Honors and Grants

Ruhul Abid, Surgery, received an American Heart Association Visiting Professorship Award (2025-2026). This $10,000 award enables the recipient to foster and support international research collaboration.

Allison Brindle, Pediatrics, has been named to the Neighborhood Health Board of Directors.     

Giulio Diamante, Surgery (Ophthalmology), was awarded the Robert E. Curran, MD, Teaching Excellence Award by the Warren Alpert Medical School for his work as an educator.

Ntami Echeng, Obstetrics and Gynecology PGY4 resident, and Luce Kassi, reproductive endocrinology and infertility fellow, were selected as recipients of the Panacea Financial Foundation’s Resident & Fellow Grant.  

Stephanie Graff, Medicine, was named the E. Grey Dimond, M.D. Take Wing Award winner by the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. The award is the School of Medicine’s annual honor given to a graduate who has demonstrated excellence in his or her chosen field and exceeded the expectations of peers in the practice of medicine, academic medicine or research. She is the director of Breast Oncology at Brown University Health, where she serves as co-lead of the Breast Cancer Translational Research Disease Working Group and associate director of global oncology and policy at the Legorreta Cancer Center.

Sean Monaghan, Surgery, Division of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care and the Division of Surgical Research, Brown University Health, has received the Bruce M. Selya Award for Excellence in Research. His research focuses on improving the care of sepsis patients with RNA sequencing data. The award recognizes those who demonstrate a “steadfast commitment to academic medicine and keen insight concerning the importance of academic programs to quality health care at Brown University Health.”

Ahmed S. Abdelfattah, Neuroscience, received $375,000 for “Decoding Neuronal Communication with High Spatiotemporal Resolution Lifetime Imaging Technology, a subaward through Dartmouth College from the W.M. Keck Foundation.                           

Ruhul Abid, Surgery, received $2,704,740 for an R01 to study “Coronary Vascular Resilience by Modulation of Mitochondrial ROS in Endothelium” from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). 

Ruhul Abid, Surgery, and Frank Sellke, Cardiothoracic Surgery, received $75,000 from Rhode Island Commerce as a knowledge partner of a Brown University-based startup XM Therapeutics.

Elizabeth Brainerd, Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, received $116,000 for “Collaborative Research: Bones and Burrowing: Mechanoadaptation in phylogeny, ontogeny and ecology of Peromyscus” from the National Science Foundation.                            

Christina Cuomo, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, received $21,972 for 2025 Fellow funds for CIFAR Fungal Kingdom Threats and Opportunities Program from the Canadian Institute For Advanced Research.

Joseph A. Diaz, Medicine, received $805,000 for “SMART+: School Health Model for Academics Reaching All Transforming Lives 2025-2026” from The Warren Alpert Foundation. 

Wafik S. El-Deiry, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, received $852,972 for “Innate immune agonists to rescue cancer therapy-induced tissue injury” from The Warren Alpert Foundation.  

Christopher I. Moore, Neuroscience, received $1,300,000 for “A New Mechanism of Brain-Body Coupling: Rapid, Local Dynamics of the Blood-Brain Barrier” from the W.M. Keck Foundation.         

Christopher L. de Graffenried, MMI, received $438,625 for “Investigating Trypanosomatid life-cycle transitions using live-cell imaging” from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.               

Erica N. Larschan, Mark Johnson, and Gregorio Valdez, multi-principal investigators, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology and Biochemistry (MCB), received $2,131,800 for “Predoctoral Training in Molecular, Cellular, and Biochemical Sciences – continuation” from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.              

Chun Geun Lee, MMI, received $196,143 for “Therapeutic Targeting of Chitinase and Chitinase-like Proteins (C/CLPs; Chitinase 1 and CHI3L1) to Prevent or Reverse Lung Pathologies Associated with NTM,” a subaward through the University Industry Foundation, Yonsei University Health System from the National Research Foundation of Korea.    

Adam Levine, Emergency Medicine, received $1,203,761 for “Building Capacity in HIV/TB and Mental Health in Ukraine's Humanitarian Crisis” from the Fogarty International Center.

Matt R. Nassar, Neuroscience, received $750,000 for “CRCNS US-Germany Research Proposal: Testing a task-general model of cognitive control” from the National Science Foundation.

Nicola Neretti, MCB, received $438,625 for “Tracking the life cycle of cells in senescence” from the National Institute on Aging.

Martin S. Taylor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, received $82,620 for “Defining the genomic and biologic impact of LINE-1 activity in fallopian tube epithelial cells,” a subaward through Massachusetts General Hospital from the National Cancer Institute. He received $533,875 for “Development of Ultrasensitive Stool Tests for LINE-1 ORF1p for Gastric Cancer Detection” from the United States Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity. He also received a $166,860 Transfer Award for “Elucidating structural, mechanistic, and allosteric determinants of mTOR Complex 2 (mTORC2) signaling” from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.   

Mamiko Yajima, MCB, received $2,193,125 for “Molecular mechanism of Vasa function in localized mRNA translation on the spindle” from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.