The Norman P. Salzman Memorial Awards in Basic and Clinical Virology honor the 40-year career of Dr. Norman P. Salzman in virology research and his accomplishments in mentoring young scientists. Congratulations to Nagela Ghabdan Zanluqui, 2024 Post-Doctoral Awardee. She is an immunologist with a fundamental interest in how the central nervous system (CNS) defends itself against viruses. Read more.

Federal Funding Award Will Enhance HIV Prevention for Formerly Incarcerated African American Women.
Becky White, MD MPH, an infectious disease physician and member of the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, has been awarded $677,000 by the National Institutes of Health to adapt a formerly incarcerated transition program called “FIT” to provide HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) upon release in community health centers. Read more.

Dr. Huda Zoghbi Invested as a Member of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters.

RFS board member Dr. Huda Zoghbi has been invested as a member of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters (the Academy) in recognition of intellectual excellence and courage. She is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and founding Director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital. Read more. Image via Baylor College of Medicine.

In its tenth year, Female Founders Fund has returned its first fund.
This month, Maven, a women’s and family health startup announced it had raised $125 million funding at a $1.7 billion valuation. It was a crucial moment for Female Founders Fund (FFF), which did a partial secondary sale in conjunction with the new round. Read more.

Dr. Claire Chewapreecha wins Nature Award for Inspiring Women in Science.
The Inspiring Women in Science awards celebrate and support the achievements of women in science, plus all those who work to encourage girls and young women to engage with STEM subjects and stay in STEM careers around the world. Dr. Chewapreecha leads a team at MORU who collect, sequence, and analyze genetic data from a neglected tropical disease which affects 165,000 people each year and is often fatal. Read more.

Two Women Academics Named Recipients of the 2024 Rolf Schock Prize.

Lai-Sang Young, the Henry & Lucy Moses Professor of Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, has received the 2024 Rolf Schock Prize in Mathematics. She was recognized for her “long-lasting and deep contribution to the theory of non-uniformly hyperbolic dynamical systems.” Read more. (Image via NYU)

Why a Wealthy University Is Selling 2 of Its Paintings. 
Rockefeller University (a member of our Council of Academic Institutions) will auction off two works by Joan Mitchell, an Abstract Expressionist painter. They could sell for $32 million. Read more.

Kristy Pabilonia Recognized for Contributions to Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory Medicine.
Kristy Pabilonia, executive director of clinical diagnostics for the Colorado State University Veterinary Health System, has received the 2024 E. P. Pope Award from the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians. Read more.

In Memoriam: Mary Helen Goldsmith, plant biologist, environmentalist, Silliman head.

Mary Helen Goldsmith, a plant physiologist and longtime professor who helped create an undergraduate major in environmental studies at Yale, led the Marsh Botanical Garden for 16 years, died at Whitney Center in Hamden, Connecticut on Oct. 2. She was 91. Read more. Image via Yale University.

River Philip Foundation gives $2.5M to Dalhousie medical research projects.
Dr. Susan Howlett, Dr. Leah Cahill, Dr. Ken Rockwood and Dr. Scott Grandy received one of the two transformational research grants of $1 million to launch their STRONG study to test the effects of protein, blueberries, and strength training on reducing frailty and improving heart health in adults aged 65-85. The second $1-million grant will go to Dr. Tobias Kollmann and Dr. Nima Aghaeepour. They are conducting a proof-of-concept study to test remote home pregnancy monitoring. Read more.

Financing The Next VC-Backed Startup: The Role of Gender.
Is there a gender gap in the serial founding of VC-backed startups? Researchers address this question by introducing a new empirical design that exploits differences in future funding outcomes for men and women who co-founded the same startup. Read more.

Two Women College Presidents Receive Contract Extensions.

Valerie Smith, president of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, has received a contract extension through June 2027. Kathleen Harring, president of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, has received a contract extension through June 2028. Read more. (Image: Valerie Smith, president of Swarthmore College)

Coronado Research Limited announces appointment of Professor Jennifer Visser-Rogers as Chief Scientific Officer.
Coronado Research announced that Professor Jennifer Visser-Rogers has been appointed as Chief Scientific Officer. A former Vice President of the Royal Statistical Society, Jennifer is the incoming President of the International Biometrics Society, British and Irish Region, and was named one of the Twenty Women in Data and Tech for 2024 by Women in Data®. Read more.

New Shepard's 28th Mission Includes Emily Calandrelli and Two Returning Customers.

Blue Origin revealed the six people flying on its NS-28 mission.The crew includes two women: Emily Calandrelli and Sharon Hagle. This mission will be the ninth human flight for the New Shepard program and the 28th in its history. To date, the program has flown 43 humans above the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space. Read more. Image via Blue Origin

Mission to Inform: How a NASA Intern Brought Space Science to Life.
As a summer intern at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Nora Lowe played a role in supporting NASA’s upcoming flagship mission, the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope. Lowe was tasked with assisting in the reporting and publicizing of the telescope’s developmental milestones. Read more.

How to Enter the Chen Institute & Science Prize for AI Accelerated Research.
Through the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute and Science Prize for Al Accelerated Research, the editors of Science and the Chen Institute will recognize innovative young researchers who apply techniques in Artificial Intelligence (Al), such as Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, or Deep Learning, to address basic research questions in the physical or life sciences. Read more