The goal of the Stead Family Scholars Program is to recognize and advance the development of outstanding early-career faculty who are becoming internationally recognized leaders in their respective fields of research. Scholars receive $125,000 per year for three years to pursue new, unexplored ideas that promise consequential discoveries as well as leadership and communication training to advance their professional development. The program has already begun to pay dividends, allowing Scholars in previous cohorts to expand their programs, pivot into new methods, and publish novel findings.
This year’s Stead Family Scholars are:
Georgina Aldridge, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Neurology
Aldridge’s lab seeks to bridge human and mouse research by evaluating the underlying causes and contributing factors of multiple-etiology dementia, including Lewy body dementia. She studies the relationship between aggregates that build up in the brain and changes in sleep, mood, cognition, and psychiatric function. With this award, she will monitor these symptoms across time in individuals living with dementia, comparing how symptoms interact and differ by disease type.
Deniz Atasoy, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology
Atasoy’s research focuses on central neural circuits regulating appetite and glucose homeostasis. With this funding, he plans to investigate the brain stem neural pathways that counter hypoglycemia and how they become defective in hypoglycemia unawareness.
Rebecca Dodd, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Internal Medicine–Hematology, Oncology, and Blood and Marrow Transplantation
Dodd is co-leader of the Cancer Genes and Pathways program at UI Health Care Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her research focuses on understanding cancer growth and metastasis. With this funding, she plans to test innovative anti-cancer therapies and develop biomarkers for metastatic disease.