Newswise — For the first time in one academic year, four minority women at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), received doctoral degrees with the help of the federally funded PROMISE program.
PROMISE is the name for Maryland's Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP). The program, now in its 10th year, is funded by the National Science Foundation to increase the number and diversity of PhDs nationwide in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
The word "promise" has special meaning to the four UMB students: Stacey Simmons Williams, Trudy Smith, Jocelyn Reader, and perhaps especially to Marishka Brown. As a teenager, Brown promised herself that she wouldn't end up in a boring job for 40 years. When she was working in a research laboratory at the University of Southern Mississippi on Alzheimer's disease, which afflicted her grandmother, Brown promised herself to stay focused on age-related diseases. And, after she followed her mentor Yuan Luo, PhD, to the School of Pharmacy at UMB as a graduate student, Brown joined the PROMISE program en route to her PhD.
PROMISE provides a support network and professional development training for participating students at UMB, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the University of Maryland, College Park, throughout their PhD educational process.
Brown will soon start her postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania, where she will expand her research interests in age-related diseases. Luo, now an associate professor at the School of Pharmacy, says she is extremely proud of how Brown has grown professionally during their five-year association, one year in Mississippi and four in Baltimore. From a family of six children in the small town of Hattiesburg, Miss., "to a bigger world here in Baltimore, Marishka then went to an even bigger world lately, as she traveled to Japan and Hong Kong to present her research at international meetings. I will miss her greatly," said Luo.
Williams, from Pensacola, Fla., has already written three scientific papers, one published in the journal NeuroReport and two pending publication, on the effects of cocaine on the activity of dopamine in the brain as it relates to the growth and health of neurons or nerve cells. She earned her PhD in December and since has worked as a liaison officer to industry at the Food and Drug Administration on food safety issues. Andrew Coop, PhD, professor and chair of pharmaceutical sciences at the School of Pharmacy, says Williams excelled academically while also giving birth to a daughter in her first year and a son in her fourth year. "She saw it through with great determination, had a baby too, while working on her PhD. I am very proud of all of her achievements."
Jocelyn Reader, from Monessen, Pa., become fascinated with the biological genetics of cancer as she entered a graduate program through the School of Medicine at UMB. "She is always interested in the 'why' or the mechanisms of cancer, a disease which has a genetic base with biomarkers," says her mentor Yi Ning, MD, PhD, associate professor of pathology at the School. Ning says that in clinical work, Reader "reaches out to people in other departments [of the School] to get the whole picture." Reader has received awards for the best graduate oral presentation in cancer research and second place for a research poster.
Trudy Smith, who was born in Jamaica and grew up in New York City, was delighted to receive an e-mail from the PROMISE program just after being accepted into the graduate school at the School of Pharmacy. Coop says, "She's been a pleasure to work with these few years and we are delighted that she found her own funding for a lab position." Smith, through PROMISE, earned a graduate school enrichment fellowship and a pharmaceutical sciences graduate student fellowship. She has recently landed a position as a chemistry reviewer at the Food and Drug Administration.
From 1998-2005, AGEP helped more than 2,300 underrepresented minority doctoral graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.
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