Each year, the Postdoctoral Awards for Research Excellence (PARE) are given in recognition of the research promise demonstrated by individual postdoctoral scholars. Meet this year’s recipients and learn about their areas of interest.
The PARE awards are open to postdoctoral scholars in all disciplines. Each recipient receives a monetary award of $1,200 along with a plaque.
Each of these winners will be presenting their research activity at the PARE Talks during this year’s University Research Week on Thursday, October 24 at 3 p.m. in the Pleasants Room at Wilson Library.
This year’s PARE recipients are:
László Bálint, Department of Cell Biology & Physiology, School of Medicine
Research: In the lab of Kathleen Caron, Bálint studies the organ-specific roles of lymphatic vessels in physiological and pathophysiological processes, with a special focus on the lymphatics in the heart and central nervous system. In his most recent studies, he revealed a molecular mechanism that promotes the formation of novel lymphatic vessels upon ischemic heart injury — when the heart’s arteries restrict blood flow and oxygen to the heart — and improves survival post-cardiac injury.
Impact: Historically, lymphatic vasculature has been largely underappreciated and understudied. Bálint’s findings provide a better understanding of the roles of organ-specific lymphatic vessels in health and disease.
Katherine Barnett, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, School of Medicine
Research: In Jenny Ting’s lab, Barnett researches how viruses damage human hosts and stimulate the immune system with an emphasis on SARS-CoV-2 infection. She has led multiple, highly collaborative research projects that revealed how damage from SARS-CoV-2 infection stimulates inflammation exacerbated in severe COVID-19 cases, how the virus causes cell death in the airway, and how inflammatory responses to the strain differ between organ systems. Overall, her work revealed a critical role for cell death and damage in the immune response and identified key molecular pathways involved in COVID-19 pathogenesis.
Impact: COVID-19 can damage many organ systems and has dangerous manifestations attributed to immune dysfunction, such as life-threatening sickness and debilitating long COVID. This work is essential to understanding how viral damage processes contribute to the different manifestations of COVID-19 and pinpoint molecular targets for therapeutic intervention.
Kaneesha R. Johnson, Department of Political Science, College of Arts and Sciences
Research: A fellow within the Carolina Postdoctoral Program for Faculty Diversity, Johnson’s research lies at the intersection of public policy, the criminal legal system, and historical institutionalism within the field of American politics. Using statistical and archival research methods, her work identifies how the state punishes people through various institutions — including the criminal legal, education, housing, and welfare systems — with a focus on racial and class inequalities in punitive encounters. Her work also examines how highly punished communities build power to counteract negative interactions with the state.
Impact: This work expands the discipline’s definition of punishment beyond the criminal legal system and, in turn, provides a more complete picture of subjugated communities.
Matthew Kessinger, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences
Research: Kessinger’s research focuses on understanding the fundamental bond-forming and bond-breaking steps involved in converting water and carbon dioxide into useful chemical fuels. One approach to achieving clean and renewable energy is to store the unused energy produced by sunlight in new chemical bonds. His work uses time-resolved absorption spectroscopy — monitoring changes in light molecule absorption as a function of time — to study the initial chemical steps involved in water oxidation. He seeks ways to direct and control these reactions for more efficient solar fuels formation.
Impact: This work will develop new techniques that will allow researchers to study complex chemical transformation at the material interfaces used in next-generation solar fuel technologies. In addition, Kessinger’s work will provide researchers and chemical engineers with the ability to design catalytic systems where the fundamental steps involved in water oxidation can be easily controlled, providing more efficient routes to achieve solar fuels formation. In doing so, this work will pave the way for new energy storage technologies and encourage the adoption of renewable fuels.
Maria White, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine
Research: Maria White studies viral lymphomas — blood cancers that develop in the lymph system —which are a subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma caused by infection with human gammaherpesviruses. These lymphomas are often aggressive and develop drug resistance. White is interested in characterizing novel treatment targets for these cancers. Her research demonstrates that inhibiting mitotic kinase (NEK2) could be a new treatment approach for viral lymphoma. Her data shows that targeting NEK2 cannot only kill viral lymphoma cells but also reduce drug resistance signatures.
Impact: This work will help contribute to novel therapeutic options for patients with viral non-Hodgkin lymphoma and further the understanding of how viral lymphomas develop, progress, and become resistant to drugs.