Kudos

Recognition for Dartmouth faculty, staff, and students

Jennifer Bomberger, a postdoctoral fellow at Dartmouth Medical School, was awarded the Ann Weinberg Research Fellowship from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for her work dedicated to combating the disease. Bomberger, a member of Professor Bruce Stanton’s laboratory, is also being honored for her outstanding work in the field of physiology with the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. Both the fellowship and the Young Investigator Award were presented in recognition of Bomberger’s investigations into the effects of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa toxin on viral antigen presentation in cystic fibrosis airway cells. Bomberger’s findings propose that a toxin from the bacteria, which alters the immune response to viruses, is the cause of severe chronic infections.

Ethan Dmitrovsky, the Andrew Wallace Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology and professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, has been named a Clinical Research Professor by the American Cancer Society (ACS). This honor, awarded to only two or three people annually, is the ACS’s leading grant award. It recognizes a researcher’s contributions to science and to patient care, and supports his or her work in mentoring future generations of researchers. The multiyear grant will support Dmitrovsky’s ongoing studies of innovative ways to treat and prevent lung cancer. His team is particularly interested in understanding the pathways and mechanisms of retinoids—natural or synthetic compounds derived from vitamin A used in cancer therapy and prevention—and their effects on lung cancer biology and treatment. Dmitrovsky also serves on the board of scientific counselors of the National Cancer Institute and has been on the scientific advisory board of the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Lilian T. Mehrel ’09 and Emmanuel Mensah ’09 have been selected by the Davis Foundation for its 100 Projects for Peace initiative. Mehrel’s project is “Peace in the Middle East: A Film Festival.” She will run a series of workshops with Arab and Jewish Israeli teenagers in the Tel-Aviv/Jaffa region to assist them in the filming and editing of their own stories, which will culminate in a film festival showcasing their work. Mensah’s project, “Youth Empowerment Program: Bringing Vision to Action,” will take him to Ghana, where he will work with the Ghana Youth Leadership Alliance, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization he co-founded, to empower youth to become leaders in the fields their country needs most. Both students will receive $10,000 from the Davis Foundation to support their projects.

Megan Paradise ’08 won the John Omohundro Undergraduate Student Paper Prize at the Northeast Anthropological Association (NEAA) last month at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Paradise’s paper was titled “Social Constructions of ‘Quality’ in Subsistence Agriculture and Food Production: A Case Study from Himachal Pradesh, India.” This is the third undergraduate paper prize Dartmouth anthropology students have won in as many years from the NEAA.

Professor of English Lou Renza received the 2008 Faculty Member of the Year Award from Dartmouth’s Lambda Rho chapter of the Order of Omega Greek national Greek honor society. A member of the Dartmouth faculty since 1970, Renza studies 19th- and early 20th-century American literature, with a focus on literary theory and autobiography. He teaches courses on subjects including American Prose, Edgar Allan Poe, Wallace Stevens, and Bob Dylan.

Several Dartmouth faculty and students were recognized for their volunteer efforts at the annual 2008 Campus Compact for New Hampshire Presidents’ Awards. The Prison Project at the Tucker Foundation received The Presidents’ Leadership Award for the student-led initiative that has been in operation since 1984. The Prison Project has worked with women who are incarcerated at the Southeastern Vermont Correctional Facility. Andrew Garrod, chair of the education department and executive director for the Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth (SEAD) program, received the Presidents’ Good Steward Award. Through the SEAD program, more than 2,000 undergraduates have mentored urban and rural disadvantaged high school youth from across the United States. Mark Detzer, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School, received the Presidents’ Community Partner Award for his work with and co-founding of Steps Toward Adult Responsibility (STAR), a project that connects adolescents who have chronic illnesses with Dartmouth College students who also are challenged by long-term illnesses.

Questions or comments about this article? We welcome your feedback.