4 students in Minority Science Programs snag research awards at annual meeting of AAAS

Four UCI undergraduates participating in the Francisco J. Ayala School of Biological Sciences’ Minority Science Programs received awards for their research presentations in the poster competition at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences’ 2017 annual meeting, in Boston. AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society. The research poster competition is open to undergraduate and graduate students from domestic and international institutions. The UCI awardees and their categories are: Betsy Juarez (winner), developmental biology, physiology & immunology; Nicholas Ramirez (honorable mention), environment & ecology; Michelle Kalu (honorable mention), medicine & public health; and Marlen Tagle Rodriguez (honorable mention), technology, engineering & math. In addition, 13 MSP students received an award at the 2016 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in Tampa, Fla., and three received an award at the 2016 Sigma Xi Annual Meeting & Student Research Conference in Atlanta. Overall, 19 MSP students have been granted fall 2017 admission to doctoral programs at such top institutions as UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, Columbia University, UCLA and Yale University. UCI MSP students are supported by training grants funded by the National Institutes of Health. The aim is to prepare them to pursue doctoral degrees and careers in biomedical research.