Happy holidays! 2019 went by so quickly! But the 2010s have been the decade of VT’s training grants. We now have 68 alumni with PhDs and several more with other doctoral degrees. Our trainees continue to win awards including “2019 Distinguished MAPRS Undergraduate Alumni award" (Dr. Adwoa Dwomoh Baah was the Distinguished IMSD undergrad alum in 2019, Wake Forest), Mr. Leland Fleming, PREP alum, currently pursuing a PhD at University of Alabama at Birmingham in neuroscience, became our second PREP alum to win a DSPAN K99/F00 award. Virginia Tech has made significant progress in our efforts to improve the climate at the University for URMs. These efforts were recently highlighted by the President in a campus wide message. Since we have an extensive and significant alumni base, our speakers series “What Can You do with Your PhD” and “Scientific Journeys” have both involved a significant number of our alumni. These unique efforts continue to make us a very successful community focused on trainee success and development. The proposed speakers for our spring forum can be found here. 

We wish you and yours Happy Holidays and hoping that your contributions and strong support that have made us one of the most successful R25s in the country will continue in the next decade.