Eight graduate students and postdocs receive GSA’s DeLill Nasser Award

BETHESDA, MD - The Genetics Society of America (GSA) is proud to name eight early-career scientists--four graduate students and four postdoctoral researchers--as Spring 2015 recipients of GSA's DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics. The award provides a $1,000 travel grant for each recipient to attend any national or international meeting, conference, or laboratory course that will enhance his or her career.

"These early career scientists are already making substantive contributions to genetics," said Adam P. Fagen, PhD, GSA's Executive Director. "We hope that this award will help them take the next step in their professional development, providing them with an important opportunity to learn and share their research--and to expand their network of colleagues."

The DeLill Nasser Award was established by GSA in 2001 to honor its namesake, DeLill Nasser (1929-2000), a long-time GSA member who provided critical support to many early-career researchers during her 22 years as program director in eukaryotic genetics at the National Science Foundation. The winners of the Spring 2015 DeLill Nasser Award and the conferences they will travel to (* indicates GSA conferences) are:

Postdoctoral winners

Collin Ewald, PhD, Harvard Medical School, USA Research focus: "I use the power of genetics in the model organism C. elegans to identify mechanisms that may enable long life and healthy aging." Travel to: Oxidative Stress & Disease Gordon Research Conference Principal Investigator: Keith Blackwell

Travis Johnson, PhD, Monash University, Australia Research focus: "My work uses the fruit fly to understand how secreted molecules that govern critical processes during development are controlled." Travel to: 56th Annual Drosophila Research Conference* Principal Investigators: James Whisstock and Coral Warr

Ivan Liachko, PhD, University of Washington, USA Research focus: "My work has resulted in a method for assembling whole genomes of prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms in microbial communities." Travel to: 28th Fungal Genetics Conference* Principal Investigator: Maitreya Dunham

Hansong Ma, PhD, University of California, San Francisco, USA Research focus: "I study homologous recombination in Drosophila mitochondrial genomes." Travel to: 56th Annual Drosophila Research Conference* Principal Investigator: Patrick O'Farrell

Graduate student winners

Robert Blake Billmyre, Duke University, USA Research focus: "I study the genetics and genomics of fungal pathogens, particularly newly emerging or reemerging diseases, and the attributes that allow these diseases to cause outbreaks." Travel to: 28th Fungal Genetics Conference* Principal Investigator: Joseph Heitman

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Eight graduate students and postdocs receive GSA's DeLill Nasser Award