On March 7, the UMKC Women’s Council honored 69 women in graduate programs at UMKC with $98,322 in Graduate Assistance Fund (GAF) awards.
The UMKC Women’s Council is an organization of campus and community members who actively support the education of women graduate students by providing financial assistance and expanded opportunities to enhance and enable their educational experience and careers. This is done in part through their Graduate Assistance Fund, which financially supports women currently enrolled in graduate programs at UMKC.
The 2024 recipients for GAF awards from the School of Dentistry included Shiva Daneshmehr and Claire Houchen.
The mission of the UMKC Women’s Council is to “support women who will change the world while they pursue their goals as graduate students at the university.
Claire Houchen echoed that mission after receiving her awards, which included the Maxine N. Tishk Award, Patricia Brous Award and an additional award for outstanding merit.
“I’m very grateful to the UMKC Women’s Council for their support,” says Houchen, “which enables me to attend this conference where I will be able to share my research, hear from my peers, and meet colleagues in the craniofacial field as well as individuals from NIDCR. It’s important to me to advocate for women in science, and it feels especially poignant that this support comes from the Women’s Council. It is my hope that one day I can pass on the support I have received to the women in science who come after me.”
The award funds her travel to the AADOCR Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA, where she is presenting her research on craniofacial development. Her project “seeks to identify the cause of birth defects in skull and jaw bones and to investigate novel minimally invasive therapies for children born with skull and jaw malformations.”
Fellow GAF and merit award recipient Shiva Daneshmehr, PhD Student and Research Assistant with Cox Lab, Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, is working on “understand the basis of a common clinical condition, called craniofacial microsomia, that is characterize by pronounced facial asymmetry.”
From left, Dr. Rose Wang, Assistant Research Professor, Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, Dr. Erin Bumann, Assistant Professor, Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, Claire Houchen, PhD Student and Research Assistant with Bumann Lab, Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences and Dr. Sarah Dallas, UM Curator’s Distinguished Professor, Lee M. and William Lefkowitz Endowed Professor, Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences.
Congratulations to Shiva and Claire on their outstanding achievements!