Postdoc Honors

Dr. Elizabeth Cho Receives HSC’ s First SBE Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award from the NSF

Dr. Cho is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Scott Maddux, PhD, where she studies patterns of both cranial and postcranial skeletal variation in modern human populations. Her research explores the influence of climate and neutral evolutionary forces on male and female body form through the combination of osteometric, weather, and autosomal SNP data.

Elizabeth’s whole-body approach allows for a better understanding of how the entire human form has evolved in response to different environmental conditions while comparing findings from East Asian populations to thermoregulatory adaptations identified in other regions of the world.  By examining the morphology of both sexes, she aims to improve understanding of climate’s selective pressure on female body form, elucidate potential sex-specific patterns of adaptation, and clarify the relationship between dimorphism, body size, and climate.  Elizabeth recently expanded her focus to living individuals and is currently testing links between physiology, anatomical variation, and skeletal structure.

Dr. Maddineni is awarded the first NIH K99/R00 at HSC

Prabhavathi Maddineni, PhD is a post doctoral fellow in Dr. Gulab Zode’s lab in the North Texas Eye Research Institute.  Prabha just learned that her K99/R00 application to the NIH National Eye Institute will be funded; the K99/R00 is a mentored career development award. This is the first K99 ever funded at HSC.  Her grant is titled “The role of impaired mitophagy and mitochondrial dysfunction in glaucomatous neurodegeneration”, it will fund her last two years as a post doc (K99) and her first three years as a faculty member (R00).

Across the country, researchers are working around the clock to identify ways to help those living with the disease. Joining this effort is Dr. Ella Anle Kasanga, a visiting researcher who recently graduated from the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth. Dr. Kasanga is a recipient of the Parkinson’s Foundation Visiting Scholar Award which offers graduate students and postdoctoral fellows the chance to expand their skill set to support their Parkinson’s disease research. As part of the scholarship, Dr. Kasanga is visiting the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work where she works under the mentorship of Dr. Jason Richardson, Associate Dean for Research.

Learn more about her work.