Press release:
In this unprecedented year, when the world needs exceptional scientific research, the Vallee Foundation is proud to award $1.8 million to six new Vallee Scholars. The Vallee Scholar program provides unrestricted funding for national and international junior faculty at a critical stage in their tenure-track careers. “The awards committee was extremely impressed by the breadth and vision of this year’s candidates and the selection was difficult,” said committee chair Wade Harper, Bert and Natalie Vallee Professor of Molecular Pathology, and Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. "Each of these brilliant young Vallee Scholars brings new and exciting technologies to problems ranging from neuroscience to cancer to the interactions of virus with humans including during previous pandemics, all areas with enormous implications for human health.”
The Vallee Scholar Awards Program recognizes outstanding early career scientists at a critical juncture in their careers. Each Scholar receives $300,000 in discretionary funds to be spent over four years for basic biomedical research. Candidates are competitively selected based on the originality and innovation of their science, the quality of their proposal as evidenced by ideas and execution, and their record of accomplishment. Since 2013, 35 junior faculty have been appointed Vallee Scholars for an investment total of more than $9.5 million.
Awardees are:
Weizhe Hong, PhD, Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry and of Neurobiology at the University of California Los Angeles
Dan Landau, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine
Darcie L. Moore, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Pontus Skoglund, PhD, Group Leader of the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute, London
Michael Yartsev, PhD, Assistant Professor in University of California, Berkeley's Department of Bioengineering, and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
Li Zhao, PhD, Assistant Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics at The Rockefeller University
About the Vallee Foundation
The Vallee Foundation was established by Bert and Kuggie Vallee as their legacy to the advancement of medical science and medical education. The Foundation stimulates development of interdisciplinary sciences related to human health by promoting interaction between productive scientists worldwide.
https://www.thevalleefoundation.org/news