EHS Lab Members Receive Society of Toxicology Awards

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Student lab members pose with Professor Alicia Timme-Laragy at the Society of Toxicology meeting.

Five students working in the environmental health science labs of faculty members Alexander Suvorov and Alicia Timme-Laragy received awards at the Society of Toxicology’s (SOT) 62nd annual meeting held this spring in Nashville, TN. The award recipients include three doctoral students and two undergraduate students.

"I'm incredibly proud of our students!” says Timme-Laragy. “These awards are a testament to the high caliber and quality of the research they are conducting here at UMass, and I'm delighted that SOT has recognized them."

Doctoral candidate Olatunbosun Arowolo, who works in the Suvorov Lab, received three travel awards to present his research at the conference. They include:

• the Society of Toxicology travel award;
• the Northeastern Society of Toxicology travel award; and
• the Toxicologists of African Origin SIG TAO Student Travel Award.

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Olatunbosun Arowolo presents a research poster at the SPHHS Research Day.

"Environmental stressors and lifestyle factors affect inheritable epigenetic programs in sperm but molecular mechanisms linking paternal exposures and sperm epigenome remain elusive," says Suvorov. "The work by Olatunbosun is the first significant breakthrough in this research area as it discovers molecular mechanisms that shape sperm epigenome."

Doctoral candidate Marjorie Marin, who works in the Timme-Laragy Lab, received the 3rd place graduate student travel award from the Northeast Society of Toxicology Chapter.

Doctoral candidate Madeline Tompach, who also works in the Timme-Laragy Lab, received two awards:

• 1st place graduate student travel award from the Northeast Society of Toxicology Chapter; and
• the Mechanisms Specialty Section Sheldon D. Murphy Graduate Student Endowment Award.

Two undergraduate students working in the Timme-Laragy Lab also received awards.

Isabella Boyack, a veterinary and animal sciences major and Commonwealth Honors College student who was recently named a spring 2023 Rising Researcher, received the following awards:

• the Society of Toxicology Undergraduate Research Award;
• 3rd place undergraduate research award from the Molecular and Systems Biology Specialty Section; and
• 2nd place undergraduate student award from the Reproductive and Developmental Toxicology Specialty Section.

Charlotte Gridley, an environmental science major and Commonwealth Honors College student, also received the 3rd place undergraduate research award from the Molecular and Systems Biology Specialty Section.

Founded in 1961, the Society of Toxicology is a professional and scholarly organization of scientists from academic institutions, government, and industry representing the great variety of scientists who practice toxicology in the US and abroad. The Society’s mission is to create a safer and healthier world by advancing the science and increasing the impact of toxicology.