2015 Best Paper Awards

Science Unbound Foundation Best Papers of 2015

The Science Unbound Foundation has announced its 2015 award winners for best scientific papers by investigators at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the New York Obesity Research Center at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The awards, plaque and cash prizes are for works published in 2015 in the areas of obesity, nutrition and statistical science.

Brandon George, PhD, Research Associate in the UAB Office of Energetics, was awarded best paper by a UAB-based investigator in the area of general statistics. His paper, “Selecting a separable parametric spatiotemporal covariance structure for longitudinal imaging data”, was published January 15, 2015 in Statistics in Medicine, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sim.6324.

 

 

 

Nianjun Liu, PhD, associate professor in the UAB’s Department of Biostatistics, was awarded best paper by UAB-based investigator in the area of statistical genetics. His paper, “Associating Multivariate Quantitative Phenotypes with Genetic Variants in Family Samples with a Novel Kernel Machine Regression Method” was published December 1, 2015 in Genetics, http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1534/genetics.115.178590.

 

 

Paula Chandler-Laney, PhD, assistant professor in UAB’s Department of Nutrition Sciences, was awarded best paper by UAB-based investigator in the area of obesity or nutrition. Her paper, ” Association of late-night carbohydrate intake with glucose tolerance among pregnant African American women” published in the March 18, 2015 issue of Maternal Child Nutrition, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mcn.12181.

 

 

Elizabeth Widen, PhD, RD, postdoctoral fellow in medicine and epidemiology at Columbia University and the New York Obesity Research Center, was awarded best paper on obesity-related research by an investigator affiliated with the New York Obesity Research Center.  Her paper, “Excessive gestational weight gain is associated with long-term body fat and weight retention at 7 y postpartum in African American and Dominican mothers with underweight, normal, and overweight prepregnancy BMI” was published in the December 2015 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, http://dx.doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.115.116939.

Stacie Totsch, a graduate student in the UAB Department of Psychology PhD program, was awarded best paper by a UAB student in obesity-related research.  Her paper, ” Total Western Diet Alters Mechanical and Thermal Sensitivity and Prolongs Hypersensitivity Following Complete Freund’s Adjuvant in Mice” was published in the July 2010 issue of the Journal of Pain, http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.jpain.2015.10.006.

 

 

The institutions named in the awards were selected on the basis of their demonstrated strength at promoting careers of young investigators in the areas of obesity, nutrition and statistical science.