Congratulations go out to three UBC Postdocs who are in receipt of a quarterly travel award administered by the Postdoctoral Fellows Office (PDFO) at the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

This is the first time the PDFO has assigned these awards intended to assist UBC Postdocs (PDFs) with travel to conferences to present research performed during their time at UBC.

Winners of this quarter’s awards:

Anna Prudova, Faculty of Dentistry, Centre for Blood Research – Dr. Prudova received an award toward her travel to the Seventh General Meeting of the International Proteolysis Society in San Diego, this past October, where she made an oral presentation of work done in the Overall Lab “Proteome profiling and identification of in vivo substrates of cysteine cathepsins in a murine model of pancreatic cancer.”

Joanna Workman, Faculty of Arts, Department of Psychology – Dr. Workman received an award toward the presentation of her work to the Society of Neuroscience in Washington, DC which took place in early November 2011 – “Elevated corticosterone during the postpartum period reduces complexity of basal arbors of pyramidal cells in the CA3 hippocampal subfield”. Dr. Workman is a PDF working in the Laboratory of Behavioural Endocrinology at UBC with supervisor Dr. Liisa Galea.

Rishi Somvanshi, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences – Dr. Somvanshi also presented at Neuroscience 2011 in Washington DC, “Somatostatin Receptor-4 and μ-Opioid Receptor Interaction Modulates Receptor Coupling, Signaling and Excitatory Postsynaptic Current”. This research was in collaboration with colleagues in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine, UBC.

The PDF travel awards have been made possible thanks to funding from the VP Research Office, the PDFO and contributions from Faculties. Award amounts are to a maximum of $1000 for international travel and $500 for travel within Canada.

The awards will be administered quarterly for all Faculties with the exception of the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Medicine who will administer their own PDF Travel Awards and accept applications directly. The next deadline for applications is December 31, 2011, with details on application and eligibility found in the Postdoctoral section of the Faculty of Graduate Studies website.