Diversity Awardee for 2022 – Francesca Gambacorta
Francesca Gambacorta is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she works in Dr. Brian Pfleger’s lab. Prior to joining the doctoral program, she received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on engineering Saccharomyces cerevisiae to produce isobutanol from plant biomass for use as a next-generation biofuel. Originally from the northern suburbs of Chicago, she enjoys sampling deep dish pizza and spends her free time playing board games and crocheting.
About the Diversity Travel Award
The SIMB Diversity Travel Award has been established to promote diversity and to increase the participation of underrepresented minority groups in the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB) amongst the graduate students making presentations at the Symposium on Biomaterials, Fuels and Chemicals (SBFC) meeting. Recipients of this award must be:
- A U.S. citizen or permanent resident
- A female and/or an underrepresented minority (American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, Asian, Hispanic, or Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander)
- A current graduate student or a graduate student at the time the abstract was submitted
- The presenting author of an abstract accepted for presentation (poster or oral session) at SBFC.
Each winner receives a certificate, $500 to help cover travel to the meeting and a one-year student membership in SIMB. The awards will be presented by the President of SIMB at the Meeting Banquet and the winners will be recognized at the Diversity Session. Attendance at the SBFC meeting is required for receiving this award. Should an awardee be unable to attend the SBFC meeting, the award will be presented to an alternate previously identified by the committee who also meets the criteria. Award winners are not eligible to apply for this award again.
Past Awardees of the Diversity Travel Award
2021 – No award given
2020 – Mara Cuebas-Irizarry and Patricia Kerner
2019 – Brianna Galbreath
2018 – Christian Alcaraz and Samira Fatemi
2017 – Emma Brace and Allison Yaguchi