OXFORD, Miss. – John Rimoldi, professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Mississippi, has been awarded the Chemists Travel Assistance Award by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.
“It was an honor to be nominated and selected for this inaugural award from SETAC,” Rimoldi said.
The award helps Rimoldi attend the SETAC North America 30th Annual Meeting, scheduled Nov. 19-23 in New Orleans. It covers his registration fees and lodging expenses.
It also allows Rimoldi to bring three graduate students to the meeting at a reduced cost.
Rimoldi said he is pleased to be able to attend the meeting.
“I look forward to seeing how chemistry fits into an environmental framework,” he said. “Most of the national meetings I attend are centered in drug discovery and development or synthetic medicinal chemistry.”
Matt Moore, research ecologist for the USDA-ARS National Sedimentation Laboratory in Oxford, was on the selection committee for the award. After speaking with Kristie Willett, UM associate professor of pharmacology and a fellow SETAC member, Moore decided to nominate Rimoldi.
“We have been trying to get (Rimoldi) to go to this meeting for years,” Willett said. “He is part of the environmental toxicology graduate program, and I think he will get a lot out of the meeting. He will see firsthand the emerging issues and methods in environmental chemistry – lessons that he will be able to pass on to the students in our graduate courses.”
This is the first year that SETAC has offered this award, which was created to encourage more chemists to be involved with the organization as a whole.
“SETAC consists of environmental toxicology and chemistry,” Moore said. “The problem is that over the last several years we haven’t had much chemistry, so we decided to offer two travel assistance awards to chemists who have environmental toxicology interests but don’t typically come to meetings.”
Rimoldi has selected doctoral students Robert Smith, Vanildo Braga and Sarah Chajkowski to attend the meeting with him.
“I hope they gain a broader perspective on how their focused dissertation projects can impact or integrate into larger scientific themes in environmental toxicology,” he said.
At the meeting, Rimoldi will be recognized along with Jon Chorover, a University of Arizona professor and the second recipient of the award.
For more information on the Department of Medicinal Chemistry, visit http://www.pharmacy.olemiss.edu/medicinal?chemistry/ . For information about SETAC, visit http://www.setac.org/ .