The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has selected Geisel School of Medicine graduate student Ruth Kabeche as a 2014-2017-award recipient of the ASM Robert D. Watkins Graduate Research Fellowship. Kabeche will receive up to $21,000 in an annual stipend for three years to continue her research on the role of membrane compartments in fungal biology.
The Watkins fellowship seeks to increase the number of graduate students from underrepresented groups completing doctoral degrees in the microbiological sciences. The program is aimed at highly competitive students who are enrolled in a PhD program and have completed their graduate coursework in the microbiological sciences. Fellows and their mentors are required to be members of ASM. This year, thirty-three applications were received and nine were awarded. All of the awardees are from doctoral/research universities.
“This award is very well deserved. It recognizes Ruth’s past accomplishments and future potential,” says James Moseley, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry at the Geisel School of Medicine and Kabeche's mentor. “She has tackled a very basic problem in cell biology: how are compartments inside the cell made, and what are their functions? As a graduate student at Geisel, she has characterized the formation and function of a previously mysterious compartment in fungal cells. The work has major implications for understanding how cells work, and may someday be applied to therapies that target fungal infections.”
“Ruth has been so active in our research laboratory and throughout Geisel, it is great to see her recognized with such a prestigious award,” says Moseley.
The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), headquartered in Washington, DC, is the oldest and largest single biological membership organization, with over 43,000 members worldwide. Please visit http://www.asm.org/watkins for more information on this fellowship.