Two Scientists Earn Schmidlapp Scholar Award For Research at Cincinnati Children's

$100,000 grant will support research on childhood obesity and traumatic brain injury

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Two researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have been selected to share a Schmidlapp Scholar Award from the Fifth Third Bank/Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Women Scholars Program. Lisa J. Martin, PhD, and Nicolay Chertkoff Walz, PhD, will evenly split the $100,000 award, which is given annually to a female faculty member at Cincinnati Children's.

Dr. Martin and Dr. Walz are the 12th and 13th scholars to receive the award since its inception in 1997. The goal of the award is to identify junior female faculty members who show promise and leadership skills, to provide them with financial support and dedicated time for research, and to help them through the tenure and promotion process.

Dr. Martin, a researcher in the Center for Epidemiology and Biostatistics and in the Division of Human Genetics, is a genetic epidemiologist whose research focuses on childhood obesity. With the award, she plans to expand her research using genome wide association (GWA), a new tool to identify novel genetic variants associated with disease. Her objective is to use GWA to identify genetic variants associated with obesity that develops before children reach puberty.

Dr. Walz, a researcher in the Division of Behavioral Medicine and Clinical Psychology, is interested in studying traumatic brain injury in children. Her long-term goal is to conduct research investigating the mechanisms by which traumatic brain injury in children leads to social difficulties and to design interventions to improve social outcomes.

Cincinnati Children's established the Fifth Third Bank/Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Women Scholars Program with a $500,000 grant from the Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Fund, Fifth Third Bank, Trustee. The program is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States.

The Charlotte R. Schmidlapp Fund was created in 1907 by a gift from former Fifth Third president Jacob G. Schmidlapp in memory of his daughter, Charlotte, who died at the age of 19. Mr. Schmidlapp directed that grants be restricted to helping women establish themselves in life. The tradition and history of the fund has been to assist women by helping them gain an education and access to services.