From Blake's mentor, Leo Lei:
I am delighted to share the news that a Ph.D. student at POM, Blake Heath, receives a highly competitive NIH F31 award for his proposal "NLR and Oral Cancer", with an outstanding score on his first attempt. His proposal was selected for funding prior to the scheduled January Council Meeting.
Blake grew up in Texas and convinced me that he prefers Michigan snows. He was selected by the Baylor College of Medicine Post-baccalaureate Research Education Program prior to joining the PIBS Immunology Program. He has received many awards for his work during his graduate studies at Michigan. He was an NIH/NIAID T32 pre-doctoral fellow (PI: B Moore and S Kunkel); he received the Rackham Merit Fellowship, the Benard Maas Fellowship, University of Michigan Nomination for the HHMI Gilliam Fellowship, and more recently, a John Wallace Scholarship from the Autumn Immunology Chicago.
Blake assembled a team of advisors with complementary expertise. Besides our group, Dr. Grace Chen (Internal Medicine) is Blake's co-mentor, and Dr. Fei Wen (Chemical Engineering) is an advisor. I am impressed by Blake's relentless pursuit of emerging scientific horizons, his academic acumen and being a thoughtful citizen. Please join me in congratulating Blake for another milestone during his graduate training.
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The Graduate Program is also very proud of you Blake! Congrats!