The SOT Endowment Fund serves as a mechanism for supporting toxicologists and the science of toxicology now and into the future. To recognize their outstanding achievements, this year, more than 100 deserving undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and scientists across career levels received awards funded through the Endowment.
Many award recipients noted the importance of these accolades in their development as investigators. “It is a great honor to receive an award at SOT and it further confirms my desire to pursue academic research,” says Hendrik Greve, BS, of the Indiana University School of Medicine and a 2021 recipient of the Toshio Narahashi Neurotoxicology Fellowship Award. “Science is often difficult, but to see many hours of hard work and difficult experiments come together to form a great project that other scientists see as important is a great feeling.”
Indeed, students receiving an Endowment Fund award often find it serves as a vehicle for advancing their research and career development. Isha Mhatre, MS, of Florida International University, was a 2021 recipient of an award from the Laxman S. Desai Association of Scientists of Indian Origin Student Award Fund. She hopes that her research “will aid in understanding the risk for Alzheimer’s disease from a more relevant standpoint and ultimately lead to an impact for patients, either by preventive measures or by disease modification.” Ms. Mhatre says, “Presenting this work to a large audience will provide me with excellent scientific feedback and significantly aid in my career.”
Endowment awards also serve to reinforce researchers’ commitment to special interests within the sciences. For Keith Rogers, BS, of the University of North Carolina, receiving an award from the Donald E. Gardner Inhalation Toxicology Education Award Fund will “help connect students at small minority institutions such as my alma mater with tier one research universities to be able to involve students in respiratory toxicology research that they otherwise would not have the opportunity to be exposed to. In addition to how this program will enrich the lives of many minority undergraduate students, I believe that I will also be enriched by teaching both the background and the technical aspects of respiratory toxicology research to the students.”
The full list of 2021 Endowment Fund awardees is available on the SOT website, along with further information about these outstanding awardees.
More than 800 contributors support the future of toxicology by giving to the Endowment Fund. To learn more about how you can support this important endeavor, visit the SOT website.
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