The Personalized Nutrition Initiative Graduate Student Travel Award Fund was created through a generous donation by Drs. Joshua Anthony and Tracy Gautsch Anthony. The goal is to provide opportunities for graduate students to participate (remotely or in person) in scientific conferences, workshops, or professional development activities related to personalized nutrition.
Award recipients will receive up to $1,000 deposited to their University of Illinois student account.
Spring 2025 Application Deadline
Submission Deadline: April 3, 2025 (11:59 pm CST)
Award Notification: by the end of April 2025
Travel Period: Travel should occur during the 12 months following award notification. Retroactive funding will NOT be considered.
Eligibility
Applicants must be registered full-time graduate students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and in good academic standing during the term the award is received. Students in non-degree, online, cost-recovery, and self-supporting programs are ineligible.
Application Evaluation Process
Applications will be reviewed by a committee of Personalized Nutrition Initiative affiliates and the Director will make final decisions. Applicants and their advisors will be informed of the final decisions.
Application Review Criteria
Review criteria include:
- The event is relevant to personalized nutrition.
- An assessment of how the proposed participation will contribute to the applicant’s professional development.
Application Materials
A complete Graduate Student Travel Award application consists of the following items:
- Completed Graduate Student Travel Award Form
- Applicant’s CV or resume
- A brief letter of support from the applicant’s dissertation or thesis advisor
If you have any questions, please contact Anna Keck, PhD, Assistant Director of the Personalized Nutrition Initiative (akeck@illinois.edu).
Spring 2024 Awardees
Benjamin Levine
PhD student in the Division of Nutritional Sciences
Research area: Investigate how stress and diet interact with the enteric microbiota to influence communication along the gut-brain axis.
Advisor: Brett Loman, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Animal Sciences, PNI Affiliate
He attended and presented at the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements: Science of Resilience Workshop in Washington, DC in September 2024. His presentation was titled “Prebiotic dietary fibers confer resilience to psychological stress and stress-induced intestinal dysmotility”.
Ananthan Nambiar
PhD student in the Department of Bioengineering
Research area: Computational modeling focused on deep learning models for protein science, microbiomes, and genomics.
Advisor: Sergei Maslov, PhD, Professor, Department of Bioengineering, PNI Affiliate
He attended and presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology in Montreal, Canada in July 2024. His presentation was titled “MC-Funcformer: A foundational model of microbial community metabolism.”
Haeley Alaina Peters
PhD student in the Department of Health and Kinesiology
Research area: Nutritional composition of culturally tailored meals compares to American Diabetes Association guidelines and their health effects.
Advisor: Minakshi Raj, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Department of Health and Kinesiology, PNI Affiliate
She attended and presented at the NUTRITON 2024 conference in Chicago, Illinois in June 2024. Her presentation was titled “Culturally Tailored Dietary Recommendations for South Asians with Diabetes or Heart Disease and Their Caregivers: Findings From Two Workshops.”
Shreya Verma
PhD student in the Department of Health and Kinesiology
Research area: Building predictive machine learning models for cognitive outcome forecasting based on nutrition and physical activity data, to inform personalized behavioral interventions for improved cognitive health and well-being.
Advisor: Naiman A. Khan, PhD, RD, Associate Professor, Department of Health and Kinesiology, PNI Affiliate
She attended Machine Learning Week in Phoenix, Arizona in June 2024.