Novel Poly(amino acid) Corrals to Advance Magnetic Particle Imaging” from the National Science Foundation (NSF).                                        

Gary M. Wessel, Biology, received $112,870 for “Mechanisms of specification, quiescence, and regeneration of primordial germ cells” from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Jon D. Witman, Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, received $17,649 for “Scientific and Logistical Support for the 2023 Cashes Ledge Expedition” from the Ruth D. Turner Foundation.              

Hongwei Yao, MCB, received $2,569,638 for “Metabolic mechanisms underlying bronchopulmonary dysplasia-associated pulmonary hypertension” from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.