ND EPSCoR announces Doctoral Dissertation Awards

The North Dakota Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (ND EPSCoR) has announced the 2010 – 2012 Doctoral Dissertation Assistantship (DDA) awards at UND.

ND EPSCoR’s DDA awards are designed to increase the completion rate of Ph.D. students enrolled in the science, engineering, and mathematics disciplines at North Dakota’s research-intensive universities. Because of the close connection of outstanding graduate students and the competitiveness of North Dakota researchers for receiving merit-based grants and contracts in support of science and technology research from federal funding agencies, the DDA awards are expected to have very high impact.

DDA support is available for up to 24 months to enable doctoral students to dedicate their time exclusively to dissertation research. Applications are made by the students with supplemental information provided by their advisors, along with endorsement from their graduate program director and department chair.

Four competitive awards were made at UND. The review committee was very impressed by the overall quality of the proposals and noted that funding limitations precluded some otherwise deserving proposals from being awarded.

The 2010 DDA students, their departments and faculty mentors, and the topic of their approved research proposals are as follows:

• Anthony Schroeder, Biology, advisor Turk Rhen, “Wolffian Duct Stabilization in the Common Snapping Turtle.”
• Blake McCann, Biology, advisor Rebecca Simmons, “Genetic relationships of feral pigs (Sus scrofa) in North America: geographic origins and genotypic distribution of the species with implications for management.”
• Valeria Stephanova, Chemistry, advisor Irina Smoliakova, “Synthesis of Aminophosphines Using Cyclopalladated Complexes.”
• Gunjan Dhawan, Pharmacology, Physiology and Therapeutics, advisor Colin Combs, “Non-receptor Tyrosine Kinase Activity Modulates Microglial Phenotype with Increasing Age.”

For additional information concerning ND EPSCoR or the DDA program, please contact Mark. R. Hoffmann, Assistant Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Co-Project Director, ND EPSCoR, Twamley Hall 415, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58201-7093, 777-2492 or visit us on the web at www.ndepscor.nodak.edu.