An Introduction to the NIH Fellowship Program for Prospective Candidates

<p>Ericka Boone, Ph.D. is the Director for the Division of Biomedical Research Workforce (DBRW) within the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER). She recently served as the Director of the NIH Division of Loan Repayment. In that role, Dr. Boone was responsible for administering and providing leadership for the NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRP) as well as representing NIH on matters related to the operations, policy development and evaluation of the LRP. Previous to this position, Dr. Boone served as a Health Scientist Administrator in the Office of Science Policy and Communications at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. There she developed and targeted science-based publications, outreach initiatives and other activities to educate a variety of audiences about the science of drug use, abuse and addiction. For her role in these efforts, Dr. Boone has won several NIDA Director’s Awards of Merit and an NIH Director’s Award. Prior to coming to NIH, Dr. Boone conducted research at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Emory University. Dr. Boone’s academic background includes a B.A. in Biology from Talladega College and a Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Health from The Pennsylvania State University.</p>

<p>Alison Gammie, Ph.D., is director of the Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity, which supports the National Institute of General Medical Sciences' (NIGMS) research training, career development and diversity-building activities. Prior to coming to NIGMS, she was a Senior Lecturer at Princeton University, where, in addition to teaching, mentoring and running a research laboratory, she served as an academic advisor, an Associate Member at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and the Director of Diversity Programs &amp; Graduate Recruiting. Honors include Princeton’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Graduate Mentoring Award and the American Society for Microbiology Hinton Award for advancing the research careers of under-represented minorities.</p>

<p>Dr. Mufeng Li received her Ph.D. in physiology from Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She subsequently pursued her postdoctoral training at the Molecular Physiology and Biophysics Section in National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), where she studied the structure and function of ATP-activated P2X receptor channels. Before joining Center for Scientific Review, Dr. Li was a Staff Scientist at NINDS. Her research focused on understanding how ion channels operate at the molecular level, and how disease-causing mutations alter the operational mechanisms.</p>

<p>Lystranne Maynard-Smith, Ph. D is a Scientific Review Officer (SRO) and Reviewer Training Coordinator within the Center for Scientific Review (CSR). She currently manages the Advancing Therapeutics B study section and develops and coordinates targeted training resources and learning activities for scientific peer review. Dr. Lystranne Maynard-Smith obtained her B.Sc. in Chemistry from Howard University and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University with a focus on development of a chemical biology approach to control protein stability. She then pursued her postdoctoral training in the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) with an emphasis on developing probes of lysine acetylation in cells. Before joining CSR, Dr. Maynard-Smith was an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Howard University where her research interests explored developing novel reporters of calreticulin acetylation substrates.</p>

<p>Dr. Ben Roberts received his Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill where he studied lipid metabolism. He then completed postdoctoral training at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences investigating the role of protein quality control in disease. He is currently a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow in the Office of Extramural Research, Division of Communication and Outreach where he engages in science policy communication.</p>