Recent Awards/Honors

July/August 2021 Announcements:

The department of physiology would like to acknowledge and congratulate the following department members:

Dr. Christine Klemens, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Staruschenko lab on the receipt of a 2-year K99 NIH Pathway to Independence Award entitled "The Role of CIC-6 in Vascular Control of Blood Pressure".  After 1 or 2 years of K99 training, the award can be transitioned to a R00 award which will fund Dr. Klemens research laboratory in her first faculty position.  The purpose of the NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) program is to increase and maintain a strong cohort of new and talented, NIH-supported, independent investigators.  It is designed to facilitate a timely transition of outstanding postdoctoral researchers with a research and/or clinical doctorate degree from mentored, postdoctoral research positions to independent, tenure-track or equivalent faculty positions.  The program will provide independent NIH research support during this transition in order to help awardees to launch competitive, independent research careers.  Congratulations Christine!

Dr. Ryan Adam, Postdoc in Dr. Kriegel's lab on receiving a Research Pilot Award by the Cardiovascular Center (CVC) for his project "GeoMX Digital Spatial Sequencing of the Renal Vasculature in Chronic Kidney Disease".  The funds will come from the Michael H. Keelan Jr., MD, Research Foundation, an endowment account managed by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and designated for cardiovascular research at MCW's CVC.

Dr. Alison Kriegel for her participation as the Basic Science Project Leader of a new AHA SFRN.  This was a monumental undertaking completed with a short turnaround.  This is the second SFRN awarded to MCW, the first was in Hypertension.  Congratulations also to Drs. Pengyuan Liu, Gutterman and Beyer who also have appointments in Physiology.

Dr. Melinda Dwinell on being selected to join the MCW Society of Teaching Scholars. The society recognizes educators for their teaching excellence and outstanding contributions as educational scholars and educational leaders. Among her many contributions has been her exceptional stewardship of the M1 Human Physiology course. She joins Drs. Forster, Hodges, and Lombard as members from Physiology.  Dr. Dwinell will be recognized during the MCW Convocation (virtual) on September 23, 2021.

Dr. Chelsea Weaver who has been selected to join the NCBI Train the Trainer Program. MCW is an affiliate of the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI), an international non-profit leadership development network. Since 1984, NCBI has been dedicated to the elimination of racism and other forms of oppression. While each affiliate is independently responsible for sustaining its vitality, the international network of over 60 chapters shares methodology, curriculum and best practices. The MCW NCBI leadership team, known as the Coalition Builders, is trained to provide NCBI workshops on our campus. The Coalition Builders are composed of MCW faculty and staff who serve as active trainers. Each of the team members participated in a three-day Train-the-Trainer to develop skills to lead a workshop. Completion of the training will place Dr. Weaver on the Coalition Builders team to lead NCBI workshops for MCW faculty in the future. 

Dr. Caitlin O’Meara on the recent funding of an NIH NHLBI R21 grant entitled “Genetic mapping of variable cardiac cell composition in the rat”.  This grant will provide $442,896 for 2 years. Dr. Michaela Patterson from Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Anatomy will serve as a co-investigator. Consultants include Drs. Melinda Dwinell and Yi-Guang Chen from Pediatrics. The program will also include a subcontract in its second year with Dr. Laura Saba at the University of Colorado-Denver.  The purpose of the grant is to perform GWAS-based mapping using the Hybrid Rat Diversity Panel to identify candidate genes underlying the frequency of  mononuclear diploid cardiomyocytes (Aim 1) and frequency of tissue resident cardiac macrophages (Aim 2) in the steady state heart.