Anjelica Cardenas awarded Ford Foundation 2018 Predoctoral Fellowship Award

PhD student Anjelica Cardenas from the Lotfipour Lab has received the prestigious Ford Foundation 2018 Predoctoral Fellowship Award. This fellowship is sponsored by the Ford Foundation and administered by the Fellowships Office of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Through its Fellowship Programs, the Ford Foundation seeks to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, to maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and to increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.

Anjelica’s selection for the prestigious award reflects the review panelists’ judgement of her scholarly competence as well as the promise she shows for future achievement as a scholar, researcher, and teacher in an institution of higher education.

Anjelica is a part of Shahrdad Lotfipour’s Lab which focuses on bettering their understanding of the mechanisms mediating adolescent drug use. Discoveries would provide additional avenues for the development of prevention and intervention strategies for the reduction of substance use behavior, particularly during the unique developmental period of adolescence. Findings could have important public health impacts, particularly for disadvantaged communities who are reported to have higher prevalence rates of tobacco and other drug addictions.

“I enjoy that I can use pharmacology to manipulate a system in order to better understand the mechanisms of drug addiction. It is also very rewarding working with undergraduates and helping them develop as scientists as I progress,” says Anjelica. “Reaching this point in my career has not been easy. Nevertheless, I have remained persistent as I find a way to accomplish my goals. I am proud of how far I have come as an underrepresented PhD graduate student and I am excited to continue conducting bench-to-bedside research and inspire others like myself to be successful in STEM and higher education.”