June 21, 2026 – In April, the PPN Student Award Committee chair Dr. Yve Ulrich-lai announced that the following PPN doctoral students had received professional development awards for Spring 2026:
Kline Physiology Award – David Dadosky
Pharmacology Professional Development Award – Liz Mancz and Griffin Shaffer
Computational Professional Development Award – Claire Lopez, Alex Kuhn, Wen Rui Tan

Kline Physiology Professional Development Award: The family of former Dept Chair Daniel Kline generously established the Daniel L. Kline Endowment Fund to support student participation in meetings and courses outside of UC. PhD candidate David Dadosky (Wohleb Lab) used his Kline Physiology Professional Development Award to attend the Neurobiology of Stress Workshop. You can join the Kline family by donating to this fund.

Pharmacology Professional Development Award: An anonymous donor has generously established, and will match all donations up to $25K for, the Pharmacology Professional Development Endowment Fund to support student participation in meetings and courses outside of UC. PhD Candidate Liz Mancz (Sah Lab) used her Pharmacology Professional Development Award to attend the meeting of the PsychoNeuroImmunology Research Society. PhD student Griffin Shaffer (Prasad Lab) used his Pharmacology Professional Development Award to attend the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics meeting. You can support this important work by donating to the Pharmacology fund.

The Computational Professional Development Award: This award is supported by department funds designed to enhance computational research and education. PhD candidate Alex Kuhn (Wohleb lab) and PhD student Claire Lopez (McReynolds Lab) used their Computational Professional Development Awards to attend the Neurobiology of Stress Workshop. PhD candidate Wen Rui Tan (Mizuno lab) plans to use his Computational Professional Development Award to attend online training at the Oxford Machine Learning School.

Claire writes, "After attending the Neurobiology of Stress Workshop in Montreal, Canada, I can confidently say I've learned so much about new and emerging perspectives within the field of stress. Attending talks and multiple poster sessions, I was really able to grow my understanding of the field as a whole. Presenting my new poster allowed me to receive live time feedback about new statistical analysis my lab is working on and helped me further refine my future directions. I made so many new connections with PhD's students, post-docs, and PI's, specifically in the endocannabinoid field, that I would never have been able to experience without this workshop. I am so beyond grateful I was given this opportunity to represent UC and share my labs' work. This was truly a once in a lifetime experience, and I'm so thankful this was my first conference outside of UC."

Griffen Shaffer writes, "With the Pharmacology Professional Development Award, I attended the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) 2026 annual meeting. At the meeting I was able to present my research in the poster session to both academic and industry experts and gained valuable feedback and suggestions from them. I also attended many networking events and broadened my professional connections. I attended many talks where I learned about new scientific advances in the field of pharmacology, as well as changes in the regulatory landscape, and examples of science policy. Overall, this meeting was an excellent opportunity to strengthen my presentation skills and research, as well as knowledge and connections in this field. "