DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics

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Overview

In 2001, the Genetics Society of America established The DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics, recognizing the critical role DeLill Nasser played in the field. The award supports geneticists in their graduate or postdoctoral career stages by subsidizing participation in conferences and laboratory courses. For virtual events, the award covers the cost of registration fees, up to a maximum of $1,000. For in-person events, the award can be used to cover travel, accommodation, and/or registration fees, up to a maximum of $1,000.

DeLill Nasser was a long-time GSA member and National Science Foundation Program Director in Eukaryotic Genetics. Nasser, who died in 2000, was at the National Science Foundation for more than 22 years and has been called the “patron saint of real genetics” and a major force in the development of the field. By giving researchers time and support, Nasser enabled them to work on genetic problems, sometimes seemingly obscure, which resulted in significant progress in genetics; among many examples are her championing of Arabidopsis research and Drosophila neurogenetics. Nasser was especially supportive of young scientists, people who were beginning their careers, and those trying to open new areas of genetic inquiry.

Read more about Nasser in the tribute published in the August 2001 issue of GENETICS.

Deadline

The deadline to apply is April 19, 2023 by 11:59 p.m. EDT.

DeLill Nasser Awards have two rounds of applications per year; one for courses and conferences occurring between January 1 and June 30, and another for courses and conferences occurring between July 1 and December 31. Monitor the GSA e-News and this webpage for updates about application windows.

Application Process

Apply via the button at the top of this page. You will need to sign in using your GSA member account details to access the form. As well as information about yourself and the conference or course you plan to attend, you will need to provide the following:

• • Describe how the meeting/course will enhance your professional development (100-500 words)
  • Justify your requested grant amount (10-350 words)
  • ONLY POSTDOCS: Provide a description of your graduate research experience (500 words)
  • Describe your record of service to the scientific community (350 words)
  • Statement of current research interests and progress (350 words)
  • Your Curriculum Vitae in PDF form
  • Name and email address of two references who can provide letters of recommendation

Eligibility

GSA members who are graduate students or postdocs may apply for a DeLill Nasser Award. Only those with current membership in either the graduate student or postdoc category will be able to access the application form. Join or renew today to make your GSA membership active for now through the end of next year. Post-baccalaureates, lab technicians, or individuals who are searching for faculty positions but are no longer postdocs are not eligible.

Selection Criteria

In the first round, the DeLill Nasser Award Selection Committee will consider:

Significance of research:

• • Research must be in genetics and not, for example, biophysics
  • Research with higher impact on the field would be reviewed more favorably
  • Applicant-initiated science is an asset

Productivity, based on:

• • Publication record
  • Letters of recommendation

Other considerations:

• • Demonstrated service and leadership (primarily for postdoctoral applicants)
  • Seniority of student/postdoc (applicants nearing the end of their postdoctoral training or graduate degree who have been productive are generally given higher priority over those at the start of their training).

In the second round, the DeLill Nasser Award Selection Committee will consider:

• • The level of genetic content at the conference or course you would like to attend. For example, conferences or courses focusing on neuroscience or developmental biology would be given lower priority than conferences/courses with high genetic content, unless the applicant can make a compelling case.
  • Diversity:
    • Gender/race/ethnicity
    • Geographic location/type of institution

 

FAQs

I am the recipient of a DeLill Nasser Award. Can you please make the check out to my institution so that I don’t need to pay taxes on this award?

The DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics is awarded to individuals, not institutions; as such, we make the check out to the award winner. Each winner must fill out a Form W-9 (US citizens) or a Form W-8BEN (citizens outside of the US) for the Internal Revenue Service. Please plan for your taxes accordingly.

My reference(s) didn’t get an email asking them to upload the recommendation letter. What should I do?

• • Make sure that the email address for your reference was entered correctly.
  • Have your reference check their spam folder.
  • If neither of the above explains why the email was not received, please email Anne Marie Mahoney: mahoney@genetics-gsa.org.

The application form says I am not eligible for the award, but I am a member of GSA. What should I do?

If you recently joined, please wait 20 minutes and then refresh the page before entering the site so your membership status will be updated. If the problem persists, please email Anne Marie Mahoney: mahoney@genetics-gsa.org.

Can I use the DeLill Nasser Award to attend any conference?

Yes! A DeLill Nasser Award may be used to attend any course or conference that would enhance the recipient’s professional development in genetics.

Support the DeLill Nasser Fund

The DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics is made possible by generous contributions from our donors. Please consider contributing to support our community’s early career members.

Donate Now

Past Recipients

Year	Name	Institution
2021	Neftaly Cruz Mireles	The Sainsbury Laboratory
2021	Melissa Drown	University of Miami
2021	Hayden Hatch	Albert Einstein College of Medicine
2021	Dianiris Luciano-Rosario	University of Wisconsin, Madison
2021	Joaquin Nunez	University of Virginia
2021	Joseph Uche Ogbede	University of British Columbia
2021	Anton Suvorov	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2021	Valeria Velasquez Zapata	Iowa State University
2021	Vikas Yadav	Duke University
2021	Wenyu Zhang	Max-Planck Institute
2021	Uma Arora	The Jackson Laboratory/Tufts University
2021	Xiaofei Bai	National Institutes of Health
2021	Ankita Chavan	ETH Zurich
2021	Braveen Joseph	University of Wyoming
2021	Murat Can Kalem	University at Buffalo, SUNY
2021	Seyma Katrinli	Emory University
2021	Riley Kellermeyer	University of Nevada, Reno
2021	Jason Millington	University of British Columbia
2021	Jessamyn Perlmutter	University of Kansas
2021	Xiaofeng (Allen) Su	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2020	Chee Kiang Ewe	University of California Santa Barbara
2020	Felipe Martelli	Monash University
2020	Molly Matty	Salk Institute for Biological Studies
2020	Daniel Lee	California Institute of Technology
2020	Madhumala Sadanandappa	Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
2020	Lengxob ‘Lenny’ Yong	University of Exeter
2020	Angli Xue	The University of Queensland; Garvan Institute of Medical Research
2020	Rachel Waymack	University of California Irvine
2020	Farida Yasmin	University of North Carolina at Charlotte
2020	Katie Billmyre	Stowers Institute for Medical Research
2020	Ching-Ho Chang	University of Rochester
2020	Jae Young Choi	New York University
2020	Andrea Cuentas-Condori	Vanderbilt University
2020	Troy McDiarmid	University of British Columbia
2020	Summer Morrill	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2020	Juan D. Rodriguez	Emory University
2020	Sophia Tintori	New York University
2020	Patricka Williams-Simon	University of Missouri
2020	Celja Uebel	University of Southern California
2019	Yu-Chieh Chen	UC Riverside
2019	Lauren Donoghue	University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
2019	Jullien Michelle Flynn	Cornell University
2019	Theodora Koromila	California Institute of Technology
2019	Julia M. Kreiner	University of Toronto
2019	Marie Saitou	University at Buffalo
2019	Monica Rose Sanchez	Stanford University
2019	Chloe Snider	Vanderbilt University
2019	Bryan Thornlow	University of California, Santa Cruz
2019	Amy K. Webster	Duke University
2019	Philipp Brand	UC Davis
2019	Jessie Fernandez	UT Southwestern Medical Center
2019	Talia Hatkevich	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2019	Matthew Jones	University of Montana
2019	Balint Z. Kacsoh	Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
2019	Katja Kasimatis	University of Oregon
2019	Edgar M Medina	Duke University
2019	Wynn K Meyer	University of Pittsburgh
2019	Rebecca A.S. Palu	University of Utah
2019	Lesley N Weaver	Johns Hopkins University
2018	Ina Anreiter	University of Toronto
2018	Kathleen Gray Ferris	University of California, Davis
2018	Nandita Garud	Gladstone Institutes at UCSF
2018	Piya Ghose	The Rockefeller University
2018	Seungsoo Kim	University of Washington
2018	Danielle L Kopke	Vanderbilt University
2018	David Peris Navarro	IATA
2018	Chloe Robins	Emory University
2018	Clare So	University of Toronto
2018	Junior John West	University of Toronto
2018	Maria Bravo Nunez	Stowers Institute for Medical Research
2018	Mahul Chakraborty	University of California, Irvine
2018	Alys Cheatle Jarvela	University of Maryland
2018	Nancy Chen	University of California, Davis
2018	Priscilla Erickson	University of Virginia
2018	Alexandra Erwin	University of Kansas
2018	Piero Lamelza	University of Washington
2018	Caiti Smukowski	University of Washington
2018	David Truong	NYU Langone Health
2018	Dona Wisidagama	University of Utah
2017	Richard Coleman	University of Hawaii at Manoa
2017	Emily Davenport	Cornell University
2017	Marissa Fletcher	MIT
2017	Daniel Grimes	Princeton University
2017	Joshua Li	The University of Queensland
2017	Colin Olito	Monash University
2017	Jasmine Ono	University of British Columbia
2017	Daniel Schrider	Rutgers University
2017	Valerie Tornini	Yale University
2017	Jinglin Lucy Xie	Stanford University School of Medicine
2017	Terry Felton	University College London
2017	Abigail Lind	Vanderbilt University
2017	Albert Mondragon	Boston University
2017	Taehyun Ryu	University of Southern California
2017	Michele Sammut	University College London
2017	Igor Iatsenko	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
2017	Nikos Konstantinides	New York University
2017	Jyoti Misra	Rutgers University
2017	Luke Noble	New York University
2017	Jennifer Wisecaver	Vanderbilt University
2016	Emily Behrman	University of Pennsylvania
2016	Grace Goh	University of British Columbia
2016	Vanessa Gray	University of Washington
2016	Granton Jindal	Princeton University
2016	Aashiq Kachroo	The University of Texas at Austin
2016	Grace Y. C. Lee	Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
2016	Joy Meserve	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2016	Adam Norris	Harvard University
2016	Gaurav Varshney	National Human Genome Research Institute
2016	Anna Vickrey	University of Utah
2016	Richard Wang	University of Wisconsin – Madison
2016	Mayu Inaba	University of Michigan
2016	Havva Keskin	Georgia Institute of Technology
2016	Xiaobo Li	Carnegie Institution for Science
2016	Hongan Long	Indiana University at Bloomington
2016	Kentaro Noma	University of California, San Diego
2016	Stefan Oehlers	Duke University Medical Center
2016	Konstantinos Palikaras	University of Crete, Greece
2016	Sambasivam Periyannan	Agriculture CSIRO, Canberra, Australia
2016	Monica Wu	University of Toronto, Canada
2015	Keir Balla	University of California, San Diego
2015	Cara Brand	University of Rochester
2015	Sarah Deng	Columbia University Medical Center
2015	Carol Myrick Anderson	University of California, San Francisco
2015	Patricia Jumbo Lucioni	Vanderbilt University
2015	Hannah Seidel	University of Wisconsin – Madison
2015	Hagen Tilgner	Stanford University
2015	Jeremy Yoder	University of Minnesota
2015	Kevin Wei	Cornell University
2015	Qi Zhou	University of California, Berkeley
2015	Robert Blake Billmyre	Duke University
2015	Justin Bosch	University of California, Berkeley
2015	Yee Lian Chew	University of Sydney, Australia
2015	Collin Ewald	Harvard Medical School
2015	Travis Johnson	Monash University, Australia
2015	Ivan Liachko	University of Washington
2015	Hansong Ma	University of California, San Francisco
2015	Kevin Schoenfelder	Duke University
2014	Alina Chan	University of British Columbia
2014	Amanda Socha	Dartmouth College
2014	Emily Fawcett	University of Washington
2014	Jason Rogers	Princeton University
2014	Meleah Hickman	University of Minnesota
2014	Michelle Leach	University of Toronto
2014	Daniel Pollard	University of California, San Diego
2014	Huanyu (Joe) Qiao	University of California, Davis
2014	Tiffany Timbers	Simon Fraser University
2014	Yang Cao	University of Wisconsin – Madison
2014	Huan Chen	Columbia University Medical Center
2014	Fang Yum Lim	University of Wisconsin – Madison
2014	Matthew Niepielko	Rutgers University
2014	Nathaniel Sharp	University of Toronto
2014	Charissa de Bekker	Pennsylvania State University
2014	George Eisenhoffer, Jr.	Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah
2014	Eric Joyce	Harvard Medical School
2014	Eric Stoffregan	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2014	Sen (Allen) Xu	Indiana University
2014	Amanda Zacharias	University of Pennsylvania
2013	Daniel Bricker	University of Utah
2013	Jason C Slot	Vanderbilt University
2013	Alysia Mortimer	Emory University
2013	Mengshu Xu	University of Toronto
2013	Olga Novikova	University at Albany
2013	Wen Huang	North Carolina State University
2013	Russ Corbett-Detig	Harvard Univeristy
2013	Kathy Ngo	University of California – Las Angeles
2013	Robert Unckless	Cornell University
2013	Maria Hindt	Dartmouth College
2013	Brian Arnold	Harvard University
2013	Sara Beese-Sims	Harvard Medical School
2013	Kingsley Boateng	NIDDK/NIH
2013	Kerry Geiler-Samerotte	New York University
2013	Aleeza Gerstein	University of Minnesota
2012	Xin Li	Vanderbilt University
2012	Krista Dobi	Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
2012	Kathleen Dumas	University of Michigan
2012	Yun Wu	Princeton University
2012	Megan Phifer-Rixey	University of Arizona
2012	Zhiyong Shao	Yale University
2012	Michael Eastwood	University of Toronto
2012	Daniel P. Rice	Harvard University
2012	Erik Lehnert	Stanford University
2012	Brett Tomson	University of Pittsburgh
2012	Rui Chen	Stanford University
2012	Alison Pischedda	University of California – Santa Barbara
2012	Guangbo Chen	Stowers Institute for Medical Research
2012	Eugene A. Gladyschev	Harvard University
2012	Annalise B. Paaby	New York University
2012	Justine A. Melo	Massachusetts General Hospital
2012	Kyle R. Pomraning	Oregon State University
2012	Laura H. Okagaki	University of Minnesota
2012	Andrea K. Kalis	Carleton College
2012	James E. Robinson	University of California San Diego
2012	Sarah A. Gilmore	University of California, San Francisco
2012	Matthew E. Wolak	University of California Riverside
2012	Richard P. Meisel	Cornell University
2012	Erin S. Keebaugh	Emory University
2012	Clarissa J. Nobile	University of California – San Francisco
2012	Michael E. Talkowski	Massachusetts General Hospital
2011	Nicolas Buchon	EPFL
2011	Xu Chen	University of Wisconsin-Madison
2011	Heather Flores	Cornell University
2011	Daniel P. Kane	Tufts University
2011	Yunsik Kang	University of Wisconsin-Madison
2011	Mia T. Levine	Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
2011	Teresa R. O’Meara	Duke University Medical Center
2011	Alexandra A. Soukup	University of Wisconsin-Madison
2011	Chaolong Wang	University of Michigan
2011	Cornelia E. Zorca	Yale University
2011	Yizhi Cai	Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
2011	Matthew L. Bochman	Princeton University
2011	Thomas J. Pohl	University Washington
2011	Sankalpi N. Warnasooriya	Michigan State University
2011	Clement Y. Chow	Cornell University
2011	Julie M. Granka	Stanford University
2011	Maja Tarailo-Graovac	Simon Fraser University
2011	Takamune T. Saito	Harvard Medical School
2011	Li Yang	University Pennsylvania
2011	Naomi Ziv	New York University
2011	Wenjen Li	Duke University
2011	Katrina Mitchel	Duke University
2011	Caroline V. Sartain	Cornell University
2011	Karl F. Erhard	University California, Berkeley
2011	Beatriz Vicoso	University California, Berkeley
2011	Kwame Twumasi-Boateng	University California, Berkeley
2010	Erkan Buzbas	University of Michigan
2010	Bryce Daines	Baylor College of Medicine
2010	Marc Erhardt	Univ de Fribourg
2010	Diane Genereux	University of Washington
2010	Te-Wen Lo	University of California – Berkeley
2010	Rebecca Shapiro	University of Toronto
2009	Arantza Barrios	Rutgers University
2009	Eleni Mimitou	Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
2009	Timothy B. Sackton	Harvard University
2009	Wei Shen	University of Wisconsin-Madison
2009	Michelle M. Tangredi	Tufts University School of Medicine
2009	Maria Margarita Womack	Princeton University
2008	Gilles R. Hickson	University of Montreal
2008	Yen-Ping Hsueh	Duke University
2008	Roshan A. Jain	Princeton University
2008	Chanhee Kang	Harvard Medical School & Brigham & Women’s Hospital
2008	Amanda A. Larracuente	Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
2008	Kate M. O’Connor-Giles	University of Wisconsin-Madison
2008	Mara Schvarzstein	Stanford University
2008	Sarit Smolikov	University of Iowa
2007	Kristin R. DeSouza	Nationwide Childrens Hospital Research
2007	Ya-Chieh Hsu	Rockefeller University
2007	William W. Ja	California Institute of Technology
2007	Chad G. Pearson	University of Colorado-Denver
2006	Anjon Audhya	University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School
2006	Gil B. Carvalho	California Institute of Technology
2006	Atina G. Cote	Terrence Donnolly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research
2006	Elissa P. Lei	NIDDK/NIH
2006	Kirki Tsigari	Shire HGT Medical Dept
2005	Joshua C. Mell	University of British Columbia
2005	Elena A. Repnikova	Nationwide Children’s Hospital
2004	Sue L.  Jaspersen	Stowers Institute for Medical Research
2003	Sandra M. Leal	University Southern Mississippi
2002	Joshua Chern	University of Wisconsin-Madison
2002	Tim  Christensen	East Carolina University
2002	Kristin L. Latham	Western Oregon University
2002	Amy Rice Doetsch	College of Southern Idaho