Applications for ARO Virtual Travel Awards
The Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO) announces an open call for virtual travel awards in support of trainees attending the 2021 ARO Virtual MidWinter Meeting, February 20 – 24, 2021. The purpose of the travel award program is to recognize trainee research achievement in Otolaryngology, and to encourage broad and diverse participation in the ARO. The funds for virtual travel awards come from generous donations made by individuals, companies and institutions, including the NIDCD.
Applications will be peer-reviewed by the ARO Travel Awards Committee. Successful candidates will have their meeting registrations fee waived, in addition to being invited to a virtual award luncheon where a $50 voucher will be provided to cover food and refreshments. The highest scoring applicants will be awarded Don Henderson Travel Awards of $250 each (ARO anticipates granting several awards per trainee category: graduate student, medical student / resident, postdoc, audiologist).
The ARO is committed to inclusiveness, as such individuals with a disability (e.g. loss of hearing, vision, or mobility, as well as individuals with a psychiatric or learning disability) and individuals from groups historically under-represented in the biomedical sciences (e.g. African American, Hispanic, Native American, Alaskan native, or Pacific Islander) are highly encouraged to apply.
The following applies to all active ARO Student/Postdoc/Resident members:
Eligibility criteria:
- Applicants must be a current ARO member at the time of application and of the MidWinter Meeting.
- Applicants must perform research pertinent to the interests of ARO and be either full-time:
- Graduate students
- Medical students / Residents in Otolaryngology
- Postdocs
- Graduate students / Postdocs in Audiology
- Please note: recipients of a 2021 virtual travel award will still be eligible for the travel award scheme in 2022.
Application procedure:
- Applicants must upload their Curriculum Vitae (CV).
- The Applicants must submit an abstract for review
- This can be the same abstract that was submitted during the ARO Poster/Podium open call. If applicants did not submit an abstract during the ARO Poster/Podium open call, the submission of an abstract for the Travel Awards will be automatically included as a late application.
- The deadline for applications is Friday, November 20th at 11:59 PM Eastern Time. For a step-by-step submission guide, please click here
Applicants will be notified of the results of the selection process by January 2021. For more information, contact the ARO Executive Office at headquarters@aro.org
Charles C. Della Santina, PhD MD is a Professor of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he directs the Johns Hopkins Cochlear Implant Center and the Johns Hopkins Vestibular NeuroEngineering Laboratory.
Andrew Griffith received his MD and PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University in 1992. He completed his general surgery internship and a residency in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Michigan in 1998. He also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Department of Human Genetics as part of his training at the University of Michigan. In 1998, he joined the Division of Intramural Research (DIR) in the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). He served as a senior investigator, the chief of the Molecular Biology and Genetics Section, the chief of the Otolaryngology Branch, and the director of the DIR, as well as the deputy director for Intramural Clinical Research across the NIH Intramural Research Program. His research program identifies and characterizes molecular and cellular mechanisms of normal and disordered hearing and balance in humans and mouse models. Two primary interests of his program have been hearing loss associated with enlargement of the vestibular aqueduct, and the function of TMC genes and proteins. The latter work lead to the discovery that the deafness gene product TMC1 is a component of the hair cell sensory transduction channel. Since July of 2020, he has served as the Senior Associate Dean of Research and a Professor of Otolaryngology and Physiology in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
Gwenaëlle S. G. Géléoc obtained a PhD in Sensory Neurobiology from the University of Sciences in Montpellier (France) in 1996. She performed part of her PhD training at the University of Sussex, UK where she characterized sensory transduction in vestibular hair cells and a performed a comparative study between vestibular and cochlear hair cells. Gwenaelle continued her training as an electrophysiologist at University College London studying outer hair cell motility and at Harvard Medical School studying modulation of mechanotransduction in vestibular hair cells. As an independent investigator at the University of Virginia, she expanded this work and characterized the developmental acquisition of sensory transduction in mouse vestibular hair cells, the developmental acquisition of voltage-sensitive conductances in vestibular hair cells and the tonotopic gradient in the acquisition of sensory transduction in the mouse cochlea. This work along with quantitative spatio-temporal studies performed on several hair cell mechanotransduction candidates lead her to TMC1 and 2 and long-term collaborations with Andrew Griffith and Jeff Holt. Dr. Géléoc is currently Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, at Boston Children’s Hospital where she continues to study molecular players involved in the development and function of hair cells of the inner ear and develops new therapies for the treatment of deafness and balance, with a particular focus on Usher syndrome.
Jeff Holt earned a doctorate from the Department of Physiology at the University of Rochester in 1995 for his studies of inward rectifier potassium channels in saccular hair cells. He went on to a post-doctoral position in the Neurobiology Department at Harvard Medical School and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where he characterized sensory transduction and adaptation in hair cells and developed a viral vector system to transfect cultured hair cells. Dr. Holt’s first faculty position was in the Neuroscience Department at the University of Virginia. In 2011 the lab moved to Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School. Dr. Holt is currently a Professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology and Neurology in the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center. Dr. Holt and his team have been studying sensory transduction in auditory and vestibular hair cells over the past 20 years, with particular focus on TMC1 and TMC2 over the past 12 years. This work lead to the discovery that TMC1 forms the hair cell transduction channel. His work also focuses on development gene therapy strategies for genetic hearing loss.