The UW-Madison School of Pharmacy received $3,500 to fund student travel grants from Procter & Gamble for the 2013-2014 academic year. The grants support School of Pharmacy graduate and post-doctoral student toxicology researchers so they can travel to and attend a technical conference of their discipline to present their science and research results.

Procter & Gamble initiated the travel grant program as part of its commitment to support education and enhance opportunities for students to develop their careers. Graduate and post-doctoral students who received these travel grants are doing research in toxicology. 2013 marked the first year the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy received Procter & Gamble’s travel grants, with inaugural recipients including:

Graduate students:

• Peter Hofsteen (2013), in the lab of Professors Warren Heideman and Richard E. Peterson, Pharmaceutical Sciences Division
• Kimberly Kyle (2014), in the lab of Professor Chad Vezina in Comparative Biosciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine
• Monica Yue (2014), in the lab of Professors Warren Heideman and Richard E. Peterson, Pharmaceutical Sciences Division

Post-doctoral students:

• Kevin Lanham (2014), in the lab of Professors Warren Heideman and Richard E. Peterson, Pharmaceutical Sciences Division
• Jessica Plavicki (2014), in the lab of Professors Warren Heideman and Richard E. Peterson, Pharmaceutical Sciences Division
• Andrew Schneider (2013), research associate in the lab of Professor Richard E. Peterson, Pharmaceutical Sciences Division

“Together, we are developing an interface between private industry and the School of Pharmacy, whereby private industry can share in the development of young toxicologists by facilitating travel to professional, technical conferences,” said Richard Peterson, PhD, professor at the School of Pharmacy. “Students have the opportunity to network and interact with colleagues at these meetings and also advance their research and ultimately, their career.”

With financial support from these grants, students are able to help pay for their travel to significant technical conferences, including the 2014 Society of Toxicology meeting this spring that four students will attend.

“Procter & Gamble created these travel grants from our recruiting budget as a way of recognizing the high-quality toxicological research conducted by graduate students and post-doctoral scientists at UW-Madison. Furthermore, we wanted to facilitate sharing of this work at significant technical conferences by these students who otherwise might struggle to secure funding to get to the meetings,” said Chris Kelling, PhD, Section Head – Global Biotechnology, Procter & Gamble, and former UW-Madison School of Pharmacy alumnus.

UW-Madison is regarded as one of Procter & Gamble’s top-tier recruiting schools for its quality research and development, and training done at the University. Procter & Gamble Recruiting at UW-Madison is a multi-disciplinary effort, seeking candidates from across campus [including Business (Finance/Accounting; Consumer Research), Engineering, Law, Chemical & Physical Sciences, and Life Sciences]. Several UW-Madison PhD scientists from the School of Pharmacy have been hired at Procter & Gamble to date.