Below, you will find the four candidates to lead the Graduate Student Council in 2007! These are your instructions. Read candidates names and description here. Then, rank the candidates from 1-4 with 1 being your top pick. Yes..1 is best. Think of first place, or “I’m number 1!” Then, e-mail your prioritized candidate list to ryanp@mail.nih.gov and I will compile the scores and create averages for the score of each candidate. Remember 1 is your favorite and 4 is your least favorite. 1 is good…4 is not so good. (I wouldn’t say bad…there are no bad choices here). You will have until midnight on Saturday December 9th to get me your vote. You will get ONE reminder and that will come on Monday December 4th. No, you can not vote in person or via voice. Only e-mail. Any reports of voter fraud or coercion will be passed on to the two major political parties on your behalf to help with their recruitment of you. Now…the candidates are below.
Vaness McMains-
Vanessa is locally grown and raised just outside of Annapolis, MD. She attended undergrad at University of Maryland in College Park and studied Biological Sciences. Currently, Vanessa is a 4th year in the Johns Hopkins Partnership Program. Vanessa is part of NIDDK in Alan Kimmel's laboratory working with the soil amoeba Dictyostelium. Her thesis project involves studying a membrane protein complex gamma-secretase and how it controls cell fate specification.
She is responsible for the GSChronicles that you receive monthly and loves taking part in the other GSC activities. Vanessa lives with her rock-star drummer husband, "son" Maverick (shown in the picture), 4 sugar gliders and her corn snake (she loves animals if you can't tell). Some of her hobbies include: swimming, being a myspace addict, cooking, eating, gardening, watching movies and playing texas hold em with friends. Vanessa is an outgoing person who is also very dedicated to anything she devotes her time to.
Tony Barntiz-
I'm Tony Barnitz, and I'm a third year in the GPP immunology program with the University of Pennsylvania. I went to Wake Forest University for undergrad. I'm in Mike Lenardo's lab in NIAID working on determining the mechanism in which HIV kills CD4+ T cells. I've been an active member of the GSC, serving as the academic committee co-chair and as a member of the planning committee for this year's Retreat (hope that you had fun). As the academic co-chair, I've been running the FAES course "Introduction to Laboratory Techniques" this semester. Outside of the NIH, I like to watch sports (especially college sports), so of course I'm a huge Wake Forest Demon Deacons fan. Anyone else getting excited that college basketball season is finally starting? If you want any more tidbits about me, you can find some in the Sept/Oct issue of the GSChronicles.
Tracy-Jill Doty –
The graduate student community here at NIH has grown from a small group to a seriously large and active body of motivated students. And I don't think we should stop there. I have been to here for 3 years at NIH, and I travel every year to the Karolinska in Sweden to catch up on business. In three years a lot has happened, but there is still so much more that we need as a graduate student community.
I see two major items on the GSC agenda for the coming year. First, we need to make sure that all NIH grad students feel welcome and comfortable with using the council as a resource. I think this will be much easier with the new student lounge, because there will be a location we can call our own. We need to make more efforts to connect with new students, informal partnership students, and also students who might not be on the Bethesda NIH campus.
Second, resources resources resources. There are a great deal of resources at NIH already, and the GSC should make sure that all students know about what resources do exist. I think we definitely need a very detailed handbook that stays updated and can be accessed by everyone. And the council should be very proactive about providing the resources that students need and want, including career development, social, peer mentoring, teaching, scientific skills, and academic pursuits. This is only possible with input and initiatives from the students, hence why the first point is so critical.
When I came to NIH, I was honored to be here. After three years, I am still honored to be here, but I am very aware that the NIH doesn't necessarily support us as we deserve. We are an amazing group of students, and we deserve more resources and more support from NIH. I think this is something the GSC should constantly be advocating, and it is something I am not afraid to fight for. I think we all rock, and NIH needs to get with the program. Part of the solution lies in numbers and raising awareness - particularly of the fact that students actually do graduate with amazing dissertation work and that they do go on to take incredible positions.
I want to let everyone know that I do have plans to spend 4 months in Sweden beginning in the middle of February. And after talking to a lot of people about this, I can confidently say that if elected this trip will not take away from my effectiveness as a co-chair. With the help of the other co-chair and all the technology available in this situation, I would be able to conduct business as usual. If anything I would hope to raise awareness of the problems students not on the Bethesda campus face in trying to be involved with the gsc. And it would help keep me from being lonely in the cold dark world that is Sweden. =-)
This potential opportunity is really exciting to me, and I would be honored to serve as a GSC co-chair in the upcoming year.
I think I am supposed to say something about my dog or something, but I don't have one. I do have two super-cute pet mice (not lab mice) named Whitie and Brownie, creative I know. I am working on my PhD in Clinical Neuroscience at the Karolinska. My work involves human imaging of pain and emotion. I grew up in Alabama pretty much on a farm and my family still lives there. I have been organizing the graduate student Systems Neuroscience Interest Group (SNIG) for about a year now, which has been really awesome. And I was on the Symposium Committee last year. And I generally try to be involved in whatever is going on in the grad student community, so I can leave my windowless office and try to recollect my sanity and see some sunlight.
Thank yall!
Athena Klutz-
I’m a third year in the JHU program and work in NIDDK on the pharmacology of adenosine receptors (the target of caffeine for all you coffee drinkers). I grew up in Pumpkintown, SC (home of the infamous Pumpkintown Festival and homemade pumpkin ice cream) and completed my undergraduate work at Clemson, the best football team ever. Since I have started at NIH, I have been involved in many activities such as Pathways with Patricia Gonzales and organizing last year’s Grad Student Christmas party with Kee Chan and Millie Embree. Pathways involves inviting speakers from different career paths to speak to graduate students about their job functions and how they got to their current position. For the Christmas party, I was in charge of food and finances for the approximately 75 attendees. I am also active with other NIH activities such as the Grad Student Happy Hour and recently, the NIH softball team. During JHU/NIH recruitment ‘05/’06, I organized a dinner for the recruits in Baltimore. The two things that I would most like to see accomplished next year are letting grad students present a practice thesis defense to the NIH campus and the career center brought up by Dr. Milgram.
Otherwise, I’m pretty laid-back and just hoping to graduate in the next three years or so. I play beach volleyball in the summer and do some indoor rock climbing in the winter. I’m also involved with the YMCA youth mentoring program in Silver Spring. Finally, I have a new cat named Salem who is probably tearing up my apartment as I write this great introduction.