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 2022 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.
Grace Brennan, PhD, Clinical Psychology
Grace Brennan is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Moffitt-Caspi Lab in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience. She is funded by a T32 training grant from the National Institute on Aging. Her research focuses on how personality traits and mental disorders influence health and social functioning as people age. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Yale University.
Dr. Brennan will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to virtually attend a statistics workshop on longitudinal structural equation modeling offered by Curran-Bauer Analytics.
Michelle Scotton Franklin, PhD, Nursing
Michelle Scotton Franklin is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy under the mentorship of Drs. Gillian Sanders Schmidler and Gary Maslow. Her research focuses on developing interventions and health policy solutions to address the physical and behavioral health inequities experienced by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She received her MSN at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with dual certification as a family nurse practitioner and psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner and received her PhD in Nursing from the Duke School of Nursing in 2020.
Dr. Scotton Franklin will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to virtually attend the 2022 ResearchTalk course, "Implementation Research: Using Qualitative Research Methods to Improve Policy and Practice".
Yuerong Liu PhD, Social Work
Yuerong Liu is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Center for Child and Family Policy within the Sanford School of Public Policy, working under the mentorship of Dr. Elizabeth J. Gifford. Her research focuses on understanding how societal mechanisms drive child maltreatment and the subsequent adverse health outcomes among children involved with Child Protective Services. She received her PhD in Social Work from New York University.
Dr. Liu will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to virtually attend the course “Online Certificate Program in Mixed Methods Research” at the University of Michigan.
Juliann Stalls, PhD, Health Psychology
Juliann Stalls is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, under the mentorship of Drs. Rebecca Shelby and Caroline Dorfman in the Cancer Symptom Management and Support Program and Pain Prevention and Treatment Research Program. She earned her PhD in Health Psychology, Clinical Health Concentration, from East Carolina University in 2020. Her research focuses on addressing symptom management concerns among cancer survivors and she is particularly interested in supporting survivors to address reproductive and sexual health concerns following cancer treatment.
Dr. Stalls will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to virtually attend the 2022 International Psycho-Oncology Society’s World Congress Meeting.
Erica Washington, PhD, Biology
Erica Washington received her PhD in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her primary research interests include studying molecular mechanisms of microbial pathogenesis using tools and techniques in structural biology. Dr. Washington is a Postdoctoral Associate in Dr. Richard G. Brennan’s laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry, where she investigates the structures and function of trehalose biosynthesis proteins in fungal pathogens using x-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy.
Dr. Washington will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to purchase reagents that will enable her to extend her current independent project by studying fungal-specific DNA-binding domains and their role in the regulation of trehalose biosynthesis.
Shujie Yang, PhD, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Shujie Yang received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from Duke University in 2021, after which he became a Postdoctoral Associate working under the mentorship of Prof. Tony Jun Huang. His research focuses on developing acoustic and microfluidic platforms to efficiently manipulate cells and particles for disease diagnosis.
Dr. Yang will use the Postdoctoral Professional Development Award to virtually attend the 17th IEEE International Conference on Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems (NEMS).
The Office of Postdoctoral Services thanks the 2022 Awards Committee: Melissa Bostrom PhD, Rachel Coleman MS, Hugh Crumley PhD, Cameron Prigge PhD, and Molly Starback MSLS.