{"id":9237,"date":"2018-09-12T09:29:26","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T13:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/?p=9237"},"modified":"2018-10-02T11:23:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T15:23:55","slug":"jarrett-smith-receives-hanna-gray-fellowship-from-hhmi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/jarrett-smith-receives-hanna-gray-fellowship-from-hhmi\/","title":{"rendered":"Jarrett Smith receives Hanna Gray Fellowship from HHMI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cambridge, Mass — Jarrett Smith, postdoctoral researcher in\u00a0David Bartel\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0lab at the Whitehead Institute, has been announced as a recipient of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)\u2019s 2018 Hanna Gray fellowship. The fellowship supports outstanding early career scientists from groups underrepresented in the life sciences. Each of this year\u2019s fifteen awardees will be given up to $1.4 million dollars in funding over the course of their postdoctoral program and beginning of a tenure-track faculty position.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis program will help us retain the most diverse talent in science,\u201d said HHMI President Erin O\u2019Shea. \u201cWe feel it\u2019s critically important in academia to have exceptional people from all walks of life, all cultures, and all backgrounds \u2013 people who can inspire the next generation of scientists.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Smith, who began his postdoctoral training in the Bartel lab in January, finding out he got the fellowship was a defining moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m grateful for the support that the fellowship will provide during the formative years of my career,\u201d Smith says. \u201cThis kind of opportunity gives you the confidence to set ambitious research goals and find out what you can accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Bartel lab, Smith studies how cells respond to stress. When a cell is exposed to environmental stressors such as heat, UV radiation, or viral infection, proteins and RNAs in the cell may clump together into dense aggregates called stress granules. Several diseases are associated with altered stress granule formation, but the exact function of stress granules and their potential role in disease are unknown. Smith is investigating changes in the cell linked to\u00a0their\u00a0formation. His findings could shed light on\u00a0a potential role for\u00a0stress granules in cancer, viral infection, and neurodegenerative disease.<\/p>\n

Growing up, Smith was always interested in science but no one in his family had ever received a PhD, making biology research feel like an unlikely career path for him. Nevertheless, he followed his passion, which led him to a PhD program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Despite his strong academic performance, Smith began graduate school with doubts about his ability to become a scientist. His mentors were incredible teachers but their self-assuredness could be intimidating.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were absolutely my role models, but I didn\u2019t think of them as having gone through what I was going through. In the first few years, I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Smith says he was frequently inspired and guided by his graduate school mentor, Geraldine Seydoux. Under her tutorship he became more confident in his abilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to pick mentors who are the kind of scientist I aspire to be,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

With that tenet in mind, he set his sights on David Bartel\u2019s lab for his postdoctoral research. He had heard that Bartel was a great mentor and knew the Bartel lab had expertise in all of the research techniques he wanted to learn. Since arriving at Whitehead Institute, Smith says he has experienced support not only from Bartel, but from the entire lab as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cJarrett\u2019s graduate experience with P granules\u00a0in nematodes brings much appreciated expertise to our lab,\u00a0and we are all\u00a0excited about what he will discover here on stress-granule function,\u201d Bartel\u00a0says. \u201cReceiving\u00a0this fellowship is a well-deserved honor, and I am very happy\u00a0for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith noted that he is deeply grateful for the community he\u2019s found at Whitehead Institute. However, he also noted that throughout his scientific career he has typically been the only black person in the room. One of the joys of applying for the fellowship was meeting the rest of the candidates, a diverse and impressive group of scientists, he says. He looks forward to seeing the other fellows again at meetings hosted by the HHMI.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never really had a scientific role model that shared those experiences or that I could identify with in that way,\u201d Smith says, but he hopes that future aspiring scientists won\u2019t have to go through the same experience. His brother-in-law recently began an undergraduate major in biology. Smith enjoys being there to answer his questions about school work or life as a researcher.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d never ask him if he thinks of me as a role model,\u201d Smith says, laughing. \u201cBut I\u2019m glad that I have the chance to help people who\u2014like I did\u2014might question whether they could be successful in the sciences.\u201d With the support of the fellowship and his lab, and an exciting research question he is eager to tackle, Smith has never been more certain that he belongs right where he is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cambridge, Mass — Jarrett Smith, postdoctoral researcher in\u00a0David Bartel\u2019s\u00a0lab at the Whitehead Institute, has been announced as a recipient of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)\u2019s 2018 Hanna Gray fellowship. The fellowship supports outstanding early career scientists from groups underrepresented in the life sciences. Each of this year\u2019s fifteen awardees will be given up to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":9240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","placement-placement-homepage","research-area-biochemistry-biophysics-and-structural-biology","research-area-computational-biology","research-area-genetics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJarrett Smith receives Hanna Gray Fellowship from HHMI - MIT Department of Biology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/biology.mit.edu\/jarrett-smith-receives-hanna-gray-fellowship-from-hhmi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jarrett Smith receives Hanna Gray Fellowship from HHMI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cambridge, Mass — Jarrett Smith, postdoctoral researcher in\u00a0David Bartel\u2019s\u00a0lab at the Whitehead Institute, has been announced as a recipient of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)\u2019s 2018 Hanna Gray fellowship. 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