Faith Bowman Receives NSF GRFP Grant

We are thrilled to announce that Faith Bowman, Biochemistry graduate student in Amnon Schlegel’s Lab, has been awarded the prestigious and highly competitive National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program grant.  Her proposal, “The Role of FOXN3 in Kidney Glucose Utilization and Metabolism During Fasting,” aims to investigate how FOXN3 influences renal glucose physiology.

“I am very proud and excited to serve as Faith’s PhD thesis mentor,” said Amnon Schlegel after receiving news of the NSF fellowship. “This is a well-deserved award to a diligent, hard-working, bright, and promising scientist. I am confident Faith will make fundamental contributions to our understanding of glucose metabolism.”

Faith Bowman is a proud Indigenous scholar from the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Nation in Wisconsin.  As a predoctoral trainee in the Schlegel Lab, Faith investigates the transcriptional repressor FOXN3 and its role in fasting glucose utilization and metabolism. Faith is committed to increasing diversity and being a bridge between Indian Country and the scientific community. As a graduate student, Faith participates in U of U SACNAS Chapter serving on the board as the communications officer, as well as engages in the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Alumni Network. According to Faith, “Participating in SACNAS and McNair has allowed me to connect with scholars across the United States who understand and embrace my identity as an Indigenous scientist and my goals to bridge the traditional knowledge of the Native community with the knowledge pioneered by research investigators”.

Many former NSF GRFP graduate fellows have gone on to become Nobel laureates and members of the National Academy of Sciences.  Only 2000 graduate students in the natural, social, and engineering sciences across the country receive this highly sought award each year.