Division for Toxicology Announces Its 2015 Award Winners
The Division for Toxicology is pleased to announce its 2015 award winners. The division’s Junior Investigator Award was presented to Jason Richardson, PhD from Rutgers University to recognize his original research in the area of toxicology as an early career researcher. The Career Investigator Award was presented to Curt Omiecinski, PhD from Penn State University to recognize his original research contributions to toxicology as an established researcher.
2015 Junior Investigator Award
Dr. Jason Richardson is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at Rutgers University Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a member of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute. He received his graduate and doctoral degrees from Mississippi State University and completed postdoctoral training at Emory University.
Dr. Richardson currently serves as director of the Joint Graduate Program in Toxicology at Rutgers University. His research is focused on gene-environment interactions in neurological disease. He received the Outstanding New Environmental Scientist Award from NIEHS and a Young Scientist Award from ASPET. Through the conduct of basic, clinical, and epidemiological studies, Dr. Richardson has contributed several significant findings that have broad implications for environmental health. These include the identification of specific pesticides linked to Parkinson and Alzheimer diseases, the association of developmental pesticide exposure in ADHD, and the role of ER stress in pesticide-induced behavioral dysfunction.
Dr. Richardson serves on the editorial boards of several major scientific journals; he also serves as a reviewer for several NIH panels, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson Disease Research, Health Canada, and the United Kingdom Parkinson Disease Society. Most recently he was named to the Environmental Health Sciences Review Committee at NIEHS and the Committee on Emerging Science for Environmental Health Decisions at the National Academy of Science.
2015 Career Investigator Award
Dr. Curt Omiecinski is professor of Veterinary & Biomedical Sciences and the H. Thomas and Dorothy Willits Hallowell Chair in the College of Agricultural Sciences and the Center for Molecular Toxicology & Carcinogenesis at Penn State University. He received his doctoral degree in pharmacology from the University of Washington in Seattle and then completed postdoctoral training in biochemistry at the University of Vermont. He began his academic career in the Department of Environmental Health at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Washington before moving to Penn State.
Dr. Omiecinski’s research is focused in molecular genetics, genetic polymorphism and the regulation of the xenobiotic biotransformation network of genes, in particular epoxide hydrolases and the cytochrome P450s. His laboratory was the first to identify functional genetic polymorphisms in the human microsomal epoxide hydrolase gene and among the first to use transgenic mouse models in toxicological research. His research has been continually funded by grants from the NIH.
Dr. Omiecinski has received numerous awards for his work including the Burroughs Wellcome Toxicology Scholar Award, the SOT Zeneca Scholars Award, and the SOT Board of Publications Best Paper Award. He was also recently elected a fellow in the Academy of Toxicological Sciences. He has been actively engaged in a number of scientific societies including SOT and ASPET and previously served as Chair of ASPET’s Toxicology Division. He serves on the editorial board of a number of top quality scientific journals and on various NIH review panels. Dr. Omiecinski is also actively involved in research training and teaching.
The award winners will receive a $500 reward, a plaque, complimentary registration, and partial travel expenses to EB 2015. Both inaugural awards will be presented at the ASPET Annual Meeting at EB 2015.