Student Awards and Accomplishments

Recent Award Recipients

Victoria Gremminger and Catherine Omosule (Charlotte Phillips Lab) were awarded ASBMR Travel Grants to attend and present at the America Society Bone and Mineral Research Annual meeting (Orlando, FL; September 2019)

Kelly Mason (Antje Heese Lab) gave a talk at the Midwestern 2019 Auxin Meeting (St. Louis, MO; August 2019).

Jaleel Shepherd (in rotation) and Kelly Mason (Antje Heese Lab) received MU-Life Sciences Fellowships to support their Ph.D. studies (Columbia, MO; Aug 2019).

Martin Alcantar (in rotation) was awarded an NIH Initiative Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) Program fellowship (Columbia, MO; Aug 2019).

Victoria Gremminger (Charlotte Phillips Lab) and Amanda Paz Herrera (Don Burke Lab) received 2020 EMC Excellence in Electron Microscopy Awards by the University of Missouri to advance their research projects (July 2019).

Kelly Mason (Antje Heese Lab) received an NSF travel award to attend and give a talk at the international 2019 Plant Cell Dynamics Meeting – Penn State Plant Biology Symposium (State College, PA; June 2019).

Samantha Brady (Xiao Heng lab) was invited to give a talk at the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Biomolecular Galaxy Symposium and won the Best Oral Presentation (West Lafayette, IN, 2019).

Gayani Ekanayake (Antje Heese Lab) was selected to give a talk at the international 2019 Interdisciplinary Plant Group Symposium on Plant Signaling in Biotic and Abiotic Stress (Columbia, MO; May 2019).

Jared Ellingsen (Scott Peck Lab) won Second Place and Paige Gruenke (Don Burke Lab) won Honorable Mention for their poster presentations at the regional 2019 Life Sciences Week (MU, Columbia MO; April 2019).

Kyle Stiers (Lesa Beamer Lab) received the MU Daniel K Anderson graduate research award (Columbia, MO; April 2019).

Gayani Ekanayake (Antje Heese Lab) received the inaugural fellowship from the Robert E. and Diane P. Sharp Fund to support her final year of her Ph.D. (April 2019).

Catherine Omosule (Charlotte Phillips Lab) was awarded the 2018 Gridley McKim-Smith Women’s Health Fellowship Award from the Foundation for Women’s Wellness (December 2018).

Victoria Gremminger (Charlotte Phillips lab) was awarded Young Investigator Recognition Award for her research poster at the Mechanistic and Therapeutic Advances in Rare Skeletal Diseases pre-meeting and the America Society Bone and Mineral Research Annual meeting (Montreal, Canada; October 2018).

Austin Prater (Tom Quinn Lab) was awarded a Travel Bursary and selected to give a talk at the 3rd International Edition of the Symposium on Technetium and other Radiometals in Chemistry and Medicine (Bressanone, Italy; September 2018).

Shannon King (Scott Peck lab) was interviewed by the MU Chancellor Cartwright for a Podcast on drought and its effect on Missouri communities (September 2018). Listen to the podcast or read a transcript here.

Alexandra Bogner (Jack Tanner lab) received a MU Molecular Biology T32 Training Grant for 2018-2019 (August 2018).

Bryce Page (Mark Hannink lab) was awarded a NIH Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) fellowship (August 2018).

Kelly Mason (first year graduate student) was the recipient of the Charles Gehrke Fellow Award (Columbia, MO; Aug 2018).

Vinit Shanbhag (Mick Petris lab) received Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Missouri (August 2018).

Mark Silveria and Alani Antoine-Mitchell received four-year MU Life Sciences Fellowships (August 2018).

Lee-Ann Niekerk (Antje Heese lab) was interviewed by the MU News Bureau on the worldwide impact her work at MU will have on mining communities in her home country South Africa (Columbia, MO; July 2018). Read the story here.

Kyle Stiers (Lesa Beamer lab) was an invited speaker at the American Crystallographic Association Meeting (Toronto, Canada; July 2018).

Lee-Ann Niekerk (Antje Heese lab) received a National Science Foundation (NSF) travel award to present a poster at the international Plant Cell Dynamics conference (Madison, WI; June 2018).

Kyle Stiers (Lesa Beamer lab) was invited to attend the Python Structural Bioinformatics Workshop & Hackathon NIH (San Diego, CA; May 2018).

Mark Schroeder (Lloyd Sumner lab) received Honorable Mention for poster presentation during Missouri Life Sciences Week (Columbia, MO; April 2018).

Gayani Ekanayake (Antje Heese lab) was selected to give a talk at the Midwest American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) meeting (Ames, IA; March 2018).

Vinit Shanbhag (Mick Petris lab) was the winner of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi Dissertation Fellowship (March 2018).

Gayani Ekanayake (Antje Heese lab) received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Travel Award and a Graduate Professional Council (GPC) Travel Award to attend the international Keystone Symposium on Plant Signaling: Molecular Pathways and Network Integration (Tahoe City, CA; Jan 2018).

Grant Mc Gowan (labs of Antje Heese, MU and Robert Ingle, Univ. of Cape Town; South Africa) was awarded a Scholarship for International Travel from the Univ. of Cape Town (South Africa) to support his three months stay at MU (Jan 2018).

Emily Armbruster (Peter Cornish Lab) received a two-year Go! Fellowship through the Neutron Sciences Directorate at Oak Ridge National Lab (Oak Ridge, TN; November 2017).

Catherine Omosule (Charlotte Phillips lab) was awarded second place in the Basic Science category II for her research poster at the 2017 MU Health Sciences Research Day, MU School of Medicine (Columbia, MO; November 2017).

Lee-Ann Niekerk (labs of Antje Heese, MU and Marshall Keyster, Univ. of the Western Cape: South Africa) received funds from the MU Interdisciplinary Plant Group (IPG) and the University of Missouri-South African Education Program (UMSAEP) to support her nine month work at Mizzou (Nov. 2017).

Vinit Shanbhag (Mick Petris lab) won first place for his poster presentation in Basic Science, 2017 MU Health Sciences Research Day (Columbia, MO; November 2017).

Tara Marcink (Steve Van Doren Lab) was invited as a speaker at the 2018 Great Plains Regional Annual Symposium (GRASP) on Protein and Biomolecular NMR conference (Lawrence, KS. (October 2017).

Megan Sheridan (Michael Roberts lab) won Outstanding Poster Presentation Award at the 14th annual Gilbert S. Greenwald Symposium on Reproduction and Regenerative Medicine (Kansas City, MO; October 2017).

Vinit Shanbhag (Mick Petris lab) was Principal Investigator on the Molecular Cytology Core (MCC) grant, University of Missouri (September 2017).

Kevin Muñoz Forti (Gary Weisman lab) was awarded a MU Life Sciences Fellowship (LSF) and the Charles Gehrke Scholarship by the University of Missouri and Department of Biochemistry, respectively. He was also appointed as an NIH T32 Fellow (August 2017).

Alexandria Bogner (John Tanner lab) was the recipient of the 2017 Charles Gehrke Fellow Award (August 2017).

Megan Sheridan (Michael Roberts lab) was the recipient of The Lalor Foundation Merit Award and won 1st place in training camp for “Primitive Human Placental Trophoblast May Display Different Infection Patterns to African and Asian Strains of Zika Virus”(July 2017).

Vinit Shanbhag (Mick Petris lab) received the Doug Randall young scientist development award, University of Missouri (July 2017).

Vinit Shanbhag (Mick Petris lab) was the invited speaker at the Cell Biology of Metals Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) Vermont (July 2017).

Megan A. Sheridan (Michael Roberts lab) won 1st Place for the “Trainee Research Award-Oral Talk Presentation” at the Society for the Study of Reproduction, SSR 2017 Annual Meeting (Washington, D.C.; July 2017).

Kyle Stiers (Lesa Beamer lab) was invited to attend Java Structural Bioinformatics Workshop & Hackathon (NIH) in San Diego CA (June 2017).

Erica LaMontagne (Antje Heese lab) received a travel award from the MU Graduate Professional Council (GPC) to attend and present a poster at the international Plant Cell Dynamics conference (Madison WI; June 2017).

Kyle Stiers (Lesa Beamer lab) received the American Heart Association Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Award (June 2017).

Victoria Gremminger (Charlotte Phillips lab) was awarded an Excellence in Electron Microscopy Award by the University of Missouri (Columbia, MO; June 2017).

Erica LaMontagne (Antje Heese lab) received a travel award from the Douglas D. Randall Young Scientists Development Fund to attend and present a poster the 2017 International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR) (St. Louis, MO; June 2017).

Kyle Stiers (Lesa Beamer lab) was an invited speaker at the American Crystallographic Association meeting and was awarded the Etter Student Lecturer Award (New Orleans, LA; May 2017).

Youngjae Jeong (Charlotte Phillips lab) was awarded the MU Distinguished Dissertation Award for his Ph.D. thesis (Columbia, Missouri, May 2017).

Lingyan Jiang (Scott Peck lab), Ashley Campell (Jack Tanner lab), Kyle Stiers (Lesa Beamer lab), Mahmoud Khalafall (Gary Weisman lab) and Vinit Shanbheg (Mick Petris’ lab) won poster presentation awards at the 2017 Missouri Life Sciences Week (Columbia, MO; April 2017).

Vinit Shanbhag (Mick Petris lab) was the recipient of Life Science Week-People’s Choice Award in the Molecular Cytology Core Image contest (April 2017).

Kwaku Tawiah (Donald Burke lab) was interviewed for a MU news articles on how his research at MU will improve life in his home country Ghana (April 2017).

Kyle Stiers (Lesa Beamer lab) was honored as one of four recipients at Missouri’s 2016 Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award (April 2017).

Youngjae Jeong (Charlotte Phillips lab) was awarded an Outstanding Young Investigator Research Award for his Poster Presentation at the 17th Annual Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation Scientific Meeting: Novel Targets and New Therapeutic Strategies in Treating OI (Rosemont, IL; April 2017).

Award and Scholarship Programs for Graduate Students