USA Student Named Gilliam Fellow

Marcy Cage, a doctoral student in the Basic Medical Sciences Graduate Program at the University of South Alabama (USA) Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine, is the first student from USA to be named a “Gilliam Fellow.” The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Gilliam Fellows Program supports graduate students and their advisers in recognition of outstanding research in their respective scientific fields and their commitment to building a more inclusive scientific ecosystem. This year, each student-adviser pairing receives an annual award of $53,000 for up to three years. “Being named the first Gilliam Fellow from the Whiddon College of Medicine is a tremendous honor for me as an African American woman. It signifies a remarkable opportunity to access invaluable resources and mentorship, propelling my research on air pollution-related pulmonary diseases and infections,” said Cage, who is studying how air pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter affect the health of high school-aged children living in Mobile. Her mentors are Dr. Thomas Rich, professor of pharmacology at the Whiddon College of Medicine, and Dr. Troy Stevens, chair of physiology and cell biology and director of the USA Center for Lung Biology.