The Duke Office of Postdoctoral Services, the Vice President for Research & Innovation and the Vice Dean for Basic Science are pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 Postdoctoral Awards for Professional Development. These awards are designed to support postdocs' professional development needs by providing reimbursement for activities that directly enhance the individual's professional growth.
Charles Bartlett, PhD, History
Charles Bartlett is a Postdoctoral Associate in the History Department. His research examines the political, legal, and economic institutions of several periods of European and international history, especially antiquity and the early modern and modern periods; he is particularly interested in the development of Roman law and the history of political economy. Charles received his PhD in Classics (Ancient History) from Harvard University in 2017.
Dr. Bartlett will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to attend the Celtic Conference in Classics in Coimbra, Portugal, where he will present a paper on a consequential topic in economic and legal history as part of the panel that he is co-organizing.
Loneke Blackman Carr, PhD, Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity
Loneke T. Blackman Carr earned her PhD in Nutrition (Intervention and Policy) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2017. She is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, working under the mentorship of Dr. Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards. Addressing health inequities in obesity and obesity treatment are the focus of her work. Her research involves examining the sociocultural context of weight, dietary and physical activity behaviors, in order to maximize the effectiveness of behavioral weight loss interventions for black women.
Dr. Blackman Carr will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to attend the 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society on Behavioral Medicine.
Zhiying Lu, PhD, Duke Marine Lab
Zhiying Lu received his PhD in Environmental Science from the University of China Academy of Science. Dr. Lu is a Postdoctoral Associate under the mentorship of Dr. Zackary Johnson at the Duke Marine Laboratory. His research focuses on developing economic and environmental-friendly algal cultivation and separation technologies for biofuel and co-products production. His primary research interests include integrating algal cultivation with membrane filtration and algal culture media reuse.
Dr. Lu will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to attend the 9th International Conference on Algal Biomass, Biofuels and Bioproducts (9th AlgalBBB) at Boulder, Colorado, where he will give an oral presentation.
Victor Ruthig, PhD, Cell Biology
Victor Ruthig is a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Capel Lab in the Department of Cell Biology. His research focuses on molecular regulation and maintenance of the developing mammalian male germline at the intersection of cell cycle, epigenetic and pluripotency controls. He received his MS and PhD in Developmental and Reproductive Biology from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
Dr. Ruthig will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to travel to Hong Kong to attend the biennial Gordon Conference on Germinal Stem Cell Biology, where he will present a poster on his work (Dead End 1 (DND1) In Developing Embryonic Male Germ Cells Targets Transcripts Associated With Pluripotency and Male Fate Regulation), and stop over in Honolulu, where he will give a methods seminar at his alma mater (Transgenic and Molecular Tools for Studying Germinal Stem Cell Regulation of Differentiation in the Developing Mouse).
Miranda Scalabrino, PhD, Neurobiology
Miranda Scalabrino received her PhD in Biomedical Science with a concentration in Genetics from the University of Florida in 2016. She is a Postdoctoral Associate in Dr. Greg Field’s lab in the Department of Neurobiology, where she investigates mechanisms of bipolar cell plasticity during retinal degeneration and subsequent genetic rescue, while also discovering how bipolar cell types contribute to functional vision.
Dr. Scalabrino will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to attend the course "Vision: A Platform for Linking Circuits, Perception and Behavior" at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
The Office of Postdoctoral Services thanks the 2019 Awards Committee: Dr. Melissa Bostrom, Dr. Paige Cooper, Dr. Hugh Crumley, Dr. Cameron Prigge, and Ms. Molly Starback.