Of note

Robert Baloh, M.D., Ph.D., instructor in the Department of Neurology, has received the American Academy of Neurology’s S. Weir Mitchell Award. The academy gives the award annually to a physician in training who conducts outstanding basic neurological research. Baloh also received a prestigious Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists. Designed to help bridge the gap between postdoctoral and faculty appointments, the award will provide Baloh with $700,000 in research funding over five years. . . .

Sarah Borton, a fourth-year doctor of audiology student in the Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences, was one of two students nationwide to receive a James Jerger Award for Excellence in Student Research for her poster presentation on research from her Capstone Project. . . .

Katharina Lodders, Ph.D., research associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, has received a two-year, $77,774 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ames Research Center for research titled “Comparative Exoplanetology: Constraining the Properties of Extrasolar Giant Planet Atmospheres.” . . .

Jennifer Loughman, Ph.D., of the Department of Pediatrics; John Murphy, Ph.D., of the Department of Molecular Biology & Pharmacology; Amelia Kahler Pinto, Ph.D., of the Department of Pathology & Immunology; and Kristy Szretter, Ph.D., of the Department of Internal Medicine (Infectious Diseases) have been named 2007-08 W.M. Keck Postdoctoral Fellows in Molecular Medicine by the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences. Each year, the division selects four or five outstanding scientists in biomedical research with fewer than two years of postdoctoral research experience and awards each a fellowship of $25,000 for partial stipend support. This program was established and endowed at the School of Medicine in 1988 with a $900,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. . . .

Susan E. Mackinnon, M.D., the Sydney M. Jr. and Robert H. Shoenberg Professor of Surgery and chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, was elected president of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons at its 86th Annual Meeting in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, May 19-22. . . .

Lisa Potts, Ph.D., research audiologist in the Department of Otolaryngology, and Sarah King, a fourth-year doctor of audiology student in the Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences, were among five students nationwide to receive American Academy of Audiology Student Research Forum Awards at the academy’s annual conference last April. At the conference, Potts, who earned her doctorate in May, presented her doctoral dissertation research, and King presented research from her Capstone Project. . . .

Bradley L. Schlaggar, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Neurology, Pediatrics, Anatomy & Neurobiology and Radiology, has been named the 2007 Tourette Syndrome Association Humanitarian of the Year. . . .

Amy Waterman, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine, has received a three-year, $911,595 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration for research titled “Educating Missouri Patients About Preemptive Living Donor Transplantation: A Randomized Controlled Trial.”