On April 21, our School community recognized the hard work and accomplishments of our graduate students from across all three departments at our Graduate Awards Ceremony.

The event included special guests Pam Venitz, wife of the late Jürgen Venitz, M.D., Ph.D., who passed away earlier this year, and daughter Heather, who presented the award that bears Dr. Venitz's name.

Keynote speaker Patricia Slattum (Pharm.D./Ph.D. '92), a professor emerita who previously served as interim associate dean for research and graduate studies, reflected on Dr. Venitz, Dr. Bill Barr and the other mentors she had at VCU, for whom many of our awards are now named – and what they taught her about continuing to cultivate the culture of excellence that is so much a part of VCU School of Pharmacy.

"I learned from them that the people in this journey are as important as all of the scientific methods and the technologies in front of us. People are at the heart of what we do," Slattum said. "And that could be our colleagues, our friends, our patients, our families. They're all part of that journey that our career is one piece of."

One lesson in excellence from these mentors, Slattum said, was the way they showed respect for other people in all of those domains.

"I really could see that every person on our team that contributed to the work to make it happen – the person who cleaned our lab at night, the person who gave their blood samples so that we had something to look at, the people who slogged it out doing the experiments, the people who led the whole thing – everybody had a role to play in making that excellent work and was respected for it," Slattum said "I learned that from them. And I'm grateful every day for that. Because science is a team sport, and the people matter."

Slattum shared that each individual's reason for conducting research is a powerful reminder of the "endgame" of improving people's lives.

"How do we sustain this journey to excellence through our careers? Well, it requires keeping our attention on why we're doing it," Slattum said. "And that is another thing that I learned from Jürgen Venitz and Bill Barr: Keeping that eye on the clinical problem, on the human condition that we're trying to do something about, is why we're all trying to work toward excellence every day. And if we can just keep reminding ourselves of our why, we can sustain this through our whole career."

Before presenting students with their awards, Dean K.C. Ogbonna, Pharm.D., M.S.H.A., shared his gratitude with the graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in attendance.

"I'm in awe of what all of you are able to accomplish in what is a short period of time," Ogbonna said. "For some of you, that's two years. Some of you, that's four years. For some of you, it's six years. It's still an incredibly short amount of time in which you have an opportunity to improve the human condition and have new scientific discovery and think critically about what comes next."

Following Slattum's remarks, Mary Peace McRae, Pharm.D., Ph.D., announced the winners as Ogbonna presented students with their awards, handcrafted by Geri Youngblood, Ph.D. Awardees included:

• Outstanding Medicinal Chemistry Teaching Assistant: Nikita Patel
• Medicinal Chemistry Service Award: Ally Thompson and Albert Opare
• Distinguish Scholarly Publications for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows (MEDC): Ally Thompson and Ennian Li
• ACS MEDI GSA Outstanding G2 Seminar in Medicinal Chemistry Award (MEDC): Mohammad Rifat Alam Maruf
• J. Doyle Smith Award (MEDC): Ally Thompson and Albert Opare
• V.A. Yanchick Award (DPOS): Dalia Al Saeedy
• Pharmaceutics Leadership Award (PCEU): Purnajai Srivijay Saravanan Vanaja
• John Wood Award (PCEU): Laerissa Reveil
• The Peter Byron Research Assistantship Award (PCEU): Surendra Poudel
• Jurgen Venitz Dual Degree Scholarship: Trey Halsey
• Werner Lowenthal Scholarship: Elise Burkhartzmeyer, Shiya Han and Sina Mahdiani
• Saraswathi Scholarship for Excellence in Pharmaceutical Sciences (GS): Dalia Al Saeedy
• William H. Barr Graduate Student Scholar Award: Laerissa Reveil
• Charles T. Rector and Thomas W. Rorrer Jr. Dean’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Study: Ally Thompson