I was grateful to be awarded a supplemental scholarship from the Foundation for Agromedicine and Toxicology. Receiving this financial gift provided me opportunities that have supported my academics, my dissertation research, and my overall development as a scholar. First, the scholarship enabled me to add 14 books to my library that are relevant to my field and studies, but would have been difficult for me to purchase without support. My new books range from discipline-specific volumes (e.g., The Princeton Guide to Ecology, Scientific Communication for Natural Resource Professionals, and The Basic Practice of Social Research) to statistical computing guides (The Little SAS^® Book: A Primer, 5^th Edition) and coursework-required environmental history classics (e.g., Nature’s Metropolis and The Organic Machine) that have provided depth and breadth to my knowledge.

Next, the award partially supported travel and supplies for field research that were beyond the scope of my research funding. Because of the foundation’s generosity, I was able to add value to my dissertation work by taking a trip to the Upper Mississippi River in Iowa. There, I collected sediment and deployed passive sampling devices in the water to be analyzed for contaminants. Having these samples will allow me to put toxicological data from my study organisms (freshwater mussels) in context with environmental contaminant data.

Finally, the scholarship supported my registration and travel to a workshop on conducting focus groups at the UNC Odum Institute for Research in Social Science (Chapel Hill, NC). This workshop is critical to my understanding of qualitative social science research methods that I will use in the final portion of my dissertation, in connecting the public’s perceptions of water quality with their understanding of processes and organisms (such as freshwater mussels) that provide clean water.

I am sincerely thankful for being selected as a 2016 recipient of the Foundation’s supplemental scholarship award. Your support has enriched my research and my academic professional development.

Jennifer Archambault

I have recently successfully defended my PhD in the Toxicology program at NC State, and I would like to thank you for the generous supplemental scholarship award. These funds have provided me the opportunity to travel to conferences I would not have been able to attend without additional financial support.

The funds provided from this award were used to help me travel to the following conferences: 1) The Society of Toxicology (SOT) meeting in Baltimore (March 2017), and 2) The 10th Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences meeting in Seattle (August 2017). The funds provided helped me to pay for air travel, hotel stay, and conference registration.

I presented a poster at SOT where I had a great networking experience, and was able to attend several meetings to learn about emerging issues and experimentation techniques in toxicology. The meeting I attended in August allowed me to further represent NC State by presenting another poster. At this meeting I learned about new technology that can be used toward animal replacement, a field that I am very interested to help develop.

Thank you again for the financial support through the supplemental scholarship award. Again, this support helped me travel to represent NC State Toxicology, and to learn new methods and technologies for toxicity testing.

Gina Hilton

First, I would like to give a huge thank you to the foundation. The scholarship not only afforded me an opportunity to apply for specialty conferences, but because of this opportunity I was also selected to give a podium talk and interacted with some of the experts in the field of lung biology.

As a recipient of the Foundation for Agromedicine and Toxicology Supplemental Scholarship Award I was able to use the funds to apply for, and attend, a specialty pulmonary conference that I otherwise would not have funding for. Not only was I able to attend the Thomas L. Petty Aspen Lung Conference focusing on “Environmental and Global Lung Health: Exposure, Susceptibility and Intervention”, I was selected to give a 15 minute podium talk at the conference. I was one of two graduate students in attendance affording me frequent interactions with postdoctoral scholars and young professors in the professional development workshops offered at the conference. The opportunity to give a podium talk spurred exciting discussions of both my work and other colleagues’ work at the conference. Overall this was a wonderful and exciting professional development experience, and I am grateful for the opportunity the scholarship allowed me to have.

Thank you again,
Katherine Duke

Ms. Crystal Lee Pow, a Ph.D. student from N.C. State University and one of the 2014 Supplemental Scholarship Awardees used the monetary support provided by the Foundation to partially defer the costs of meeting travel, registration, and accommodations so that she could present her research findings at the 145th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society held August 16-20 in Portland, Oregon. Crystal was selected to give her oral presentation entitled “Estrogenic Contaminant Concentrations and the Incidence of Intersex in Centrarchid Fishes: Landscape-Level Relationships in North Carolina” during the Best Student Paper Symposium, an extremely high honor because only 20 of the top students presenting are selected to compete in the Best Student Paper Symposium.

Crystal represented the Foundation and her institution admirably at the meeting and she expressed her sincere gratitude to the Foundation for helping to make her attendance and participation possible.