Several Biosciences Area personnel are among the 2018 Berkeley Lab Director’s Awards honorees. This annual program recognizes outstanding contributions by employees to all facets of Lab activities. A complete list of winners can be found here. The Director’s Achievement Awards ceremony will take place on Friday, Nov. 30, at 3 PM in the Building 50 Auditorium. All staff are invited and the event will be streamed live.
Andria Rodrigues, a postdoctoral fellow in the Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE) Division at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), received an award for Exceptional Early Scientific Career Achievement for her transformational work in microbial biochemistry and enzyme discovery that supports Berkeley Lab missions related to energy and sustainability.
Carolyn Larabell, a faculty scientist in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division, received an award for Exceptional Scientific Achievement for pioneering a 3-D imaging technique to visualize cell architecture, soft X-ray tomography microscopy, and enabling the visualization of chromatin compaction and reorganization during neurogenesis.
Todd Pray, program head for the Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit (ABPDU), received an award for Exceptional Achievement in Technology Transfer for his leadership in building the ABPDU into an unparalleled resource for companies working to accelerate bio-based technologies from lab-to-market, and to grow a clean bioeconomy for the nation.
And the thirdhand smoke research team—comprised of BSE scientists Bo Hang, Jian-Hua Mao, Altaf Sarker, Mohamed Sleiman, and Antoine Snijders, and Energy Technologies Area (ETA) scientists Hugo Destillats, Lara Gundel, Brett Singer, and Xiaochen Tang—received an award for Exceptional Achievement in Societal Impact for a decade of research culminating in the discovery that thirdhand smoke, a newly-identified tobacco hazard, increases lung cancer risk in mice. This achievement is vital for protecting and improving public health nationwide.
