International ForumInternational Forum
Student researchers representing the Miller School, Harvard Medical School, Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, the University of Toronto, and a number of other institutions from around the globe gathered on the Miller School campus February 27 to March 1 for the Eastern-Atlantic Student Research Forum. The symposium brings together medical, graduate, and M.D./Ph.D. students to present basic and clinical research in multiple biomedical fields.

UM award winners included Kavita Desai, who shared her first-place prize for Outstanding Basic Science Poster Presentation with Matthew Witek from Jefferson Medical College; Vivek Kalra and Dan Ilkovitch, who each received honorable mentions for their basic science presentations; and Lana Jones, who received an honorable mention for her neurology/neurosurgery presentation.

Tim Love and Mike Gorin were honored with the best University of Miami presentation, and Seth Miller and Christine Dinh were recipients of the first Dr. Carl and Barbara Alving Endowed Award, made possible by a $100,000 gift from the Alvings in recognition of outstanding student research.

Women’s Health Research Day
Student and faculty researchers from throughout the University presented their latest research in women’s health on March 17 at the inaugural Women’s Health Research Day sponsored by the Institute for Women’s Health.

A poster session represented research from fields including epidemiology and public health, psychology, nursing, surgery, psychiatry, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, microbiology and immunology, and exercise and sport sciences.

A panel of five judges, including keynote speaker Karen Freund, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine, chief of the Women’s Health Unit, and executive associate director of the Women’s Health Interdisciplinary Research Center at Boston University, selected two winners.

Erin Kobetz, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, won in the faculty category, and Dan Ilkovitch, a student in the Miller School’s M.D./Ph.D. program, won in the student category.

Cardiovascular Research Day
Five junior investigators from the Miller School were recognized on March 13 for their excellent research efforts at the inaugural Cardiovascular Research Symposium, organized by Joy Lincoln, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular and cellular pharmacology.

For their oral presentations, Lina Shehadeh, Ph.D., received first prize and Behzad Oskouei, M.D., received second prize. For their poster presentations, graduate student Yuhui Wen received first prize, Pablo Echevarria, M.D., received second prize, and Konstantin Chatzistergos, M.D., received third prize.

In addition to the poster and oral presentations, James N. Weiss, M.D., chief of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and John Solaro, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Illinois, presented to students and faculty. The day concluded with a panel discussion moderated by Joshua Hare, M.D., chief of the Miller School’s Cardiovascular Division, followed by an award presentation and reception.