Physical, Environmental and Computer Science (PECS) Professors Dereck Skeete and Karl Ruddock, and eight of their students – Ahmed Nuhar, Augustus Augustin, Jose Rios, Delisha Bella, Jean Rony Hillaire, Travis Pinnock, Dwane Fraser, and John Awong – will be attending the 49th Annual Meeting of the Society of Toxicology (SOT) in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 7 to 11. Two of these students, Augustus Augustine and Ahmed Nuhar received Undergraduate Toxicology Education Program Travel Awards, that will allow them to participate in the Undergraduate Education Program, which takes place on March 6 and 7. This program is an introduction to the discipline of toxicology for undergraduate science majors and includes an orientation, a special poster session with scientists, and activities with their SOT mentor.
In addition, the students will be presenting the research that they participated in with us, and presented at the 12th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Chemical and Biological Sciences at the University of Maryland, in the Fall of 2009, titled, Is Chelation the Mechanism of Action of p-Aminosalicylic Acid (PAS) in the Treatment of Manganism?
“I am tremendously proud to be able to take eight of Medgar Evers College’s talented environmental science students to this conference to showcase their work,” said Professor Skeete. “These highly motivated and intellectually curious students will be able to learn more, and network with other environmental science students and professionals, while at the conference in Utah.”
Also, Biology student Ms. Sherine Crawford was one of five students across the world to win Pfizer’s Undergraduate Travel Award, which provides funds to students to attend the Society of Toxicology’s Annual Meeting. The purpose of this award is to foster an interest in graduate studies in the field of toxicology. Ms. Crawford will also be traveling to the 49th Annual Meeting of the Society of Toxicology to present her research paper, The Toxic Effects of Manganese on Mitochondrial Respiration and Mitochondrial Membrane Potential in the Gill of the Bivalve Crassostrea virginica (co-authors Medgar Evers College Biology student Claudette Saddler, and Biology Professors Dr. Edward Catapane and Dr. Margaret Carroll), previously presented at the 12th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Chemical and Biological Sciences at the University of Maryland.
Ms. Crawford is the second Medgar Evers College student in the past two years to win the Pfizer Travel Award, the first being Yamel Perdomo (B.S. ‘09).
About Medgar Evers College, CUNY
Medgar Evers College was founded in 1970 through the efforts from educators and community leaders in central Brooklyn. The College is named after Medgar Wiley Evers, a Mississippi-born black civil rights activist who was assassinated on June 12, 1963. The College is divided into four schools: The School of Business; The School of Professional and Community Development; The School of Liberal Arts and Education; and The School of Science, Health, and Technology. Through these Schools, the College offers 29 associate and baccalaureate degree programs, as well as certificate programs in fields such as English, Nursing, and Accounting. Medgar Evers College also operates several co-curricular and external programs and associated centers such as the Male Development and Empowerment Center, the Center for Women’s Development, the Center for Black Literature, and The DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy.