Grayer Fellows Announced
Third-year students Oakley Olsen and Alison Spencer have been named Grayer Fellows. These fellowships were established by Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Grayer. Mr. Grayer is a member of the Gerstner Sloan-Kettering Board of Trustees and the former chairman and CEO of Kaplan, Inc., which he transformed from a small test preparation provider into a global education corporation serving more than one million students. Grayer Fellows are chosen on achieved excellence as demonstrated by their thesis proposal examinations.
Semanti Mukherjee Awarded Chairman's Prize
Semanti Mukherjee, a fifth-year graduate student in Robert Klein's lab in the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program, was awarded the Chairman's Prize for her first-author paper
Including additional controls from public databases improves the power of a genome-wide association study, accepted for publication in May 2011 in
Human Heredity [PubMed Abstract]. The report provides practical guidance for using genotype data from control individuals deposited in public repositories in doing genome-wide association studies.
See Semanti's application essay for a full explanation of the significance of the work and its key findings.
The award was established by Gerstner Sloan-Kettering Board of Trustees Chairman Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., for whom our graduate school is named. Mr. Gerstner is an internationally renowned corporate leader who has long been an advocate of quality education. The Chairman's Award is given annually.
Geoffrey Beene Graduate Student Fellowships Announced
Three second-year students -- Robert Bowman, Jenny Karo, and Gregory Mazo -- received Geoffrey Beene Graduate Student Fellowships. Recipients are selected at the end of their first year of study based on academic excellence. By providing support for outstanding Gerstner Sloan-Kettering students, the Beene Fellowships are designed to expand the pool of investigators trained to pursue research in the highly complex and multidisciplinary field of cancer biology.
Robert B. Catell Fellow Named
Second-year student Shefali Krishna has been named the 2011-2012 Robert B. Catell Fellow. Established by Robert Catell, the fellowship grew out of Mr. Catell's belief in the need for advanced cancer research. It supports the stipend of a Gerstner Sloan-Kettering graduate student for one year. Mr. Catell is the former Chairman and CEO of KeySpan and chairs the Advisory Boards for the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center at Stony Brook University and the New York State Smart Grid Consortium. In addition, he chairs the Advisory Councils of the New York Energy Policy Institute and the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation. Mr. Catell also serves on the boards of the Cristo Rey Network's Lourdes Academy, Futures in Education Endowment, Tomorrow's Hope Foundation, the New York City Police Foundation, and the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research.
Olayan Fellow Selected
Second-year student Joseph Pucella has been selected as the 2011-2012 Olayan Fellow. The fellowship, established by The Olayan Group, supports the stipend of a Gerstner Sloan-Kettering graduate student for one year. Founded in 1947 by Suliman S. Olayan, The Olayan Group is a multinational corporation of more than 50 companies and affiliated businesses.
Palestin Fellowship Awarded
Second-year student Chong Luo has been awarded the 2011-2012 Beatrice P. K. Palestin Fellowship. The fellowship was established in 2006 by the family of Beatrice Palestin to support the stipend of a Gerstner Sloan-Kettering graduate student for one year. Mrs. Palestin was a New York philanthropist with a longtime interest in cancer research.
