UAB Briefs: Scientists honored, new hoops facility, Step Show, hospital rankings
In this weekly online feature, we keep track of interesting people and events on campus.
Two distinguished African-American scholars on campus have been honored by a national publication.
The Camille Armstrong Memorial Scholarship Step Show is back for its 30th year.
The UAB men’s and women’s basketball programs will soon have a new practice facility.
And UAB Hospital has been one of the best facilities in America.
Know people, places and programs on the UAB campus that deserve a mention? Email jchambers@starnespublishing.com.
Inspiring scientists
Two scientists on the UAB faculty have been named to a list of 100 inspiring black scientists in America by Cross Talk, the official blog of Cell Press, a leading publisher of biomedical and physical science research and reviews.
The two scientists are Farah Lubin, an associate professor in the Department of Neurobiology, and Michelle Gray, an associate professor in the Department of Neurology.
The blog’s guest author is Antentor O. Hinton Jr., a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Iowa.
“There’s a plethora of black scientists who make significant contributions to science, but many of them are unknown to the masses,” Hinton said.
Lubin is the director of the Neuroscience Roadmap Scholar Program, which is funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. She is also a scientist in the Comprehensive Center for Healthy Aging, the Comprehensive Neuroscience Center, the Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics and the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute.
Lubin’s research focuses on learning, memory and synaptic plasticity, epigenetics, non-coding RNAs gene transcription, epilepsy disorders, neurodevelopment and developmental disabilities.
Gray is the Dixon Scholar in Neuroscience in the Center for Neurodegeneration and Experimental Therapeutics, a scientist in the Comprehensive Neuroscience Center and the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute, and co-director for the School of Medicine’s Summer in Biomedical Sciences Undergraduate Research Program. Her research interests include the pathogenesis of Huntington’s disease.
Visit Cross Talk to see the entire list.
Honoring Armstrong
The UAB Black Student Awareness Committee will present the 30th annual Camille Armstrong Memorial Scholarship Step Show, which features some of the best National Pan-Hellenic Council step teams in the Southeast, at the BJCC Concert Hall on Saturday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m.
All proceeds will fund the Camille Armstrong Memorial Scholarship, which helps deserving African American undergraduate students with career aspirations in law.
The scholarship was established in 1992 to honor the memory of Camille Yvette Armstrong, a UAB student majoring in political science who died in a motor vehicle accident a few months before her planned graduation in 1986.
Armstrong was a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and served as a UAB ambassador.
The 2020 scholarship recipients are Biankka Chukwuma, $1,000; Charelle Lett, $3,000; and Xavier Turner, $5,000.
Tickets are $25 ($20 for fraternity or sorority members). Tickets are available online or at the BJCC Concert Hall Box Office.
New hoops facility
On Feb. 7, the Board of Trustees of The University of Alabama System approved the first phase for a new men’s and women’s basketball practice facility on the UAB campus.
Wallace Gymnasium will be renovated and serve as the new home to both the men’s and women’s basketball programs. The project will cost $8.5 million, but about $4.7 million in gifts and pledges have already been received.
The project will include two full-length practice courts, coaches’ suites, locker rooms and players’ lounges for each program.
“This basketball project will provide an elite facility that gives our teams a competitive advantage in today’s landscape of college basketball,” said Mark Ingram, director of UAB Athletics.
High ranking
Healthgrades, a resource that connects consumers, physicians and health systems, has named UAB Hospital one of the best in the nation in its latest rankings for 2020.
UAB Hospital is the only health care facility in Alabama to make the list, called America’s Best Hospitals, which honors the top 5 percent of hospitals in the nation for overall clinical excellence.
The list honors America’s top-performing providers, based on an analysis of more than 45 million patient records across nearly 4,500 hospitals over three years.
UAB Hospital has previously received the Outstanding Patient Experience Award from Healthgrades.
To view Healthgrades’ hospital quality methodologies, click here.
To see a full list of the recipients, click here.