Alan Hall and Norton B. Gilula Awards
To support the next generation of researchers, JCB provides the Alan Hall and Norton B. Gilula Awards that allow undergraduates, graduate, and early-career postdocs to attend Cell Bio, an annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). This year, we offered two awards of up to $1,000 USD each to attend Cell Bio 2025, December 6–10 in Philadelphia, PA.
Eligibility:
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Established in memory of Alan Hall, former JCB Editor-in-Chief. Open to outstanding graduate students, and first year postdocs whose work being presented at Cell Bio 2025 was performed while a PhD or MD/PhD student, who excelled in their research as trainees. One winner was presented with a certificate during the meeting and receive reimbursement for registration and travel to Cell Bio 2025, up to $1,000 USD. |
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Established in memory of Norton B. “Bernie” Gilula, former JCB Editor-in-Chief. Open to outstanding graduate or undergraduate students who excelled in their research as trainees. One winner was presented with a certificate and receive reimbursement for registration and travel to Cell Bio 2025, up to $1,000 USD. |
Alan Hall Awards
Norton B. Gilula Awards2025 Award Recipients
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Justus Francis is a graduate student in the lab of Saikat Chowdhury at the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, India. His research focuses on understanding how actin filament nucleation by the Arp2/3 complex is mediated by different nucleation promoting factors and how they also dictate unique actin architectures. As seeing is believing, he uses structural techniques like cryo-EM for resolving these molecular assemblies at near-atomic resolutions to understand the molecular basis of nucleation of the actin cytoskeleton. In the future, he intends to use multimodal imaging across scales for elucidating the complex molecular intricacies of cells, especially with emphasis on human diseases. |
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Yu Deng is a fifth-year PhD student from Dr. Peter Devreotes’ lab at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her research focuses on dissecting how plasma membrane acts as the signaling hub to regulate cell polarity and migration; specifically, how PIP5K–Ras bistable interaction initiates membrane symmetry–breaking events. Additionally, she is interested in exploring how phospholipid signaling, such as PI(4,5)P2, controls Ras activity in the context of cancer metastasis and immunotherapy. |
Justus Francis
Yu DengPrevious Winners
Alan Hall Award Winners
2024: Alia Edington, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX
2023: Jessica Moore, Duke University, Durham, NC
2022: Matthew Reynolds, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY
2021: Virtual meeting
- Darshini Jeyasimman, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
- Emmanuel Nsamba, Iowa State University, Ames, IA
- Nadav Scher, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
- Sarah Prophet, Yale University, New Haven, CT
- Joana Ferreira, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
2020: Virtual meeting
- Bishal Basak, National Centre for Biological Sciences [NCBS]-TIFR, Bengaluru, India
- Sindhuja Gowrisankaran, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
- Andrés Guillén-Samander, Yale University, New Haven, CT
- Tong Shu, New York University, New York, NY
- Chloe Snider, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
2019: Devashish Dwivedi, University of Geneva, Switzerland
2018: Gabriel Muhire Gihana, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
2017: Lauren Kraft, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
Norton B. Gilula Award Winners
2024: Justin Krish Williams, University of California, Berkeley, CA
2023: Brady Goulden, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
2022: Natalie Ortiz Speer, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX
2021: Virtual meeting
- Rebecca Kattan, University of California, Irvine, CA
- Reika Tei, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
- Sisi Yang, Yale University, New Haven, CT
- Olivia Harding, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA
- Robert J. Rabelo-Fernández, University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, San Juan, PR
2020: Virtual meeting
- Heidi Anderson, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
- Cora Betsinger, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
- Shashank Gandhi, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
- Michael Martinez, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY
- Marco Novais-Cruz, Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde (i3S), Porto, Portugal
2019: Sanchari Datta, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX
2018: Victoria Deneke, Duke University, Durham, NC
2017: Rituraj Marwaha, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Mohali, India
*Please note that all institutional affiliations reflect when the awards were given and may not be current.
Application:
To be notified when applications are again being considered in 2025, please sign up for announcements from JCB.
Note: Applicants are expected to fully understand and abide by policies, guidelines, and rules set for by their institution(s) with regard to travel awards and grants, and may not hold The Rockefeller University Press liable for their failure to receive an award under any circumstances. Rockefeller University Press does not support in-kind travel arrangements. Acceptance of the check constitutes permission for the Rockefeller University Press to use the winner’s name, likeness, and entry for purposes of advertising and trade without further compensation, unless prohibited by law.
Photo of Alan Hall courtesy of the Biozentrum
