Stacey Simon, a postdoctoral researcher working on the National Science Foundation-funded rice epigenome project at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute (DBI), was recently awarded a Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship.
The prestigious honor is administered by the National Research Council of The National Academies and is awarded to only 20 postdoctoral researchers working in the United States each year. It entitles Simon to a generous stipend during the coming academic year, as well as to a $1,500 allowance to the University for continued research into the following year. It also provides Simon with the opportunity to attend an all-expenses-paid conference for Ford Fellows in the coming months and continuous access to a network of fellows and scientific support liaisons during her research.
“I'm doing something that I hope inspires others to follow the same path that I did,” Simon said, “and I think being awarded something like this is really valuable. It's important to see more women in science and to see the field become more diversified; and so for me the fellowship is important not so much for the financial gain, but for the recognition that I'm a minority in an area where you don't see very many. I think that not enough people appreciate the need for diversity in our fields of work.”
Simon, who found out about the Ford Fellowship in the process of applying for others aimed at postdoctoral researchers, said that her commitment to academia was especially in line with the honor's criteria, and she added that her desire to make the fields of scientific research and teaching more inclusive was a factor that inspired her to apply.
Materials required for the application included a dissertation abstract; a list of previous awards, honors, grants and published articles; a statement of completed research; a proposed plan of study for current research; long-range career goals; and a personal statement. Letters of recommendation written by former academic advisors, as well as by her current principal investigator, Blake Meyers, associate professor of plant and soil sciences at UD, rounded out the package and attested to Simon's commitment and research.
“This postdoctoral fellowship is intended for individuals who show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers. The basis of the fellowship is to increase diversity among faculty in academia, in order to bring new perspectives to research and teaching,” Simon said. “The idea is for the recipient to develop a project that includes independent and mentored research that can be done at an institution with amenities that facilitate scholarly training. Working with Blake and other researchers at UD fulfills the criteria easily.”
Meyers, who recruited Simon to work in his lab on the rice epigenome project, said that her enthusiasm for science and commitment to research bring a valuable component to the venture.
“Stacey is a real delight to work with,” he said. “I first met her when she was a graduate student when I visited Virginia Tech to give a seminar in the fall of 2003, and I could see her excitement about science and the depth of her interest in the work that she was doing. I plotted with her graduate adviser to see what I could do to recruit her to my group for a postdoctoral position upon the completion of her doctoral degree, and needless to say, I was extraordinarily pleased when she decided to come to the University.
“She now is leading a new NSF-funded project in my group focused on rice epigenetics, and she has given it a tremendous start. Within the first year, she has helped to establish a number of strong research collaborations and has obtained materials for the project from all over the world,” Meyers said.
“Her receipt of this prestigious fellowship is a wonderful recognition of her accomplishments and her potential as a scientist. It will give her independence as a researcher and allow her to pursue some of her own projects and interests while she continues to work with me on rice epigenetics and other projects.”
Simon, who has been working on characterizing epigenetic changes in rice (Oryza sativa) at DBI for the past eight months, proposed that she explore the regulatory roles of small RNAs in rice in response to infection by the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae (rice blast), which can cause severe losses in grain yield each year.
Her research, both in the NSF-funded rice epigenetics project and in her independent work with small RNAs and Magnaporthe oryzae, is a leap in a new direction for her, and one that she is pleased about.
“The new area of research is really good for me because it's challenging, and I get the added benefit of working with a major food crop,” Simon said. “I previously worked with Arabidopsis, a member of the mustard family, and it's nice to work in a system that directly impacts so many people globally.”
Simon added that a recent three-week rice research-to-production course that she took in the Philippines, where she saw the benefits of working in a major food crop, further confirmed that the tack in her research was a good move.
“Rice blast is not something we hear a lot about in the United States, but its effect can be huge in places like Asia, where rice accounts for more than 40 percent of the average person's calorie consumption,” Simon said. “My previous research interests were in the evolution of disease resistance, and now I'm in a new field of research that I hope will provide me with the tools to address agronomically important issues. I made the decision to switch research objectives because I think that if you're going to do it, the time to do it is at the beginning stages of your postdoctoral career. Also, small RNAs are a hot area of research, so it's nice to do something new that's currently in the limelight.”
Article by Becca Hutchinson
Photo by Duane Perry