Month: September 2016

Ray Travel Award – Funding Period 3

Email below was sent out today to the CGS listserv and may be of interest to everyone:
Good Afternoon Everyone, 
 
I hope that this message finds each of you doing well, now that we are well into the Autumn Semester.
 
I am writing you today to let you know that the window to apply for the Ray Travel Award, Funding Period 3, is open. The third funding period covers conferences occurring between January 1 – March 31.  
 
The deadline for Ray Travel Award applications is  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2016 BY 11:59 PM for all application materials (including recommendation responses).  
 
Please note that any applications submitted for conferences occurring outside of the funding period window will be deleted and unable to be recovered when the window to apply closes.
 
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me by email (wesaw.1@osu.edu)!
 
Have a great day, 
 
-Alex 
 
 
—
W. Alex Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians)
PhD Candidate & Graduate Teaching Associate
Treasurer, Council of Graduate Students
Commissioner, City of Columbus – University Area Commission
The Ohio State University
Knowlton School of Architecture City & Regional Planning
468 Knowlton Hall, 275 West Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1138
614-292-4380 office
wesaw.1@osu.edu go.osu.edu/awesaw
 
 
 
RAY TRAVEL AWARD FOR SERVICE UPDATES AND DEADLINES
IMPORTANT: Please note the changes made to the funding periods covered in the upcoming deadline. Date changes were made to more closely align with the University’s academic calendar.
 
2016 – 2017 ACADEMIC YEAR
Funding Period #1
§  Application deadline: May 1
§  Conference dates: August 1 – September 30
Funding Period #2
§  Application deadline: August 1
§  Conference dates: October 1 – December 31
Funding Period #3   
§  Application deadline: November 1
§  Conference dates: January 1 – March 31
Funding Period #4   
§  Application deadline: February 1
§  Conference dates: April 1 – June 30
 
Applications (including recommendation responses) are due by 11:59PM on the deadline day. Absolutely NO applications will be accepted after the application deadline. NO EXCEPTIONS.
 
Purpose
The Edward J. Ray Travel Award for Scholarship and Service (Ray Award) encourages and enables graduate students across the university to participate in professional conferences, both in their respective fields and in the broader academic community, by reimbursing or partially reimbursing the expenses incurred by graduate students during travel to conferences and meetings to present original research.
Unlike other programs that grant travel funds, the Ray Award gives substantial weight to the applicant’s service to his/her department, the university, and the surrounding community. Ray Award judges also take into account the academic standing of the applicant, the applicant’s professional goals, the nature of the conference being attended, and the applicant’s ability to convey the focus of their research to a general audience.
Rationale
The financial aspect of travel to and presentation at such events can be prohibitive to many graduate students, and the availability of such support for students varies widely across the university. Whereas students in some departments, schools, and colleges may have several opportunities for funding, others have no sources of funding whatsoever. For this reason, the absence of such funds at the university level has been a subject of concern for CGS for several years. Inquiries on this matter to the CGS office, from both individual students and other graduate student associations within the university, have increased in recent years. Therefore, we feel that the Professional Development Fund will fill a void for many students; it will also sustain and further the professional activities of students who have exhausted other funding sources. The Professional Development Fund is intended to supplement — not to replace — existing funds at the program, department, school, college, or university levels.
Although the fund is primarily intended to assist with travel expenses, we recognize that there are often other costs involved with professional presentations. We have defined the fund’s uses so that other legitimate costs can be included when necessary. The awards committee will be composed of graduate students and faculty members representative of the university community, as well as representatives from groups contributing to the fund. These individuals will be expected to consider the university as a whole in their decision-making processes.
The Ray Award supports and enhances the three-part mission of the University: research, teaching, and service. The Council believes that professional presentations of research are a vital part of the academic and professional development of graduate students. Not only do such activities help the individual student gain recognition in his or her field (therefore increasing employment opportunities), but they also showcase the high quality research that characterizes The Ohio State University. Further, this program will have a positive effect on undergraduate programs in which graduate students serve as Teaching Associates, because we believe that those who engage in research and professional activities in their fields can become better teachers. Finally, we believe that this program will promote service to the university and surrounding community because service activities will be considered when selecting recipients. It is our hope that this endeavor will further develop the academic and civic culture of Ohio State.

Reminder: Club Officers Election Meeting

With the new semester underway, we will be holding a meeting Wednesday, September 14 at 4:00 pm BioSci 773. This meeting will directly follow the First Year student’s orientation class.

This meeting is open to anyone who is interested in helping to run and organize our club. I strongly encourage first year students and younger students to participate as many of the current officers have graduated or will very soon and without your involvement, many of the activities we currently do will fall by the wayside.

At the meeting, we will discuss the summer and orientation events, this upcoming year, and start to put together a new budget. Most importantly, we will be holding elections for the officer positions. Positions are open to any student in OSBP, including the new first year students, who is currently in good standing with the program.

All positions within the club are open! A list of the positions can be found on our new student website: https://u.osu.edu/buckeyebiochemistryclub/
Every position can be ran by anyone, excluding president as the elected student must be post-candidacy to hold the chair position. This year we are particularly interested in finding someone to take over the Community Outreach Chair position.

If you cannot make the meeting but are interested in running for a position, please contact me before next Wednesday!

Hope to see you there,

David Heisler
President

Dr. David Nagib’s Game Changing New NIH MIRA Grant

Source: https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/news/new-nih-mira-grant-game-changer-drug-discovery

David Nagib, assistant professor, chemistry and biochemistry, just received a significant award that encourages promising new and early stage investigators to tackle ambitious, far-reaching projects that impact health. Nagib’s five-year, $1,749,619 “Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds work on synthesizing medicinal candidates via a new strategy called Chaperones for Radical Relays: Enabling Directed C-H Functionalizations.

Nagib shares the significance of his research, the impact the new grant will have and the importance of collaboration.

How important is this grant to your work?

This NIH award is a game-changer for our laboratory for two main reasons:

  1. It provides stable, long-term research funding, so we can devote all of our time to research (rather than grant-writing), and;
  2. It allows us significant freedom and flexibility to pursue especially “high-risk/high-reward” ideas.

Can you explain how the NIH MIRA funding will allow you to do #2?

“Our research team is focused on harnessing free radical chemistry to manipulate the molecular structure of medicines – to improve their pharmacological activity. The BIG challenge is that we are going after C-H bonds, which are the most ubiquitous functionality in all medicines.

To do this, we must invent new strategies that are both unusually reactive and precise in order to selectively mutate a single C-H amidst a sea of similar C-Hs found in complex, organic molecules. We believe that free radicals hold the key to solving this problem.

“This award will allow us to continue pursuing important challenges in the modern field of C-H functionalization with ideas that are innovative and perhaps more high-risk/high-reward.

What is your ultimate goal?

Our dream is to build an entire synthetic toolbox of “radical relay chaperones” that will allow a chemist anywhere in the world to take a cancer drug, antibiotic or diabetes pill off a shelf and make more potent, targeted analogs from it … in a single afternoon. This could lead to a fundamentally new approach to designing and synthesizing improved medicines.

Your website shows a dynamic, energetic group of aspiring young scientists. Can you share how they contribute to the research?

Science is very much a team sport. Great discoveries require a strong, unified team working together to solve a big challenge from every angle. Luckily, I have the best labmates ever!

My colleagues include talented and passionate undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows. When you have a dozen people constantly helping you to design more clever experiments and then meticulously sifting through all the data, it’s much easier to do great science and make important discoveries.

IGP Career Day 2017: Call for Speakers

The 2017 IGP Career Day committee is now looking for suggestions for speakers.

If you know of someone who would be a valuable resource for current students, please email Christine Wachnowsky (Wachnowsky.1@osu.edu) with their contact information as we to put together another group of diverse and excellent speakers.

 

**Alumni, if you would like to speak about your experiences after OSBP, we would be happy to have you!