Celestial Jones-Paris wins Levi Watkins Jr. Student Award
Celestial Jones-Paris, a 4th year graduate student in Cellular and Molecular Pathology and member of the Vanderbilt Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity (IMSD) recently received the Levi Watkins Jr. Student Award, for her exceptional efforts to promote diversity at Vanderbilt University.
The Levi Watkins Jr. Student award is named for the first African-American to be admitted to and graduate from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM). It is an award “presented annually to at least one graduate student and one medical student associated with Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) who have made outstanding contributions to the institution in fostering a more diverse environment that is enriching, encouraging and embracing to all VUSM students, faculty and administrators.” The award was presented to Celestial on October 16, 2012 by VUSM Dean Balser and Associate Dean Churchwell at the annual Levi Watkins, Jr. lectureship at Vanderbilt. Dr Watkins, who attended the annual lecture, was also the first African American chief resident in cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital before launching a ground breaking academic career in cardiac medicine there. For example, Dr. Watkins performed the world’s first human implantation of the automatic defibrillator at Johns Hopkins in 1980. Celestial is the second IMSD student to be selected for the Levi Watkins, Jr. award. Dr. Janina Jeff also received the award during her graduate training at Vanderbilt. Janina joined the IMSD program in 2007 and received her PhD in Human Genetics from Vanderbilt in May, 2012.
In being selected for the Levi Watkins, Jr. award, the selection committee honored Celestial’s exceptional hours of service to the Vanderbilt community. Celestial has served as both the secretary (2010-11) and vice-president (2011-12) of the Vanderbilt Alliance for Cultural Diversity in Research (ACDR), a campus-wide group active on many fronts including professional skill building and service activities. As part of ACDR, Celestial has worked with Science in the Classroom Vanderbilt to co-host Family Science Night, an evening where Vanderbilt graduate students do hands-on experiments with Nashville elementary K-12 students and their families to stimulate interests in science. Celestial has also served as social co-chair (2010-2011) and executive chair (2011-12) of the Cellular and Molecular Pathology Student Association.
Celestial undertook her undergraduate training at Indiana University and received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry in 2009 with a minor in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management. She joined the IMSD program at Vanderbilt in the fall of 2009 and chose the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology for her PhD research. She has been competitively awarded a position on both the Vanderbilt Cellular, Biochemical, and Molecular Sciences Training Program and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute/Vanderbilt University Medical Center Certificate in Molecular Medicine Program. Celestial also recently received a highly selective National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Celestial receiving the Levi Watlkins Jr. Student Award on October 16, 2012